WHY UTILITY FINES MEAN SO LITTLE

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2022, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
     “WHY UTILITY FINES MEAN SO LITTLE”

 

        California regulators are in the habit of assessing what look like gigantic fines on the state’s largest public utilities.

But the utilities don’t even blink when forced to fork over nine-figure amounts to pay for their misdeeds.

 

        What the state’s Public Utilities Commission did in February, with two new acting members – one shy of a majority on the five-person commission – shows just why these big companies don’t bat an eye when penalized:

 

        They know they’ll get the money back, and then some, the next time the commission considers a rate increase.

 

        In February, just such an increase went to Pacific Gas & Electric Co., which only two months earlier was assessed a $125 million penalty for its actions that helped cause the 2019 Kincade fire in Sonoma County that sparked massive evacuations and did at least $600 million damage to homes and other property.

 

        So PG&E’s fine came to less than a quarter of the damage it caused.

 

        The amount would hurt or at least sting almost any other company. But PG&E went on as if nothing had changed.

 

        The PUC soon showed why the sanguine attitude of utility executives was right on the money. That’s when the commissioners gave PG&E a 9 percent rate increase to compensate for rising natural gas prices.

 

        If the commission really wanted to hurt PG&E and not merely give the appearance of assessing a penalty, it would have forced the company to foot part of that expense itself, hitting shareholders and executives where it hurts.

 

        Instead, it will be electricity and gas customers who get hurt. The average residential PG&E customer will see an increase of about $14 per month to about $166. Overall, PG&E will get about $974 million more from its customers in the first year this increase is effective. No mechanism was set up for rate reductions when prices drop.

 

        Why would the cost of natural gas affect electric rates? Because most California power is produced in plants burning natural gas fuel.

 

        Southern California Edison customers can expect similar treatment. That company last September was fined slightly more than $500 million for its role in five big fires during 2017 and 2018. Edison also fires generators mostly with natural gas, so its customers, too, can anticipate a compensatory rate increase.

 

        Meanwhile, both big companies are approaching the end of their general rate increase cycles, with PG&E first in line to boost prices again by somewhere around 10 percent or more before year’s end.

 

        That would give the company at least $1.9 billion in added revenue beyond the many billions it was already taking in. And the more transmission lines it builds to bring power from solar thermal farms in California’s deserts to its existing system, the more profits it will add, since utility companies in this state generally get 10 percent profit or more guaranteed for every customer dollar they spend on capital improvements.

 

        All this is very like taxation without representation, for the consequences of non-payment make utility rates feel like taxes. There is only one constituent for the PUC members these days: Gavin Newsom, the governor who has appointed four of them. Newsom has taken tens of millions of dollars over the years in campaign donations from PG&E and its brethren.

 

        By law, Newsom should not have much power over the commission, even if he did appoint its members. That’s because PUC members and judges are the only appointees no governor can fire.

 

        But under Newsom, things work differently. The last two PUC presidents have been former Newsom aides.  One word from him is enough to completely change the commission’s supposedly well-considered policies.

 

        So it was that a word of doubt from the governor caused the PUC to return to the drawing board to redesign a rooftop solar policy change it was on the verge of adopting in January.

 

        This is all sleight of hand favoring the utilities. Regulators fine the companies millions for their misdeeds,  then give them billions in rate increases.

 

        Which makes the fines phony even if they are collected (and some reportedly never are).

 

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     Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net

INSURERS KEEP GOING AFTER DIALYSIS PATIENTS

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 2019, OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
    “INSURERS KEEP GOING AFTER DIALYSIS PATIENTS”

          The relief California’s 66,000 kidney dialysis patients felt last fall after two serious threats to their survival were beaten back has turned out to be short-lived.

          Not only are labor unions contemplating a second attempt to pass something like last year’s failed Proposition 8, but there’s also an attempt to revive a legislative proposal that could throw thousands of patients who require dialysis to stay alive off the expensive treatment.

          Because labor interests like the Service Employees International Union, which sponsored Proposition 8, lost by a solid 62-38 percent margin last year, that possible revival looks like the less threatening of this dangerous pair.

          Proposition 8 aimed to put more union workers in hundreds of dialysis clinics, where patients with end-stage kidney disease sit for at least three hours, three times a week while their blood runs through filtering machines that cleanse it of toxins normally removed by healthy kidneys. It would have forced closure of an unknown number of clinics by demanding they withhold payment from key workers and officials.

          (Full disclosure: The writer underwent six months of dialysis before receiving a kidney transplant.)

          The other threat last year came from a legislative bill carried by Democratic state Sen. Connie Leyva of San Bernardino County. Her measure could have thrown dialysis patients off their health insurance plans if they accept third-party aid in paying premiums.

