California’s public utilities’ credit ratings are burning down after regulators determined about 70 percent of the state is now rated at high or extreme wildfire risk.
California’s Democrat-controlled legislature has mastered the game of deviously nudging public utility regulators to raise fees and surcharges to pay for its progressive environmental initiatives rather than suffering the voter backlash from raising taxes.
California residents, due to abundant hydro resources and being the nation’s third-largest oil producer, used to have some of America’s lowest retail electricity rates.
But residents paid 18.32 cents per kilowatt-hour (/kWh) in 2018, about 47 percent more than the national average of 12.47 cents /kWh.
Much of that staggering $14.8 billion a year extra cost was siphoned off through environmental mandates and crony spending.
Same is true for California retail gasoline prices that went from some of the lowest U.S. prices to currently the highest price in the nation for a gallon of regular at $3.88, versus a U.S. national average is just $2.77.
Of that $1.11 spread, only $.41 a gallon was due to higher state fuel taxes. About $.70 a gallon, or $4.9 billion a year, was siphoned off through corporate environmental mandates and more crony spending.
The Democrats’ money machine slowed down in January after California’s “inverse condemnation” law, which holds public utilities and government agencies financially liable for property damage regardless of determining negligence, forced PG&E into bankruptcy with $45 billion in property damages due to trees falling on overhead power lines during high wind events causing sparking fires in 2017 and 2018.
But as a result of the PG&E bankruptcy, the California Public Utilities Commission that regulates the industry was forced recently to update its Fire Threat Map to now rate 45 percent of the state for ‘Stage 2 Elevated’ wildfire risk and another 15 percent of the state for ‘Stage 3 Extreme’ wildfire risk.
With only the California deserts and Central Valley agricultural areas are now rated as ‘Stage 1 Non-Elevated’ for wildfires, Moody’s Investor Services has begun reviewing the first tranche of the 14 public utilities it rates in California.
Moody’s had already cut its credit rating for PG&E that serves 17 million California customers to ”D” for default in January.
But Moody’s advised that the new PUC Threat Map assigns Stage 3 Extreme Fire risk to over 50 percent of PG&E’s service areas or about 25,000 square miles.
The only electric generator to be downgraded so far was Trinity Public Utilities that plunged from ‘A2, for high quality and low credit risk; to ‘Baa1’ for moderate credit risk and speculative investment grade.
Moody’s also lowered the credit outlook for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power with $9.32 billion in debt and the much smaller Burbank Electric with $145 million in debt and the Glendale Electric with $81 million.
Moody’s apparently has not finished reviewing the gigantic Southern California Edison with $14.6 billion in debt. Together with PG&E, the investor-owned utilities service about 28 million Californians.
Public utilities need to borrow billions of dollars each year to pay for infrastructure improvements and to finance the operations of their businesses.
Lower credit ratings by Moody’s due to higher default risks associated with wildfire risks will push up borrowing costs for all California utilities.
Read rest at American Thinker
Years ago I read an article by an environmental leftist advocating the means to increase the cost of energy. He said that decisions need to be made by agencies well insulated from the voters. This is exactly what California has done in adding costs to electricity and gasoline.
The hippy movement occurred when I was in my late teens and early twenties. One thing that was so obvious is so many of the hippies rejected the values that had given them food, clothes, medical care, and a roof over head when they were growing up. It didn’t even occur to them where these things came from.
In our modern society we have always had energy and its benefits such as employment, food, and transportation. The environmental left doesn’t even think about such benefits and acts as if the energy is a guaranteed gift from God. Obviously this is not true. California’s actions are very likely to cause their sources of energy to crumble or even collapse.
Eco-Stupidity these Eco-Wackos continue to be total idiots i mean paying high prices for fuel and the push against fossil fuels based upon Junk Science and Politics Its time for the liberals to taste the fruit of the Bitter tree and get used to it its the bittern fruit of Enviromentalism