dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

CPUC SHOULD NOT BECOME YET ANOTHER TAX AGENCY

By Mike Gatto





“Up and down the state, Californians have lingering concerns about the California Public Utilities Commission. In recent memory, catastrophic wildfires caused in part by California Public Utilities Commission inspection failures, a utility bankruptcy and rolling blackouts have added to our long-term memories about a deadly gas explosion, a gas-well failure that rendered thousands homeless, and the potentially corrupt relationships between senior California Public Utilities Commission officials and the industries they are supposed to regulate. Indeed, it was not long ago that dozens of lawmakers wanted to disband the agency entirely.

Now — unless reversed by the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom — a far-reaching law sneaked into a budget trailer bill in 2022 could give the California Public Utilities Commission access to the personal income data of tens of millions of Californians. This raises serious privacy and security concerns, and could turn the California Public Utilities Commission into a de facto second taxing agency. What could possibly go wrong?

Let’s start with the obvious. Forcing Californians to share their financial and earnings data with an agency whose main duties are utility rate-making and safety regulation is a square peg in a round hole. Even California agencies that are regularly entrusted with sensitive data do not have a great history with safeguarding it. A pattern of serious data breaches make Californians rightly hesitant to entrust a scandal-plagued utility agency with our most precious personal data. Moreover, given the lack of love Californians have towards the Internal Revenue Service and its California equivalent, the Franchise Tax Board, it is no wonder that many loathe the idea of empowering another state agency to impose fees for electricity use based on income, and presumably to penalize Californians in case of a reporting error.

The privacy concerns don’t stop with data breaches, though. The California Public Utilities Commission is a public agency, and the records of who is paying what will be public records too, subject to prying eyes. It is also unclear whether the major utilities will be able to access their customer’s income data. Want even more sales calls to install improvements at your home? Just imagine what mischief marketers would make if they had access to government-vetted income data, tied to your utility bill.

And crucially, Californians are regularly asked to use utility bills for everything from proving our residence to opening a bank account to registering for school. Imagine the privacy violation when a nosy bureaucrat at another government agency examines your bill, and based on the surcharge you paid, obtains a pretty accurate range of what you made last year. This could cause major jealousy, or major humiliation. This proposal also expands the size of government in a way that makes even mainstream Democrats squirm. It just feels wrong to turn a utility regulator into for all intents and purposes another tax agency with access to income and financial data. It’s also hard to fathom how this proposal doesn’t morph into additional taxes and fees down the line, as such expansions of governmental power and taxation authority always seem to do.

These privacy, security and big government/big data concerns should be added to the long list of existing energy-related issues with the proposal. Chief among them is the totally valid concern that these charges will disincentivize conservation. If middle-class Californians get charged an unavoidable added monthly flat fee to their utility bills, it makes our power usage almost moot.

Low-income Californians can already easily apply for utility-rate discounts, obtaining everything from $20 monthly gas bills to free cellphones and usage. So these rate increases and tax increases are simply not necessary. And giving the California Public Utilities Commission access to our sensitive personal data should be a nonstarter.

It’s not too late to stop this overreaching proposal. Post about it on social media; complain to your state representative; but by all means, don’t stop watching our government, lest ill-conceived proposals like this continue to mar governance in the Golden State.

Gatto, a Democrat, represented Burbank, Glendale and Los Angeles for seven years in the state Legislature, where he chaired the Utilities and Commerce, Privacy and Consumer Protection, and Appropriations Committees. He lives in Los Angeles.