A Califordable Plan to Cut Electric Bills by Ending Democrat Climate Mandates and the Corrupt PG&E Monopoly

The Problem

Californians pay the highest electric bills in the country besides Hawaii, yet still face blackouts, wildfire risk, and unreliable service. For families and small businesses, electricity has become another cost that keeps climbing no matter what they do.

This is not the result of market forces or unavoidable conditions. It is the result of political decisions made under Democrat one-party rule that impose ideological ‘climate’ mandates and protect a corrupt, politically favored monopoly. Families are paying more not because the system is ‘broken’, but because it was designed this way by Democrats.

How California Democrats Caused the Problem

Pacific Gas and Electric Company operates as a government-protected monopoly. Customers do not get to choose another provider. Sacramento does. That monopoly structure insulates PG&E from real competition and removes the normal pressure to control costs and improve performance.

At the same time, California Democrats layered on climate mandates that dictate which energy sources utilities can use and how the grid must be built and operated. These mandates force utilities toward more expensive, less reliable energy choices and drive massive, wasteful infrastructure spending. Those costs are then passed directly onto families and small businesses through higher rates.

The result is a system where extreme climate mandates and corrupt monopoly protection combine to push costs up while reliability goes down:

• Monopoly power is protected
• Costs are routinely shifted onto ratepayers
• Reliability is sacrificed to ideology
• Families pay more for power and get less in return

This is not a ‘market failure.’ It is a corrupt political and ideological racket designed and defended by California Democrats.

Why the Current Approach Is Failing

The California Public Utilities Commission is supposed to protect ratepayers and serve as a check on runaway utility spending. In practice, it waves through spending and pushes  extreme ‘climate’ mandates that drive up costs. Rather than acting as an advocate for families and small businesses, the system treats higher spending as the default solution to every problem.

The Democrat approach assumes that forcing specific technologies and restricting reliable, affordable natural gas for electricity generation will somehow produce cheaper, cleaner, more reliable power over time. It has not. Instead, Californians are told to accept higher bills now in exchange for promised benefits that never seem to arrive.

Despite years of mandates and billions in approved spending:

• Power shutoffs continue
• Fire risk remains
• Bills keep rising

Families are forced to finance failure.

Corruption at the Heart of the System

One reason Democrats refuse to take action on the PG&E Nightmare is plain corruption. Gavin Newsom and other Democrat politicians have received tens of millions of dollars in donations from PG&E.

Since 2000, PG&E and its affiliated entities have given over $36 million into California politics, according to state campaign finance records. That money flows to candidates, legislative leadership PACs, party committees, and statewide ballot campaigns that shape energy policy and utility regulation.

In the 2024 election cycle alone, PG&E and its affiliates gave $775,000 to ballot committees backed by Gavin Newsom. PG&E money has also flowed into Newsom’s personal and political orbit outside of campaign finance. Media reporting has documented that PG&E’s philanthropic arm donated more than $350,000 to the nonprofit run by Newsom’s wife.

PG&E has also made substantial “behested payments.” Behested payments are donations made to a government agency or charity at the request of an elected government official. These payments are uncapped and are directed by the very officials who grant PG&E their monopoly in the first place. In 2025 alone, PG&E has disclosed more than $300,000 in behested payments, according to the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

This is not incidental. The monopoly utility that benefits from Sacramento’s energy mandates and monopoly protection is also a major funder of the political system that writes those mandates, appoints the regulators, and approves the rate hikes.

Steve’s Plan

This plan sets a clear direction and focuses on actions a governor can lead, while pushing structural reform where needed. The goal is simple: restore affordability and reliability by repealing mandates that drive up costs and ending monopoly protection.

• Repeal climate mandates that drive up electricity costs.
  California’s energy policy should stop mandating specific technologies and outcomes that raise bills and undermine reliability. Through appointments and Executive Orders to relevant regulatory bodies and state agencies, Steve will repeal climate mandates that force utilities into costly energy choices and wasteful spending, including rules that exclude reliable low-emissions power like large hydro from being counted as clean energy.
• Break up PG&E’s monopoly.
  California should not be locked into a single, state-protected monopoly utility. Steve will move California away from PG&E’s monopoly model and toward locally owned utilities and decentralized energy that put communities back in control.
• Expand locally owned utilities and decentralized energy.
  Communities should have more freedom to generate and manage their own power rather than being locked into a single monopoly provider. Steve will work to expand locally owned utilities and decentralized energy so communities can increase resilience and reduce dependence on PG&E.

This is not about abstract energy theory. It is about the bills families and small businesses open every month and the reliability they depend on every day. Ending PG&E’s monopoly model and repealing the climate mandates that drive up costs are necessary steps to make electricity affordable and dependable again. Californians deserve power that works and power they can afford.