Campaign for Affordable Power (CAP)
“There are no limits on how much or how often utilities can request additional increases after their base budget is approved. At every step in the process of delivering goods and services, rising energy rates increase all consumer prices—from healthcare, heating and cooling, to running a local business and putting food on the table. We pay our own monthly bills, and we pay every rate hike over and over. This broken system must change.”
MARK TONEY, TURN Executive Director
Immediate Action Items to Support Affordable Utility Policy
YOU WANT CHANGE
Working together, we are making that happen!
Powerful lobbyists and corporations are fighting back, and we need you to continue to raise your voice, make calls, and sign letters!
Your voice makes a difference—really!
Every California business has also seen their utility bills spike, and they pass along their bill increases to you.
These bills will be before the Senate and Assembly by August 13.
Please sign the letter to legislative leadership, asking them to pass our priority bills.
LIMIT UTILITY RATE INCREASES
SB 905 (Becker) is a multifaceted affordability package to slash utility profits, reduce utility spending, and increase accountability.
Slashes profits to lower Return on Equity (ROE) on capital investments that lower the utilities’ wildfire risk exposure.
Reduces spending to improve utilization of the existing grid.
Increases accountability by tying 20% of compensation for Vice President-level executives and above to the utilities keeping electricity rates from rising faster than inflation over a rolling three-year period. Also requires the CPUC to start researching what sorts of affordability metrics may be useful for pursuing affordability-performance-based ratemaking in the future.
2026 TURN Affordability Bills
SUPPORT UTILITY AFFORDABILITY
SB 327 (McNerney)
This is a rerun of TURN-sponsored bill SB 24 (2025).
Prohibits ratepayer money from being spent on lobbying efforts to fight the establishment or expansion of municipal utilities.
Clarifies the PAO’s authority to monitor and inspect IOU accounting books to increase transparency
SB 1098 (Perez)
Creates limitations to the use of balancing accounts and memorandum accounts, so more spending is included in the GRC where the commission can review the full picture when making rate-setting decisions.
Stipulates that balancing and memorandum accounts should only be used for exceptional circumstances where spending is truly unforecastable, requires adoption of a cost-sharing mechanism or reduced ROE for accounts used on capital expenditures, and requires each account to have an established sunset date, after which time the account needs to close, and the spending gets included in the GRC.
Increases transparency of costs and improves the ability of the CPUC and intervenors to ensure rates are reasonable.
AB 1715 (Schiavo)
This is a rerun of TURN-sponsored bill AB 1020 (2025).
Creates transparent reporting of public loans and grants received by IOUs to ensure savings from cheaper, public financing options are passed through to ratepayers.
Requires the CPUC to annually report to the legislature a summary of all the taxpayer funding reported by each IOU.
AB 2065 (Petrie-Norris)
Establishes penalties for utilities when they are caught inappropriately using ratepayer money to pay for things that should be charged to shareholders.
This is in alignment with AB 1167 (Berman, 2025) and SB 327 (McNerney, 2026), but even broader than just lobbying expenses.
LIMIT DATA CENTER COSTS
SB 886 (Padilla)
A stick approach to mitigate and prevent significant cost shifts from data centers onto other customer classes.
This bill establishes a special tariff for data centers to ensure they pay their share of grid expansion and transmission expenses.
SB 887 (Padilla)
A carrot approach to mitigating harm caused by data centers to other ratepayer classes.
Allows data centers to receive a CEQA exemption if they meet high environmental standards and pay their share of transmission and grid expansion costs.
This includes the 100% use of recycled water for cooling, self-generated clean energy for backup power, and more.
Submit Your PG&E General Rate Case Comment!
California families are already struggling with rising utility costs, and they could soon face even higher bills. According to the California Public Utilities Commission's Public Advocates Office, the average household could see utility costs increase by $444 a year in 2027, growing to $840 annually by 2030.
Those increases come on top of years of rising costs. Between 2016 and 2026, the average monthly PG&E electricity and gas bill increased by 84%, with bills jumping from $241 in January 2023 to $285 in January 2026.
Commenting is Easy!
Click the submission button above.
Click the “Add Public Comment” button.
You can review what others have said for inspiration, but please make it personal.
You’ll be asked to click the box that confirms that you are a real person, then click Submit.
Utility affordability is one of the biggest concerns for California Residents and Businesses.
Click here to watch the full-length, 5-minute video.
Utility Affordability Polling
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2026 January CA Energy Affordability Survey
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2025 DBR Voter Survey
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CA Affordability Polling Memo