Editorial: Prop. 16 isn't about taxpayers, it's about profits
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is looking for a few million suckers, betting a fortune that we're too thick-headed to know a rip-off when we see it.
The power empire has spent at least $35 million in an effort to trick Californians into voting against their own interests as the sole financier of Proposition 16, the so-called "Taxpayers' Right to Vote Act," appearing on the June 8 primary ballot. PG&E is peddling the initiative as an example of a key democratic principle. It's an example, all right: An example of how to exploit the democratic process for one's financial benefit.
Proposition 16 goes like this: Local governments that want to explore setting up or expanding their own electricity service using public money must get two-thirds voter approval, rather than an easier, simple majority, if such an election is even held. PG&E is only trying to protect taxpayers from foolish or corrupt government spending, you see.
In reality, a yes vote will establish a constitutional iron curtain to prevent locked-in customers from breaking PG&E's grip on the lucrative energy-delivery business to a large portion of California, including Kern County, potentially enabling even higher rates. The company already has higher rates than almost all of the utilities around the state, including municipal utilities of the very type that PG&E would like to discourage through the passage of Proposition 16.
PG&E's history contradicts its seeming concern for the taxpayer. The company has a track record of blocking scattered attempts to expand public power, and its CEO, Peter Darbee, has reportedly told shareholders that Proposition 16 is meant stamp out those annoying little fires once and for all.
Tellingly, big investor-owned utilities such as Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric won't touch this one. In private they may well sympathize with PG&E, but they've refrained from issuing an endorsement.
Endorsements aside, Proposition 16 might only have a snowball's chance here in Kern County, anyway, where SmartMeters have blown up in the company's face and outrage has grown over the utility's record of charging higher rates than in other markets.
Local opposition to Proposition 16 includes the Kern County Taxpayers Association, whose director, Michael Turnipseed, has criticized PG&E's treatment of Kern ratepayers. He told The Californian's editorial board KernTax can't support PG&E's drive for electoral protection.
Kern County, which is studying the possibility of establishing just the sort of operation PG&E wants to preemptively crush, has not taken a position on the initiative, though a proposal could appear on the general election ballot in November. The city of Bakersfield hasn't announced a position, either.
A Yes on 16 representative who briefed The Californian's editorial board said the initiative isn't about PG&E -- it's about preventing government from working around the will of the people.
But considering PG&E's recent behavior -- obfuscating about its SmartMeters, admitting that Kern customers pay higher rates to subsidize customers in cooler regions, and then backtracking to say they don't -- it's clear that PG&E's word can't be taken at face value.
Now the company wants voters to perpetuate and strengthen its monopoly? Give us a break. Vote no on Proposition 16.
