Latest / Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Who Pays for Wildfire Prevention? If You’re in California, You Do — in Your Power Bill.
California now has the most expensive electricity in the continental United States. It also has expensive housing … and an increasingly broken home insurance market.
Are the three phenomena linked? They might be. Due to a peculiarity in the state’s constitution, electricity utilities are incentivized to pay for a huge amount of wildfire prevention, above and beyond what would be seen as economically reasonable in another state. Fixing that constitutional peculiarity could help bring down energy costs and heal the home insurance market, but it will be complicated — and a number of policies…
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