Source: TURN | By Opinion by Jalal Awan at TURN

State utilities are spending billions of dollars every year to maintain and upgrade California’s natural gas distribution system just as we’re trying to wean ourselves off of this fossil fuel energy source that contributes to climate change.  One possible solution emerged from the state legislature and received Gov. Gavin Newsom’s blessing when he signed Senate Bill 1221 into law in September 2024. 

The bill directs utilities to create “decarbonization zones” — designated neighborhoods where aging gas pipelines would be retired and residents helped to switch to electric appliances like heat pumps and induction stoves, funded by the savings from avoided pipeline replacements. The California Public Utilities Commission faces a monumental task in implementing this promising idea, but early evidence reveals how difficult it can be for regulators to uphold ratepayers’ interests when utilities control the data and have their own financial priorities.

Source: The Press Democrat | By Marisa Endicott

“I wouldn’t be surprised if what gets decided this year will impact a generation,” said Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, who was heavily involved in shaping SB 254.

The release of another new study on the impacts of natural disasters in California may not normally get more than a shrug of wider public attention.  But a pending report out of the California Earthquake Authority looks to be more consequential than most as it seeks to answer the urgent, loaded question of how the state will address mounting and rippling costs of catastrophic events and who will pay.

Source: The Orange County Register | By Teri Sforza

Many of these legislative proposals are championed by The Utility Reform Network, which recently sponsored a poll that found an overwhelming majority of Californians — 81% — are somewhat or very concerned about their electric bills.  “The latest earnings reports make one thing painfully clear: while California families struggle with skyrocketing utility bills, investor-owned utilities are posting billions in profits,” said Mark Toney, TURN’s executive director, in a prepared statement.

The human dressed as Monopoly’s Moneybags man tossed fake dollar bills skyward.  “SO CAL EDISON SATAN,” proclaimed one protest sign. “STOP utility greed,” “ANAHEIM PUBLIC UTILITY CUSTOMERS PAY 58% LESS THAN EDISON CUSTOMERS” and “HONK IF U HATE SCE,” said others.  The honks came fast and furious in front of Irvine City Hall on Thursday.

Source: CBS 8 | By Brian White

TURN is advocating for stricter repair timelines and penalties, while warning that AT&T is pushing to loosen those requirements.  “TURN is filing comments and fighting for rules for AT&T and other companies to have faster response time when the service goes out and put teeth in those so they would have to pay bigger fines," Toney said. "That’s what motivates a big company like AT&T. You['ve] got to hit them in the pocketbook or else they have no motivation.”

The outage was caused by storm damage in February, when high winds knocked out key infrastructure. According to AT&T, two critical relay towers were severely damaged. While some areas in Julian have seen service restored, more remote communities like Shelter Valley and Butterfield continue to face prolonged disruptions.  For residents, the lack of reliable communication is more than an inconvenience; it’s a serious safety concern.

Source: Imperial Valley Press | By Staff Report

The legislative package has earned the backing of both consumer and environmental advocates, including The Utility Reform Network (TURN) and Net Zero California.  “Senator Padilla’s bills include critical protections to ensure that data center development will benefit the electrical grid, consumers, and the environment,” said Matthew Freedman, staff attorney for TURN.

Two California State Senate committees took a major step this week toward ensuring that the rapid expansion of "Big Tech" infrastructure doesn't come at the expense of local families’ utility bills or the environment.

Source: News from the Office of Steve Padilla |

The legislative package is co-sponsored by ratepayer advocacy group TURN and environmental advocacy group Net-Zero California.  “California needs clear, meaningful and ambitious policies to address the rapid growth of data centers,” said Matthew Freedman, Staff Attorney at The Utility Reform Network (TURN). “Senator Padilla’s bills include critical protections to ensure that data center development will benefit the electrical grid, consumers and the environment.”

This week, two key committees in the California State Senate passed Senate Bills 886 and 887, two measures authored by Senator Steve Padilla (D-San Diego) designed to protect California ratepayers from the potential increased costs and environmental damage caused by data centers.

