Good luck with that. PG&E and SCE are so deeply entangled with Sacramento that a proposal like this likely wouldn’t even be taken seriously by the state. Maybe there’s a nonzero chance under a different governor, but given California’s track record, that seems remote.
I’m also not convinced most California cities would run a utility any better than a corrupt monopoly. San Francisco in particular would likely end up layering AI-driven grid management, surveillance-heavy controls, and political pricing on top of an already fragile system, then pass the cost of their own mismanagement on to ratepayers.
This feels more like outage-driven virtue signaling than a serious governance proposal. This guy knows from experience a bill like this is unlikely to reach a real hearing, let alone survive legal and financial scrutiny.
I do want utility monopolies to serve customers rather than shareholders, but municipal seizure isn’t the fix. A genuine antitrust breakup would target the real failure mode without pretending cities suddenly have the competence or discipline to run complex grid infrastructure.
More broadly, California’s energy system is already broken. Wildfire liability, overregulation, insurance dysfunction, distorted solar incentives, and failed green power rollouts all point in the same direction: rationing, higher rates, $500+ monthly hookup fees, taxpayer-funded subsidies, and tighter control over access. Municipalization doesn’t solve that. It just changes who’s holding the lever.
Good luck with that. PG&E and SCE are so deeply entangled with Sacramento that a proposal like this likely wouldn’t even be taken seriously by the state. Maybe there’s a nonzero chance under a different governor, but given California’s track record, that seems remote.
I’m also not convinced most California cities would run a utility any better than a corrupt monopoly. San Francisco in particular would likely end up layering AI-driven grid management, surveillance-heavy controls, and political pricing on top of an already fragile system, then pass the cost of their own mismanagement on to ratepayers.
This feels more like outage-driven virtue signaling than a serious governance proposal. This guy knows from experience a bill like this is unlikely to reach a real hearing, let alone survive legal and financial scrutiny.
I do want utility monopolies to serve customers rather than shareholders, but municipal seizure isn’t the fix. A genuine antitrust breakup would target the real failure mode without pretending cities suddenly have the competence or discipline to run complex grid infrastructure.
More broadly, California’s energy system is already broken. Wildfire liability, overregulation, insurance dysfunction, distorted solar incentives, and failed green power rollouts all point in the same direction: rationing, higher rates, $500+ monthly hookup fees, taxpayer-funded subsidies, and tighter control over access. Municipalization doesn’t solve that. It just changes who’s holding the lever.
Well sure, from a natural gas advocate's point of view.