Botched Energy Policies Are Driving High Energy Prices: Jake Morabito in The Orange County Register
The data are in, and California now ranks 49th out of 50 in the nation for energy affordability.
ALEC Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Senior Task Force Director Jake Morabito recently warned in an Orange County Register op-ed that California’s rock-bottom energy affordability rankings are a result of more than a decade’s worth of poor policy choices that have driven up costs, outages, and left families struggling.
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently posted that electricity prices have risen 10% since January, squarely placing the blame on President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress. But for the millions of families and small businesses in my home state paying these higher energy prices, this is no laughing matter.
The data are in, and California now ranks 49th out of 50 in the nation for energy affordability. That means nearly every other U.S. state offers its residents lower-cost electricity. The only state with more expensive electricity is Hawaii, which as a chain of islands has unique geographical challenges to energy production that are simply not factors in the lower forty-eight.
California’s residential electricity price was a shocking 35.03 cents per kilowatt hour back in May of this year. Compare that to Idaho (11.88 cents), Louisiana (13.15 cents), or Ohio (17.11 cents). An average home will consume about 10,500 kilowatt hours of electricity per year, so that disparity adds up quickly. For middle-class families already grappling with higher housing, food, and fuel prices, the pain is real.
As a California native, it is tragic to see how Sacramento has so utterly mismanaged our state’s world-renowned natural resources. California is blessed with abundant sun, wind, water, and natural gas reserves in spades, yet our residents and businesses are paying almost triple what consumers in other states are charged.
This is no accident; it is a policy choice decades in the making. Sacramento’s endless layering of taxes, carbon pricing schemes, and burdensome regulations has driven up costs and driven out affordable energy options. Excessive taxes alone tack significant dollars onto every household’s monthly bill.