2025 Affordability & Accountability Legislative Scorecard
At every step in the process of delivering goods and services, rising energy rates increase consumer prices—from healthcare, heating and cooling, to running a local business and putting food on the table. Every rate hike trickles down to us.
It is a reasonable expectation that what we pay for basic survival should be tied to the cost of living and not based on corporate profitability.
MARK TONEY, TURN Executive Director
SCORING METHODOLOGY
We identified the TURN Top Ten Affordability & Accountability bills for the 2025 legislative session to develop this scorecard. TURN took a public position on each of these bills, and each legislator was scored based on whether they voted consistently with TURN’s position.
During committee and floor votes, an “NVR” or “No Vote Recorded” has the same practical effect as a “No” vote and was scored that way unless there was an extenuating circumstance such as an excused legislative absence.
Due diligence was conducted to confirm absences, including consulting the official legislative journal.
Each legislator’s votes were tallied and then converted into a percentage of votes aligned with TURN’s position.
Authors of TURN-sponsored bills were given a 2% bonus.
2025 PRIORITY BILLS
AB 470 (McKinnor) Removes COLR – OPPOSE
A broad-based coalition effort, including CWA District 9 (and two dozen locals), AARP, California Farm Bureau, California Alliance for Retired Americans, multiple rural counties, LA County Board of Supervisors, LA Digital Equity coalition, California Alliance for Digital Equity, and TomKat Ranch (Kat Taylor).
Would have allowed AT&T to eliminate its Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) obligation to provide phone service to anyone in their territory who asks to be connected, without discrimination. COLR also requires companies to maintain their phone networks so all residents, businesses, and emergency responders receive reliable service, even during emergencies.
AB 825 (Petrie Norris) Affordability: Public financing and public ownership of infrastructure – SPONSOR
There are two versions of AB 825 reflected in this scorecard. The original version of the bill was sponsored by TURN. TURN did not support the later version of the bill, referred to here as AB 825 as amended.” However, votes that took place before public record of TURN’s opposition, were not included in the scores.
This bill, in its original version, mandated $15 billion in securitized loans for the construction of transmission infrastructure and established an agency that would be empowered to enter public-private partnerships in the ownership of transmission infrastructure.
AB 825 (as amended) (Becker and Petrie-Norris) – OPPOSE
This bill was gutted and amended so that it no longer included any of the provisions championed by TURN. Instead, the bill contained the contents of SB 540, which establishes a regional energy market, reducing California’s autonomy by shifting control from the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
TURN opposed this bill out of concern that the bill did not provide an actionable strategy to return to CAISO if the regional market takes actions counter to California’s climate priorities.
This version of AB 825 was not published until extremely late in the session, so, to be fair to legislators who may not have been aware of TURN’s position, only the final floor vote was considered in this scorecard.
AB 1020 (Schiavo) Increased transparency and accountability for public financing – SPONSOR
This bill improves utility accounting transparency by directing the CPUC to implement more detailed reporting requirements for any public grants or public loans received by an IOU. The bill requires utilities to report how much public money they have received, what the money is intended for, and what ratemaking proceeding(s) this will affect. This bill will ensure that the savings garnered from public financing is truly passed through to ratepayers and not captured by shareholders.
AB 1167 (Berman) Ratepayer Protection Act – SPONSOR
Prohibits investor-owned utilities (IOUs) from spending ratepayer money on lobbying and promotional advertising. This bill provides meaningful consequences for IOUs caught misspending ratepayer money, so they are incentivized to use the appropriate shareholder dollars for lobbying and promotional advertising activities.
AB 1303 (Valencia) Expands California Lifeline eligibility and privacy protections – SPONSOR
Prohibits the California Lifeline program from requiring social security numbers on the application, and prevents the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), telephone providers, and third party administrator from sharing an applicant’s personal information to any immigration agency without a judicial warrant or court subpoena.
SB 24 (McNerney) Clarifies the authority of the Public Advocates Office and prevents ratepayer money from being used for lobbying against municipalization – SPONSOR
Clarifies that the Public Advocates Office (PAO) has the authority, like other staff of the CPUC, to inspect the accounting books of investor-owned utilities at their own discretion. Additionally, it prohibits ratepayer money from being used to oppose the formation or expansion of a municipal utility district.
SB 254 (Becker/ Becker & Petrie-Norris) Affordability and Wildfire Package – SUPPORT
This package included billions of dollars of low-cost, public financing of transmission infrastructure, in the form of securitized loans, ensures ratepayers pay no more than 50% of the renewed wildfire fund, establishes the Transmission Infrastructure Accelerator, improves the wildfire mitigation planning process so a proper cost-benefit analysis can be conducted and prevent unnecessary rate increases.
SB 330 (Padilla) Transmission infrastructure financing pilot projects – SPONSOR
Originally provided tariffs on data centers so they pay their fair share of infrastructure costs to minimize cost shifts to ratepayers. In its final version it authorized the CPUC to conduct a study to determine the magnitude of the cost shifts created by data centers.
SB 636 (Menjivar) Hardship deferment – SPONSOR
This bill would have directed all IOUs to establish a hardship deferment program. The program would have given customers experiencing a qualified hardship, such as job loss or the death of an immediate family member, a three-month deferment from paying their energy bill. The customer would still be responsible for the amount accumulated during the deferment, and they would be enrolled into an appropriate payment plan at the end of the deferment period.
Download 2024 Legislative Scorecard.