June 2026
California’s electricity rates have skyrocketed in recent years, driven primarily by the increasing costs of adapting to catastrophic wildfires and replacing distribution grid infrastructure. The spiraling costs of electricity threaten to undermine the economic case for transitioning away from dirty fuels toward greater electrification of transportation, homes, businesses, and industries.
To address California’s electricity affordability challenge, the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) at UC Berkeley Law released the report Powering Down Prices: Policy Solutions to Lower California’s Electricity Rates. Based on an expert convening to identify actionable solutions to stabilize and reduce customer rates, while still maintaining progress on clean energy and electrification goals, it discusses several potential reforms:
- The California Legislature and Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) could limit the use of single-issue ratemaking mandates and tracking accounts, absent extraordinary circumstances.
- The legislature could increase public and public-private partnership funding of utility capital expenditures.
- The legislature could direct the public utilities commission to consider further reducing return on equity (in whole or in part), including a split return on equity with a lower return on wildfire mitigation plan and utility infrastructure undergrounding capital expenditures.
- State and local governments could increase logistical and financial support for community hardening to protect communities and redirect utility mitigation expenses toward efforts that reduce liability.
- The legislature or leading stakeholders could research and propose longer-term governance reform of the CPUC, including potential measures such as splitting its jurisdiction between energy and other sectors and altering the quasi-judicial processes.
While no single solution exists to California’s electricity affordability crisis, the need to deploy capital investment to build out the infrastructure necessary to meet a growing demand for power is not a new condition. For over a century, regulators have worked to balance the competing interests of safe, reliable utility service at just and reasonable rates. Foundational principles of cost of service ratemaking that govern electric utilities and their regulators offer solutions that can push for better cost controls while maintaining safe and reliable electric service.
Read the full report: Powering Down Prices: Policy Solutions to Lower California’s Electricity Rates
To learn more, register for a free webinar about the report on Tuesday, July 14 from 1pm to 2pm PT, featuring:
Keynote Speaker:
- Senator Josh Becker, CA Sen. District 13
Panelists:
- Martha Guzman Aceves, Former EPA Region 9 Administrator and Former California Public Utilities Commissioner
- Matthew Freedman, Staff Attorney, The Utility Reform Network (TURN)
- Travis Ritchie, Energy and Climate Research Fellow, Center for Law, Energy & the Environment
- Ethan Elkind (Moderator), Director of the Climate Program, Center for Law, Energy & the Environment