Happy New Year: America’s Largest Utility Jacks up Rates the Most since 2006 Despite Total Collapse of Natural Gas Prices
The power of monopoly and regulatory capture
“We want our customers and their families to know that we are here to help them make smart energy choices and save money whenever possible,” cooed Laurie Giammona, senior VP and chief customer officer of Pacific Gas and Electric, on Wednesday between Christmas and New Year’s, when no one was supposed to pay attention.
It was the propitious day when the beloved utility that distributes gas and electricity in the northern two-thirds of California announced that on January 1st it would jack up its rates.
America’s largest electric utility and the second largest gas utility by number of customers, the utility whose 2010 gas-pipeline explosion in San Bruno, just south of San Francisco, killed 8 people, injured another 66, and burned down 38 homes, the utility that is still digging in its heels after five years since the explosion and is now under investigation by the California Public Utilities Commission because it failed to deliver certain documents, the very same PUC that is being probed by a federal grand jury for potential illegal ties between the regulators and the executives of PG&E in this ballooning corruption scandal … well, this beloved utility now has announced a very special New Year’s resolution.
It will hike natural gas rates for the average residential customer by 4.0% and electricity rates by a stunning 8.5%, for a combined rate increase of 7%, the steepest since 2006.
The average small business is going to get whacked by a combined rate increase of 5.1%.
That’s on top of the 6% rate increase it had successfully inflicted on its customers a year ago.
Rate increases, despite a plunge in the price of natural gas
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