By George Avalos : mercurynews – excerpt (audio track)

Coalition emerges even as state regulators prep OK for higher PG&E PG&E transmission towers in Solano County, near Rio Vista, 2019.

OAKLAND — Consumer groups, politicians, labor unions and advocacy organizations have teamed up to try to combat fast-rising increases in PG&E monthly bills and demand more accountability from the utility behemoth.

FAIR California, as the diverse coalition is called, has banded together just ahead of a vote by state regulators Thursday that’s expected to bestow on PG&E the power to shove monthly power bills higher — once again — starting in January.

“We have to create a sufficiently substantial counterweight to the massive political power of PG&E, its investors and its political allies,” Sam Liccardo, San Jose’s former mayor, and one of the principal leaders of FAIR California, said in an interview with this news organization.

For decades, The Utility Reform Network, or TURN, has waged a fight nearly single-handedly to oppose rising utility bills delivered by California’s three major utilities, PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.

Now, yet another vote looms at the state Public Utilities Commission that is poised to hand over authorization to PG&E to impose a fresh round of higher monthly bills.

“We need to stop the sky being the limit for PG&E requests for rate increases, and the sky being the limit to how much the CPUC can approve,” said Mark Toney, TURN’s executive director.

The opposition to PG&E’s rising electric and gas costs has emerged at a time when PG&E monthly bills have soared skyward at a far faster pace even than the brutally high inflation rate in the Bay Area.

“What we need is legislation that caps annual rate increases to no more than the cost of living allowance received each year by people on Social Security,” Toney said. “Make PG&E live within a budget like its customers have to.”..(more)