New California taxes, Southern California Edison Rate Increases, Smart Meters

By Branson Hunter
April 8, 2012 at 1:26 pm

You’d think during these historic and unprecedented financially troubled times that SoCal Edison and the State would have some impiety for the public, or a smidgin of respect.

It’s all about getting money from your pockets by any means necessary.

California New Transportation Taxes, Fees, levies

The regional transportation plan for Southern California calls for changes in how revenue is raised for road and rail projects. Five new or expanded revenue sources would make up about 40 percent of the $524.7 billion needed for maintenance and improvements..

Southern California transportation needs through 2035. Officials Thursday called for higher gas taxes or a shift to a fee drivers would pay based on how far they drive. Here is how that would impact on the public. If such a fee were imposed, someone who drives 15,000 miles a year would pay $750, compared with $190 in excise taxes over the same distance for a car that gets 30 mpg. With the fee, excise taxes on gasoline would be reduced or eliminated.

The regional transportation plan for Southern California calls for changes in how revenue is raised for road and rail projects. Five new or expanded revenue sources would make up about 40 percent of the $524.7 billion needed for maintenance and improvements. The amounts are estimates.

$25.6 billion: Sales of bonds, backed by existing transportation sales taxes

$16.9 billion: 15-cent increase in per-gallon fuel taxes between 2017 and 2024

$110.3 billion: Another gas tax increases, or a shift to a miles-traveled fee, from 2025 to 2035.

$22.3 billion: Highway tolls from existing and future toll lanes.

$33 billion: State bonds and federal grants for high-speed rail service.

Source: Southern California Association of Governors; InlandPolitics.com, PE TRANSPORTATION: Improvements could hit harder on drivers’ pockets

Franchise Tax Board: Currently, interest rates are three percent, but will increase to four percent at the first of the year.

Bad news for many homeowners: California property owners have not been paying now, but it is  going to be demanded of them by the Franchise Tax Board. It concerns special assessments for vector control, mosquito abatement and water fees that almost everybody pays. But it mainly concerns property subject to Mello-Roos fees, special assessments created in 1982 to fund improvements and infrastructure in newer communities and which are not subject to Proposition 13′s limits on property taxes.

Southern California Edison

Yep. They’re filing another application with the California Public Utilities Commission for approval of new increases in electrical fees, to show up on monthly billings. There is so much mumbo jumbo in hiding the ball that it takes a battery of lawyers and accountants to muddle plain English into something so incomprehensible that it that it is a foreign language from some planet outside our Solar System such that no one understands.

Edison filed an application in March this year for an increase. It’s — are you ready for this – a “platform for facilitating the automatic exchange of customer usage data to authorized third parties.” Okey dokey… I think we all can understand that… if you live on the home Planet of Trralfamadore.

Now don’t forget we all are paying for those so-called Smart Meters with a new assessment. Don’t kid yourself if those things on the outside of your homes are near children or attached to exterior of your kitchen where you or your family spend a lot of time, it’s dirty electricity and dangerous.

I will not have one of those things. At my request, Edison has ‘yellow tagged’ my meter which means do not install a Smart Meter. Call Edison promptly (as they are currently being installed in our area) and opt out. Opting out is something the PUC has provided as an option. If you already have one installed,  Edition [Edison] may have intentionally fooled you by not providing notice that you could opt out before it was installed. One elderly homeowner senior woman in Yucca Valley was actually threatened if she did not allow a Smart Meter to be installed.

Therefore, I’m certain you can have them removed at their expense.

Branson Hunter is a regular contributing author on Cactus Thorns in 29-Palms.

\\\

Editor Notations: Apr 9, 2012

As I searched the Internet for more detailed information on the “electric meter” issue, I found several state government sites; the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) was the most prevalent. The vast majority of the dialogue, text and commentary cites abstract statistical data derived from many “study years” of the past. As Branson Hunter points out in his dialogue, it would take a cadre of scientific accountants and others to muddle through the hundreds of pages of data and still not be able to answer simple questions that we “common consumers” could understand.

Basically, the “old electric meters” were analog devices as opposed to more modern “digital” meters.  Today’s “Smart Meters” are digital. They also do not need a physical person to come onto your property to “read” the meter. These newer meters communicate wirelessly; that is, each meter has in it a “Two-Way Radio”.

I will forward the notion that any person having such a Smart Meter would suffer irreparable physical damage only if you ate the thing. The “radiation” emitted by this two-way radio is so tiny as to consider it near non-existent. You would stand a better chance at winning the Super Lotto three-times in a row than be “injured” by its radiation in your lifetime.

My qualifications? I, now retired, used to have an FCC First Class License for commercial transmitting and receiving devices from TV, MicroWave to Crystal Sets. And, I’ve been a licensed Ham Radio Operator since mid 1967.

MARCH 15, 2012

Proposals for SCE and SDG&E Smart Meter Opt-Out Options

On March 15, 2012, the CPUC issued Proposed Decisions regarding Smart Meter opt-out options for customers of Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E).

• Read the Proposed Decision regarding SCE
• Read the Proposed Decision regarding SDG&E

Under the Proposed Decision for SCE, customers who do not want a wireless Smart Meter installed at their location can retain the meter currently installed at their location or receive an analog meter or a non-analog, non-smart digital meter that had been at the customer’s location prior to the installation of a wireless Smart Meter. Customers choosing to opt-out would be assessed an initial fee of $75 and a monthly charge of $10 thereafter.  A California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE) customer electing the opt-out would be assessed an initial fee of $10 and a monthly charge of $5 thereafter.

UPDATE: See comments below, posted Wed Apr 11, 2012 re “opt-out fees”.

Under the Proposed Decision for SDG&E, customers who do not want a wireless Smart Meter installed at their location can choose to have an analog electric and/or gas meter. Customers choosing to opt-out would be assessed an initial fee of $75 and a monthly charge of $10 thereafter.  A CARE customer electing the opt-out option would be assessed an initial fee of $10 and a monthly charge of $5 thereafter.

The fees for SCE and SDG&E customers are subject to adjustment upon conclusion of a separate phase of this proceeding.

The earliest the Proposed Decisions can come before the CPUC’s Commissioners for a vote is April 19, 2012. If approved by the CPUC, the September 21, 2011, Assigned Commissioner’s Ruling directing SCE and SDG&E to establish a delay list would no longer be in effect and all customers currently on the delay list would be transitioned to a wireless Smart Meter unless they elected to participate in the opt-out option.

JoshuaTreeStar visitors may read a great deal about the CPUCs Smart Meters, and other energy issues, at the following government website: http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/

–BF