Source: Communications Daily | By Philip Athey

Securus argued that it did submit some cost data that was previously filed with the FCC while the federal regulator was working on national price caps for IPCS, but the accuracy of that data has been questioned, including by the Utilities Reform Network (TURN).  “By its own terms, the PD [proposed decision says] that this submission was not sufficiently detailed to substantiate Securus’ claims,” TURN’s filing said. "As TURN observed in reply comments on the staff proposal, the FCC determined that the information submitted by Securus was 'imperfect and cannot simply be taken at face value.’"

Prison phone service providers called for the California Public Utilities Commission to reject a new rule that would lower the cap on rates they can charge for intrastate calls by inmates in the state. The final vote on the rule is set for CPUC's March 19 meeting.

Source: CalMatters | By Sam Uden and Matthew Freedman (TURN Staff)

But with thoughtful planning, data centers can be developed in a manner that actually benefits ratepayers, improves grid reliability and minimizes environmental harms. California should establish clear standards for affordable and clean data center development — and offer it as a model for the rest of the country. 

California’s sky-high electricity rates risk making monthly bills unaffordable for families and the state less economically competitive and less of a global hub for technological innovation.  Last year, state leaders made progress on reforms aimed at improving energy affordability.  But the expansion of energy-intensive data centers to fuel the boom in artificial intelligence is challenging those gains.

Source: Axios | By Shawna Chen

Public power, such as the type SF is seeking, comes with trade-offs, said Mark Toney, executive director of the Oakland-based Utility Reform Network.  It can mean more local control and lower costs over time, but it doesn't guarantee better management, he added, pointing to thescandal-plagued Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (the nation's largest municipal utility).

State Sen. Scott Wiener has introduced a bill that could make it easier for San Francisco to break away from PG&E, though major questions remain about cost, timing and potential ripple effects. Frustration with PG&E has been building for years amid rate hikes and outages. Things reached a new boiling point after a December blackout affected roughly one-third of the city, renewing pressure for a publicly run utility in SF.

Source: The Los Angeles Times | By Blanca Begert

 Assemblymember Christopher M. Ward (D-San Diego), who in 2022 authored a bill to create a more effective community solar program, said the state needs to double its annual solar installation rate to reach that goal and is not on track to do that using only large utility-scale solar farms and individual rooftop arrays.  “We need mid-scale community solar,” he said. He and a coalition of environmental groups, solar developers and the Utility Reform Network, a ratepayer advocacy group, worked to put his 2022 law into effect. They coalesced around requiring utilities to pay community solar developers and customers for the electricity they feed to the grid using the same formula they use for people who install rooftop solar.

Community solar, in which residents get a discount on their bills for subscribing as a group to small solar arrays nearby, was designed to help low-income residents, apartment dwellers, renters and others who can’t put panels on their own roofs.  Over the last 11 years, New York, Maine, Minnesota, Massachusetts and other states have built thriving community solar programs. But California has built, at most, only 34 projects since 2015, and experts say that’s a generous accounting.

Source: CalMatters | By Alejandro Lazo

“Data center growth has as much potential to increase electricity rates as it does to decrease rates if not done properly,” said Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network.

If you’re worried about data centers and AI inflating your electricity bill, you’re not alone.  A California watchdog released a report Tuesday urging policymakers to act fast on the state’s fast-growing data-center industry – before soaring electricity demand from artificial intelligence lands on the bills of ordinary households.

Source: The Sacramento Bee | By George Avalos

The future, however, might bring higher bills, in Toney’s view, primarily because PG&E has a considerable number of proceedings that are pending before its primary regulator, the California Public Utilities Commission.  “PG&E still has 13 pending rate requests before the PUC,” Toney said. “We don’t know how long these decreases in bills will last.” As a result, Toney is skeptical that the PUC will prevent bills from rising as it ponders PG&E’s multiple pending requests. “I have a hard time imagining that the PUC’s decisions will result in lower bills when you consider how the PUC typically acts with PG&E rate proceedings,” Toney said.

PG&E electricity bills will be lower this month, the utility revealed Monday, a decline that continues customers’ reprieve from the brutal price spikes of recent years.  PG&E cut electric rates further Sunday, on the heels of a reduction that went into effect with the January billing cycle.

Source: CalMatters (TURN) | By Jalal Awan

SB 1221 partly remedies this by requiring zero-emission alternatives only when they’re cheaper than gas, ensuring utilities are made whole, while empowering the commission to shut down gas segments when two-thirds of property owners agree to electrify.  SB 1221 offers a rare alignment of climate, affordability and equity. That promise will only be realized if regulators resist the path of least resistance and send neighborhood decarbonization first to the communities that need it most — and where it saves the most money.

