{"id":15855,"date":"2016-01-01T15:36:53","date_gmt":"2016-01-01T20:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=15855"},"modified":"2016-01-01T15:36:53","modified_gmt":"2016-01-01T20:36:53","slug":"happy-new-year-americas-largest-utility-jacks-up-rates-the-most-since-2006-despite-total-collapse-of-natural-gas-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=15855","title":{"rendered":"Happy New Year: America\u2019s Largest Utility Jacks up Rates the Most since 2006 Despite Total Collapse of Natural Gas Prices"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2016\/01\/01\/happy-new-year-americas-largest-utility-jacks-up-rates-the-most-since-2006-despite-total-collapse-of-natural-gas-prices\/\" target=\"_blank\">Happy New Year: America\u2019s Largest Utility Jacks up Rates the Most since 2006 Despite Total Collapse of Natural Gas Prices<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"entry-title\"><strong>The power of monopoly and regulatory capture<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>\u201cWe want our customers and their families to know that we are here to help them make smart energy choices and save money whenever possible,\u201d cooed Laurie Giammona, senior VP and chief customer officer of Pacific Gas and Electric, on\u00a0Wednesday\u00a0between Christmas and New Year\u2019s, when no one was supposed to pay attention.<\/p>\n<p>It was the propitious day when the beloved utility that distributes gas and electricity in the northern two-thirds of California announced that on\u00a0January 1st it would jack up its rates.<\/p>\n<p>America\u2019s 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\u00a0<em>still<\/em>\u00a0digging in its heels after five years since the explosion and is now under\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/la-fi-puc-warrant-utility-20150827-story.html\">investigation<\/a>\u00a0by the California Public Utilities Commission because it failed to deliver certain documents, the very same PUC that is being probed by a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/crime\/article\/Federal-grand-jury-opens-corruption-probe-of-6279534.php\">federal grand jury<\/a>\u00a0for potential illegal ties between the regulators and the executives of PG&amp;E in this ballooning corruption scandal \u2026 well, this beloved utility now has announced a very special New Year\u2019s resolution.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The average small business is going to get whacked by a combined rate increase of 5.1%.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s on top of the 6% rate increase it had successfully inflicted on its customers a year ago.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rate increases, despite a plunge in the price of natural gas\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Happy New Year: America\u2019s Largest Utility Jacks up Rates the Most since 2006 Despite Total Collapse of Natural Gas Prices The power of monopoly and regulatory capture \u201cWe want our customers and their families to know that we are here to help them make smart energy choices and save money whenever possible,\u201d cooed Laurie Giammona, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[101,5664,554,5002,11365,4254,4255],"class_list":["post-15855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-california","tag-monopoly","tag-natural-gas","tag-natural-gas-prices","tag-pacific-gas-and-electric","tag-wolf-richter","tag-wolfstreet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15855"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15856,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15855\/revisions\/15856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}