Comments
CITY BLUES - In the 2026 Gubernatorial race, candidate Tom Steyer has staked his campaign on a bold, populist promise: slashing California’s electricity bills by 25%. For Angelenos weary of utility bills that feel like a second mortgage, it’s a seductive pitch. But for those in the Power Industry, this doesn't pass the smell test.
The Ghost of Deregulation Past
Steyer’s call to break up monopolies sounds like a fresh idea, but California has been down this road before. The deregulation experiment of the late 1990s allowed bad actors like Enron to manipulate the market, leading to the infamous rolling blackouts of 2001 and a multi-billion dollar taxpayer bailout. When a candidate suggests disrupting the grid today, they are flirting with the same instability that nearly broke our economy twenty-five years ago.
The Multi-Billion Dollar Wildfire Charge
One of the biggest drivers of your high bill has nothing to do with who owns the utility. It’s the cost of keeping the state from burning.
The doctrine of inverse condemnation creates a perpetual loop in California: it holds utilities strictly liable for wildfire damages regardless of fault, which ultimately forces ratepayers to fund a de-facto insurance pool for the entire state.
To mitigate this risk, utilities are under massive pressure to underground transmission and distribution lines. While this makes the grid safer, the total project costs are staggering. Beyond the complex engineering, the physical construction costs are immense. The process requires trenching through solid rock and navigating incredibly rugged terrain. Undergrounding a single mile of distribution line can cost up to $6 million, and for high-voltage transmission lines, that price tag can soar to $100 million per mile.
Steyer’s competition doesn't change the laws of physics or the California Constitution. You cannot compete away the cost of burying thousands of miles of wire through rugged terrain.
The Myth of the Corporate Profit Culprit
We have a control group right here in Southern California: our publicly owned utilities. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Burbank Water and Power, and Glendale Water and Power have no shareholders and no profit motive. Yet, they are all seeing dramatic rate hikes.
Burbank Water and Power and Glendale Water and Power recently moved toward double-digit percentage increases to cover a 75% spike in the cost of transformers and aging infrastructure.
LADWP is sprinting toward a City-mandated goal of 100% clean energy by 2035, an acceleration that could cost up to $87 billion.
If nonprofit municipal utilities, which answer to ratepayers and their representatives, not Wall Street, cannot find a way to lower rates while meeting these mandates and hardening the grid, how does a Governor Steyer expect to slash them by a quarter?
A Pattern of Over-Promising: From Utility Bills to ICE
This brings us to the issue of jurisdictional credibility. Steyer has frequently used the rhetorically charged promise to abolish ICE. While it makes for a fiery campaign slogan, it ignores a fundamental fact: ICE is a federal agency under the Department of Homeland Security.
A California Governor has no authority to abolish a federal law enforcement body. We saw the limits of state power play recently on April 22, 2026, when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down California’s attempt to regulate federal agents. The court ruled that the state overstepped its authority by trying to dictate operational standards to federal officers. The judges were clear: under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, California cannot interfere with how federal agencies perform their duties.
When a candidate makes promises, whether about federal law enforcement or a 25% utility cut, that the courts have repeatedly ruled are outside of a Governor’s legal reach, it suggests a campaign built on optics rather than an understanding of the office he seeks.
The Accountability Verdict
California needs a Governor who has a basic understanding of the very Utilities he wants to change. We need someone who can navigate the California Public Utilities Commission and the complexities of wildfire liability without triggering another 2001-style collapse.
If the goal is accountability, community, and the environment, we must demand a plan grounded in reality. Right now, Steyer’s math, and his understanding of the Governor’s powers, just doesn’t flow.
(Ziggy Kruse Blue and Bob Blue are frequent contributors to CityWatchLA. They can be reached at [email protected])