          For some dialysis patients, such aid is critically important. Many are so exhausted and weakened by the constant blood interchanges they endure that they cannot work, living on fixed disability payments and other forms of welfare. Premium assistance can be the means for staying alive.

          But Leyva’s bill, known as SB1156, quickly moved through several legislative committees, eventually passing handily in part due to support from unions that saw it as somewhat similar in impact to their ballot initiative, which eventually failed. Fortunately for dialysis patients, then-Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed that bill.

          But it is back, a near clone sponsored this time by Democratic Assemblyman Jim Wood of Healdsburg, whose district includes much of the state’s North Coast. It would require organizations providing charitable financial aid to dialysis patients to disclose their identities to insurance companies. This bill is part of a national effort by insurers to force such patients off their books and onto public coverage like Medi-Cal. Essentially, the insurance companies seek to transfer their expense to taxpayers.

          Dialysis does cost a lot, often running more than $6,000 per month and sometimes above $50,000. So the new measure can have two major effects: Limiting some people’s ability to get dialysis and increasing insurance company profits.

          No one yet knows how Wood’s new bill, known this time as AB 290, will eventually fare. But there are few new faces in the Legislature, and there’s little new about the identity of their financial backers. Which will likely place the fate of thousands of dialysis patients in the hands of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has said nothing about this bill.

          There are ironies here. One comes in the brief bio posted on Woods’ official website, where the longtime dentist brags that he’s “been successful in passing legislation to protect and expand (access to) medical, dental and mental health care…”

          His new bill would have the opposite effect. Because it allows insurance companies to reimburse dialysis clinics at rates below the cost of providing care, some clinics might close or refuse care to patients with premium assistance.

          Many of those patients are helped now by the American Kidney Fund (AKF), financed in part by large dialysis companies that run the majority of California clinics. The AKF gives premium help to about 74,000 dialysis patients in all 50 states, including almost 4,000 in California.

          It called last year’s SB 1156 “a thinly veiled attempt by insurers to prevent kidney patients from being able to choose their own insurance plan, if they accept charitable premium assistance.”

          The AKF claimed that bill aimed to let insurance companies rid themselves of “sicker and more costly patients.”

          So at least some dialysis patients are once again back on notice that their needed care might not last long. That’s not a good thing for folks whose health is already seriously compromised.

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

UC ANTI-SEMITISM: NOW IT’S UP TO CAMPUS CHIEFS

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2016 OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

     “UC ANTI-SEMITISM: NOW IT’S UP TO CAMPUS CHIEFS”

          When they finally acted after months of dithering about increasingly frequent acts of anti-Semitism on their campuses, there was little doubt the University of California’s Board of Regents at long last did the right thing.

          Now action will be up to university administrators, who usually have done nothing in response to overtly anti-Jewish acts on campus.

          The regents struck a middle ground by banning frankly anti-Semitic acts and rhetoric, but left the door open for protesting Israel’s government policies, while also forbidding “anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism.”

          That last clause was especially needed after new national research showed campuses with the greatest number of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist protests also had the highest numbers of plain old anti-Semitic acts, like tagging swastikas onto Jewish fraternities or religious buildings and outright bigotry toward Jewish students. The study was conducted for the Amcha Initiative, which fights campus anti-Semitism.

          Regent Norman Pattiz, a member of the National Radio Hall of Fame who inserted the words “anti-Semitic forms of” into the university’s new policy when objections arose to a flat ban on anti-Zionistic acts and words, told a reporter “This is just Jews standing up for ourselves during a period where instances of anti-Semitism continue to be reported on college campuses.”

          Pattiz is right to imply that UC is far from alone in the trend toward anti-Jewish on-campus behavior. Northwestern University rated as the campus with the most such incidents. But four UC branches were among the top ten, with Berkeley second.

          One reason for this has been inaction by campus administrators. Now that the Regents who are their supposed bosses have declared that “Anti-Semitism…and other forms of discrimination have no place at the University of California,” no one knows what chancellors and deans who actually run the campuses will do. The same for UC President Janet Napolitano, who delayed the anti-Semitism resolution for months.

          Suggesting administrators might not take the Regents’ resolution seriously was their lack of immediate reaction to it. Contrast, for example, the lack of significant action by university officials on the anti-Semitism measure with what they’re doing about sexual harassment, also a big problem at UC, where one alleged case last month led to the firing of a top Berkeley assistant basketball coach.

          “Sexual violence is a serious crime that we will never tolerate,” said Napolitano. “We aim to be the national leader in combating sexual violence on campus.”