But two problems arise.  The first is participation bias. The commission’s docket system favors communities with the resources to engage in regulatory processes. The result: a map dominated by coastal, civically organized neighborhoods — leaving higher-burdened, inland and Central Valley communities out. The second problem is utility incentives. Utilities earn guaranteed returns on gas pipelines but face uncertainty with electrification. 

Source: The Los Angeles Times | By Alejandro Lazo

Many homes need new wiring, larger breakers or a full panel replacement, and some require upgrades to the service connection to the grid, said Matthew Freedman of the Utility Reform Network. Costs rise quickly when homeowners electrify more than just heating, he said.  Customers often underestimate how complex and costly that electrical work can be, he said, another uncertainty on top of the potential for long-term rate savings.

If you’re a California homeowner and you’ve been feeling chilly this winter, there are plenty of reasons to go get a heat pump.  An all-electric, energy-efficient alternative to gas-burning furnaces, heat pumps are widely seen as the climate-friendly home heater of choice.  They can do double-duty as both home heaters and AC units and are pretty good at maintaining a constant temperature inside a home without the blast-then-cool-off cycle typical of a furnace. What about a guaranteed lower monthly utility bill? Not in California.  California has built one of the most aggressive heat pump strategies in the country. The state aims to install 6 million heat pumps in homes by 2030. Lawmakers are also moving this year to boost heat pump adoption — proposing to streamline permitting, and make it easier to electrify homes. On the other hand, California’s residential electricity prices are among the highest in the country — expensive even compared with its also pricey natural gas. That makes heat pumps a tough sell to many Californians. Though the state’s temperate coast is ideal for heat pump adoption, high residential electricity prices can make swapping a gas furnace for a heat pump a pricey proposition. That’s especially true in counties where homes tend to be larger, winters are colder or electricity is costly.

Source: Christopher M. Ward Assemblymember, 78th District | By Anthony Reyes

“Despite the clear directives in AB 2316, the CPUC embraced a non-viable, noncompliant, and incomplete community renewable energy program that was designed to fail and perhaps never even meant to launch,” said Matt Freedman, Staff Attorney, Utility Reform Network (TURN).

Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee Chair Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Orange) and Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego) yesterday convened an oversight hearing examining the implementation of Assembly Bill 2316 (Ward), legislation intended to establish a cost-effective community solar program so all Californians, particularly those unable to install rooftop systems, can benefit from distributed clean energy. The hearing was held as part of Speaker Robert Rivas’ newly launched Outcomes Review project, a first-of-its-kind legislative oversight effort focused on ensuring enacted laws are implemented effectively and deliver their intended benefits. “Yesterday’s hearing is accountability in action — and I’m grateful for Assemblymember Chris Ward’s steadfast leadership on oversight and transparency,” said Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas. “I authored AB 2316 because a successful community solar and storage program has incredible potential to reduce rates across the board, reduce net peak demand, avoid long-term transmission investment, and displace expensive gas generation,” said Assemblymember Christopher Ward. “However, I am extremely frustrated with the CPUCs rejection of its legislative intent, and instead adopted a wholly unviable program. My hope is that I can work with the CPUC, along with my colleagues in the legislature, to find an appropriate path forward that achieves the goal of  the original bill.” During the hearing, committee members raised concerns about the lack of a viable community solar program more than three years after AB 2316’s passage, including why the California Public Utilities Commission rejected a widely supported Net Value Billing Tariff backed by industry, labor, environmental organizations, and ratepayer advocates in favor of a proposal submitted after the deadline.

Source: KRON4 | By Stephanie Rothman

Mark Toney is the Executive Director of the Utility Reform Network (TURN) and says that even if the bill is passed, “it will take years to implement” and in the meantime they have introduced eight other bills to cut costs.  “That is one that, historically, has taken decades so we are saying that in the meantime there are things that people can support that have much shorter immediate impacts."

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Source: KFI AM640 | By iHeart Radio

Mark Toney, executive director of the Utility Reform Network, a consumer group in San Francisco, noted that burying more lines could significantly increase both customer bills and Edison's profits.  "Five times the cost is equal to five times the profit," Toney said.

