Low-income residents’ “pain at the pump” will only worsen under 100% renewable energy

Californians already pay the highest gas prices in the nation, and low-income residents (who often have longer commutes) are disproportionately shortchanged. What’s more, our state’s stringent “green” energy policies will effect more electricity importation. This will further drive up gas costs, says energy consultant Ronald Stein. Why aren’t social justice supporters fighting rampant socioeconomic discrimination at the pump?

Last year alone the Energy Information Agency (EIA) reported that California was unable to generate enough electricity in-state and imported up to 29 percent of its electricity to meet its demands. The good news is that we have had no brown outs. The bad news is that imported electricity comes at higher costs and are being borne by residents and businesses alike. Without the huge land requirements for industrial wind and industrial solar renewable electricity, the need to import more will escalate every year, as well as the cost for that electricity.

California’s climate policies guarantee that housing, electricity prices, and transportation will continue to rise, while ‘gateway’ jobs to the middle class for those without college degrees, such as manufacturing and logistics, will continue to locate in other states.

It is unconscionable that time after time, California continually imposes new costs and restrictions on home-building which make housing even more expensive, which harms working families and minority communities the most. One would think that the same folks that are demonstrating their rebellion with protests nationwide and worldwide about racial injustices by police departments following the “live lynching” of George Floyd would be the same folks being racially biased with more costs for energy that they cannot afford and would culminate that pain into protests of  “enough is enough” and seek changes to lower the costs of energy for the poor.

This article originally appeared in Fox & Hounds Daily. Read the whole thing here.

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