If we can’t cut costs by running on pure renewables because we need to “make up for lost profits”, this whole green plan will never work. Will we pay oil companies for lost profit from EVs?
Just make usage below some threshold free and keep the same rates (or raise them) for high users. Simple and fair.
The whole point is to obfuscate prices and subsidies so the ~50th to ~90th percentile income earners (the young, productive work force) don't get uppity.
If the goal was to simply help the poor, then the government simply would have given them cash. But the goal was to "help" them (or at least say you did), but also mitigate the burden from the most influential (older people/richest people).
I also love California - it's beautiful here, and the people are generally wonderful. But our state government, despite claiming to be blue, is pretty damned conservative across the board. Corporations first, then - if we still have time - the people.