The notion that the Southern California Gas Company is seeking to raise rates by 13% borders on gross malfeasance and criminal conspiracy.
Yet most of my ire is not directed at SoCalGas but rather toward government institutions like the inept California Public Utilities Commission, the vacuous California governor and much of the Byzantine California State Legislature.
Yes … we can all indeed thank the political swamp that is Sacramento for our ever increasing natural gas, energy and fuel prices. Ever the political demagogue, Gov. Gavin Newsom is demanding a federal investigation into high natural gas prices. The “pretty boy” Left Coast governor needs only to look into a vanity mirror to find his prime culprit responsible for our state’s soaring natural gas prices.
Even on the very best of days, our state climate and energy policies are plainly schizophrenic and always creating much more harm than good. Bureaucrats in agencies like the CPUC, the state legislature and even the governor’s office really need to go back and study some basic concepts about the economic principles of supply and demand.
As long as arrogant and close-minded California bureaucrats, like yourselves, continue to throttle the energy industry with excessive regulations, higher and higher taxes and user fees, denial of permits, with even more red tape on top of that, then natural gas prices will continue to surge.
In the meantime, I urge the CPUC and the rest of California’s state bureaucracies to stop the dogmatic resistance to natural gas and just for once consider that there is a moral case for the use of fossil fuels.
So, due to personal economics I am against raising the price of natural gas here in California. But even more so, I am ardently against bureaucracies like the CPUC throttling the natural gas industry thereby creating havoc and economic distortion to the energy supplies. Your policies, and those of most of California’s elected state politicians, directly result in supply shortages of natural gas which in turn fail to meet the demands of Californians. I find it reprehensible on your part.
The late U.S. president and former California Gov. Ronald Reagan’s witty observation seems especially fitting to this situation bedeviling Californians.
“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it,” he said.
The California State Government, with its maze of top-heavy agencies and obscure commissions, totally exemplifies that timeless quote by “The Great Communicator.”
The CPUC is apparently economically illiterate. Dire predictions about self-inflicted energy shortages in California have been made years ago. It’s time for you all to finally wake up and get a clue.
Rick Reiss
Temecula resident
