California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Administrative Law
Judge John Wong yesterday (March 29) posted his tentative decision in
the San Diego Gas & Electric general rate case, which has been
dragging on since December of 2010. Fasten your seat belt: For a typical
all-electric residential SDGE customer using 500 kilowatt hours per
month, "the customer's electric rates would go up about $6.55 per month,
a 7.7% increase in monthly rates," says the proposed decision, which
was posted yesterday on the CPUC website. This increase will allow SDGE
to operate its electric and natural gas transmission system safely and
reliably at reasonable rates, according to the tentative, decision,
which will go to the commission at a later date. REASONABLE? Among other
things, the big increase "provides necessary monies to allow SDGE to
trim trees and brush away from overhead electric lines to lessen the
danger of wildfires," according to the judge. This is interesting,
because SDGE's inability to do just that was blamed in part for the 2007
wildfires. SDGE tried to get its ratepayers to pick up the uninsured
damages from that fire, but thus far has failed, partly because of local
outrage. (However, don't be certain the company won't sneak that
attempted customer-fleecing back before the CPUC, and get approval, when
nobody is looking.
"It is gross that anybody would give SDGE a rate increase of that
magnitude," says San Diego attorney Mike Aguirre, who fought the
utility's attempt to stick ratepayers with costs of the fire for which
the company was found responsible. He fears that the commission will
"rubber stamp" Wong's recommendation. He points out that SDGE's rates
are already among the highest in the nation, and the profits of parent
Sempra are high among comparable utilities. The CPUC's main mission is
to guarantee "high rates for the ratepayer, high dividends for the
investors, excessive bonuses for the executives" as it falsely claims to
regulate SDGE in the public interest, says Aguirre. He also finds it
ironic that so-called watchdog groups will be filing for fat intervenor
fees even as SDGE is likely to be granted these huge rate increases.
Source: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/news-ticker/2013/mar/30/your-sdge-bill-may-be-going-up-77/
