Thursday, January 30th, 2025
California’s Increasing Energy Bills – Causes, Cures and Climate Consequences
Loretta Lynch, Former President, California Public Utilities Commission
What are the causes of California’s high private utility bills? Exploring the elephant in the room – CAISO’s transmission & procurement costs spiral out of control – while it promotes its pathway to open California’s electricity gate to the coal barbarians.
Loretta M. Lynch is a lawyer, regulatory expert and progressive political activist. At the California PUC, she fought against gouging and manipulation by Enron and other energy sellers throughout the California energy crisis in 2000–2001 and opposed PG&E’s first bankruptcy bailout. She also spearheaded the movement to allow consumers to take their cellphone number with them when they changed phone carriers. One of the first critics of energy deregulation, she remains a strong advocate for keeping prices reasonable and for converting from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
Ms. Lynch has lectured at UC Berkeley’s Goldman Public Policy School and served as a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies. She has served on the boards of several California-based environmental groups and on the board of the California Institute for Integral Studies. Prior to her government service she was a partner at the San Francisco litigation firm, Keker & Van Nest and worked on several state and national political campaigns. She clerked for the Honorable Dorothy Wright Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit. Ms. Lynch is a graduate of Yale Law School and the University of Southern California. Loretta grew up in Independence, Missouri and resides in San Francisco with her husband, Jack.