          She then created a task force to prevent sex offences on her system’s 10 campuses. She also ordered monthly personal reports from Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks.

          She did nothing like that in response to the new anti-Semitism policy, the most explicit such statement from any college governing board in America. So the Regents acted to fill the action vacuum. Last fall, they scuttled Napolitono’s earlier, toothless proposed anti-intolerance policy, setting the scene for the tougher one just adopted.

          This time the Regents set themselves up in a monitoring role normally delegated to campus officials, demanding regular reports from each campus on actions taken to prevent or respond to anti-Semitic outbreaks.

          Pattiz said the governing board deliberately left the phrase “anti-Semitism” undefined “so that campuses can handle cases as they (see) fit.” There’s also no list of quid-pro-quos, no prescription for responding in specific ways to particular acts.

          Napolitano offered no explanation on why she didn’t act similarly to her move against sexual harassment, when it’s plain UC should tolerate neither that nor anti-Semitism.

          Pattiz, said he has no problem with debates about what Zionism is or should be, but that UC should not put up with shouted epithets like “Zionist pigs” or exhortations to send all Zionists to gas chambers, both of which are redolent of classic anti-Semitic comments and actions. Both are among chants and graffiti seen and heard on UC campuses.

          Regents, then, were making it plain they’ve had enough inaction. They appear to be hinting to administrators that if they don’t act, someone might take actions affecting them, even including campus chancellors.

          All of which puts the ball squarely in the court of chancellors and deans who have wrung their hands about campus anti-Semitism while doing little. Now they know they’ll have to act or be held responsible, even if it wasn’t Napolitano telling them this, as she plainly could and should do.

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.

GOP REVIVIAL WILL TAKE BIG ORANGE COUNTY CHANGE

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 2013, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“GOP REVIVIAL WILL TAKE BIG ORANGE COUNTY CHANGE”

For more than half a century, the Election Night fate of California Republican candidates could be foretold early in the vote count: If a Republican emerged from Orange County with a lead of 250,000 or more votes, he or she would almost always win statewide office.

          That’s what it took to overcome the big majorities Democrats could count on in places like San Francisco and Alameda County.

          But as things now stand, it’s virtually impossible for any Republican to win the OC by that large a margin. At the same time, where the state’s biggest county, Los Angeles, was once a tossup with voters inside the LA city limits going strongly Democratic and suburbanites voting Republican, that’s changed, too. Democrats now hold all but a few state elective offices in Los Angeles County, both inside and outside the eponymous city limits.

          But it’s in Orange County that Republican problems are most obvious. The GOP held an 18 percentage-point voter registration lead over Democrats as recently as 2001; today that edge has slipped to just 10 percent. Registered Republicans still outnumber Democrats in the OC, but only by 583,625 to 442,378, according to the secretary of state (http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ror/ror-pages/ror-odd-year-2013/county.pdf). That’s a margin of about 140,000 – a far cry from that vital 250,000-vote threshold.

          With about one-fourth of the county’s voters refusing to choose a party label, Republicans would need a near sweep of the independent vote to reach their once commonly attainable margin.

          This matters to every Californian, not only because a narrow victory in an Orange County district was a key factor in giving Democrats their current two-thirds supermajority in the state Assembly, but because it’s in the interest of everyone to have competitive political races. Without that, there is little pressure on the dominant Democrats to compromise on anything, little motive for them to resist the impulse to create new program after new program, each costing tax dollars.

          Yes, Gov. Jerry Brown might act as a check on this proclivity – he has, so far – but he won’t be governor forever and other Democratic prospects from Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom to wealthy civil rights lawyer Molly Munger have never evinced the skinflint side Brown can display.

          Every Republican politician in California admits the party is on life support, with virtually no chance today in districts outside a few in the inland parts of the state, including the Central Valley and several parts of the Inland Empire, coastal Orange County and northern San Diego County.

          Even some of those longtime strongholds are threatened today. Example: San Diego, long a GOP bastion that’s home to many thousands of conservative-leaning military retirees, now has a Democratic mayor.

          It is mostly Latino voters that have transformed the California political map, but even running an attractive, moderate Latino Republican is often not enough to change things. The best example of this may be what happened to Abel Maldonado in a Santa Barbara County congressional district last fall. Maldonado, a former appointive lieutenant governor and father of the state’s “top two” primary election system, ran a strong campaign against incumbent Democrat Lois Capps, even seeming to win their debates. But he still lost by 8 percent as the majority of independent voters in his district spurned him.