Altadena residents rebuilding after the devastating Eaton Fire are facing unexpected costs of up to $40,000 to connect their homes to Southern California Edison's newly buried power lines.  Connor Cipolla, an Eaton wildfire survivor and member of the Altadena Town Council, initially praised Edison's plan to bury more than 60 miles of electric lines in Altadena to reduce fire risk. His perspective changed dramatically when he received an estimate of $20,000 to $40,000 to connect his smoke-damaged home to the underground system.  "Residents are so angry," Cipolla told the Los Angeles Times. "We were completely blindsided.” The connection costs significantly exceed the $8,000 to $10,000 estimate Edison's CEO provided to Governor Gavin Newsom in April 2025. These expenses aren't covered by homeowner insurance, and neither the utility nor any government agency has secured funding to help offset the burden. Beyond the financial impact, residents are concerned about environmental damage. Some have tracked wooden stakes marking where Edison plans to dig, revealing dozens of locations where deep trenches will run under oak and pine trees that survived the fire. The utility company maintains that burying the lines is critical to wildfire prevention, especially in high-risk areas like Altadena where the Eaton Fire destroyed more than 9,000 structures. The project aims to protect electrical systems from extreme weather conditions that could cause power outages or wildfires. However, consumer advocates point out that undergrounding isn't the most cost-effective fire prevention measure. It can cost more than $6 million per mile, compared to about $800,000 per mile for installing insulated overhead lines.

Source: Beritaja.com | By Albert Michael

Mark Toney, executive head of the The Utility Reform Network, a consumer advocate group successful in San Francisco, said his team estimates Edison spends $4 million per mile to underground wires, compared to $800,000 per mile for installing insulated lines.  By burying much of the lines, customer bills and Edison’s profits could soar, Toney said. “Five times the costs is adjacent to 5 times the profit,” he said.

Connor Cipolla, an Eaton wildfire survivor, praised Southern California Edison’s plan to bury more than 60 miles of electrical lines.  Then he learned he would have to pay $20,000 to $40,000 to link his home, which was damaged by fumes and ash, to Edison’s underground line. An adjacent neighbour received an estimate for $30,000, he said.  “Residents are truthful angry,” Cipolla said. “We were wholly blindsided.”

The buried lines are an upgrade that will make Altadena’s electrical grid safer and much reliable, Edison says. Although placing cables underground is an occurrence prevention measure, consumer advocates say it’s not the most cost-effective measure Edison could use to trim the risk.  Undergrounding electrical wires could cost as much as $6 million per mile, according to the California Public Utilities Commission, much more than insulating wires.

Source: The Press Democrat | By George Avalos

“PG&E needs to match its outstanding performance for shareholders with reliable service for its customers, hundreds of thousands of whom have lost power unexpectedly and repeatedly over the past few months,” Toney said.  Toney also said the state Legislature needs to act to help rein in profits for California’s big utilities.

PG&E’s profits and revenues rose during 2025, but at a reduced pace compared with prior years, in a sign that the utility’s vow to rein in bill increases has begun to materialize.  The investor-owned utility posted a profit of $2.59 billion in 2025, 4.8% higher than the $2.48 billion in profit in 2024, PG&E reported Thursday as part of the release of its latest financial results. Thursday’s news came on the heels of the company’s report at the end of 2025 that monthly bills for residential customers who receive combined electricity and gas services would drop starting in January. Some critics of PG&E, however, believe that the company’s profits remain too high and that its primary regulator, the state Public Utilities Commission, has failed in its role as a watchdog.  Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, said PG&E’s profits have emerged at a time when customers must still wrestle with significant power failures.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle | By Quentin L. Kopp

And that’s just the beginning. As part of its general rate case, PG&E is seeking increases that could add $42 a month to customers’ bills — totaling more than $500 annually by 2030, according to The Utility Reform Network.

On Dec. 20, a third of San Francisco homes and businesses were plunged into darkness. Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s power outage forced families to throw out hundreds of dollars’ worth of spoiled groceries. Seniors on fixed incomes sat in cold apartments, worrying about their medical devices and refrigerated medicine. On one of the busiest shopping days of the year, businesses had to close, with some losing over $100,000 in inventory and missed sales.