          It would take a sea-change in the state GOP’s attitude toward illegal immigration to change Latino feelings about the party’s label, negatively cemented in 1994 by then-Gov. Pete Wilson’s strong support for the anti-illegal immigrant Proposition 187 and the draconian restrictions it sought to place on the undocumented. The measure went so far as to deny emergency room care to the sick and injured if they lacked proper papers.

          It was no accident when more than 2.5 million Latinos became naturalized citizens in the three years after that, almost all registering as Democrats.

          It was also no coincidence that the late ‘90s saw congressional seats covering most of inland, northern Orange County start to go Democratic on a regular basis. First in that trend was the narrow victory of Democratic Latina Loretta Sanchez over Republican veteran Bob Dornan in 1996.

          That’s emblematic of what has happened in most of the state, which once had a nearly even split in its congressional delegation, but now sees Democrats dominating by a lopsided 38-15 count.

          The bottom line: To recover, Republicans must do something (immigration amnesty beyond green cards for the highly educated would be a start) to reverse their miserable image among Latinos. And they need to start in their Orange County heartland.

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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

TIME FOR BROWN, DEMS TO SAY YES TO SOME GOP IDEAS

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2011, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“TIME FOR BROWN, DEMS TO SAY YES TO SOME GOP IDEAS”

For years, Democrats have called California Republicans the “Party of No” because almost all they ever did was say “no, no, no” to Democratic budget plans and even those of former GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But suddenly this spring, two Republican state senators presented a seven-page list of 53 things they want done before they’ll help solve the budget quandary. Instantly, Brown and the Democrats said “no, no, no” and a couple of days later, Brown loudly announced that he’s finished negotiating with the GOP.

Brown complained the list was too long, asking the two senators, GOP leader Bob Dutton of San Bernardino County and Bob Huff of Diamond Bar, to be “reasonable and focus on what is possible, on issues we’ve been talking about…It’s not time for diversions.”

But maybe now is a time to reconsider and talk about some items the two Republicans brought to the table. It’s also sensible to view the GOP proposals as items for negotiation, a way for the minority party’s members to vote for a solution but still be able to tell their base voters they’ve been fiscally responsible.

In fact, if they’re smart and really interested in problem-solving, Brown and other Democrats will give strong consideration to some points in the Dutton-Huff agenda. For there are many that don’t appear to conflict with Democratic principles and could introduce greater fiscal responsibility to state government. Some examples:

 Republicans suggest basing pensions on the highest five years of a public employee’s pay, rather the three which Democrats seek to retain.

 Don’t allow double-dipping, as when some (not many) full-time employees draw both salary and a pension from the same publicly-funded employer.

 Restore $10 million of state funding for Williamson Act contracts which guarantee that affected farmland will not be developed for at least 20 years, thus preserving open space and helping mitigate global warming.

 Move next year’s presidential primary election to March, where it has often been before, rather than holding it in June. A June date would give California Republicans almost no voice in picking their party’s nominee. Why not allow them that, and also move up the rest of the state’s primary voting to a consolidated March date?

These are just some of the items in the GOP wish list to which
Brown and his fellow Democrats could easily accede without hurting themselves or their backers a bit.

In return, of course, the Democrats should expect Republicans to allow a special election vote this year on extending three tax increases passed as part of a budget compromise in February 2009. Those hikes to sales, vehicle and income taxes have cost the average California family about $28 per month. Brown needs the extension to avoid designing an all-cuts solution to the current budget deficit, which stands at a bit more than $10 billion even after Democrats passed a slew of budget bills last month chopping $14 billion from previous spending.

Agreeing to some of the Republican agenda, of course, doesn’t mean caving in to all of it. One thing Brown and his fellow Democrats would be foolish to go along with is gutting the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which since the early 1970s has demanded thorough environmental studies before major development projects can go forward.

Republicans and the big-business lobby consistently claim that law costs the state thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in tax revenues. It may have cost some jobs -- not many -- and it definitely has delayed some developments. But it has also spared the state’s rivers from massive pollution and is one major reason air quality is far better today almost everywhere in California than it was 30 years ago.

But at the same time, some GOP items related to CEQA make sense. Why not, as Republicans suggest, dispense with most environmental studies when retrofitting abandoned “big box” stores, like the derelict former Gottshalk’s facilities in some Central Valley cities? Why not make it easier to get permits for urban in-fill building than for projects in areas never previously developed?

The bottom line: Some of the Republican agenda makes sense, even if as a whole it’s probably too extremely laissez faire and too tough on public employees to be considered either fair or environmentally sound.

By presenting the list, Republicans said they’re ready to negotiate. Brown and the Democratic legislative majority would be wise to reciprocate, and begin by cherry picking the wisest items from the GOP list.

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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net