Part 1 Here
Response to the Majority Conclusion of the State Select Committee on Red Bluff Electrification. Written by Assemblymember Addison Goldberg (D-Arcata), Ceremonial Chief P. G. Allen (Tolowa Dee-Ni’ Nation), Sup. Thomas “Big Jim” Francois (Trinity County Board), and State Board of Equalization Member Daniel Moran (R-1st District). Agreed in Part as noted by Mayor Tami Lee Donald (Red Bluff). Separate Response to the Majority Conclusion of the State Select Committee on Red Bluff Electrification by Asm. Kenny Singh (R-Yuba City). December 2024.
Response to the Majority Conclusion
The opinion delivered by this Committee is representative of the hold that the entrenched interests of big cities and big business have on this state. We are not united in opinion entirely, but we are united on that, and on this: in its work, this Committee’s decision to abrogate the responsibilities of the State is a shameful chapter in the checkered history of California’s dealings with the interests that have traded off owning the levers of power.
It is known by most every fourth grader that the first owner of California was the Catholic Church through the missions, that the second was the cattle rancheros, the third the big hydraulic miners, the fourth the various incarnations of the Southern Pacific railroad, the fifth the real estate developers, and the sixth the high technologists. It has taken different strengths to defeat them: the rancheros themselves, then the US Army, next the farm revolts against polluted waterways, then Hiram Johnson and his automobile campaign, then CEQA, and the pandemic of 2020. It is well-known how the water utilities have maintained a vice grip on this state, but for the most part they have been well-regulated. The Public Utilities Commission, though, has long failed to do anything to regulate the Electricity suppliers in an appropriate way.
It is reasonable to think that we would have solved that issue when the energy crisis toppled a Governor. We did not. Our representatives failed to institute the kind of regulation which would have prevented the Red Bluff incident. They have, by and large, failed miserably to prevent Pacific Gas and Electric from being able to hold other small towns over a barrel to receive the electricity that they need to survive, and soon they will be emboldened by their successes and try to extract their pound of flesh from larger and larger municipalities. While we do not all agree that publicly-owned utilities would be the solution to this problem, all of us firmly believe that in a situation where the market has no meaningful choice but to allow the creation of a natural monopoly, regulation of that monopoly must be in the interests of the captive customer base. In thi respect the Public Utilities Commission has failed miserably, and the majority has failed in their duty to hold them to account.
(Mayor Donald joins this portion)
Assemblymember Tom Shanahan (the Tall Sycamore of Shasta County) represented big swathes of the North State in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. He was speaking on the floor of the Assembly about the regulation of the lumber interests when he famously said “if this abominable legislation is passed by this august body, the people will rise up in revolt against it from Siskiyou to San Diego, from the Sierras to the Sea.” We expect the same from this report.
The majority is willing to condemn any town in this state to being removed from the map by the act of a private corporation having no ownership interest in any of the land underneath the place. Think, now, what they would have said if this were El Segundo, Mill Valley, Moraga, Malibu, Solana Beach or Carpenteria. Would they have let one of those small cities, cities with populations nearly equal to Red Bluff, wither and die at the hands of its electric utility? Would they have let Los Angeles or Contra Costa or San Diego or San Mateo County lose its seat because of unscrupulous enforcement of contractual strictures? It is hard enough already to live in the small California, governed from a distance and at a remove. It is harder still to live there when the big California, where the seats of power are, decides affirmatively that the small California does not deserve a decent shot at an American life.
We are from Del Norte, Fresno, Humboldt, Tehama, and Trinity, and we represent the people who grow the crops, who raise the cattle, who catch the fish, who fell the lumber, yes, those different occupations at a remove. But we also represent nurses and teachers and children and scholars and technologists and architects and laborers just like you, people who are equals before the law. With apologies to William Jenning Bryan, when the majority tells us that we are suggesting too much disturbance of business to request a fair bargain, we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by your action. The worker employed for wages is as worthy of protection as his corporate employer. The merchant at the general store is as worthy of protection as the suited-up businesspeople of Los Angeles or San Francisco. The farmer and the farmhands who go forth in the morning and toil all day and by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of this state creates wealth, are as worthy of protection as the folk who go into air conditioned offices and summon electric power, or through electric power summon technological feats.
These are not abstract concepts, these are people, and the majority choose to ignore them, and to ignore the remedies that our governmental structure already offers. Ask yourself, citizen of San Francisco or Oakland or San Diego or wherever else: would they be any better to you? Would they be fairer or stronger or more equitable or more just? If you can look into your heart and say they would, why on this beautiful green earth, in this state with all its many absurd bounties and joys and terrors and delights, why would they?
We understand that people have moved on from Red Bluff, that it is in the process of becoming a ghost town, that it will probably not survive. We understand that this committee was the last reasonable shot at a remedy in time to save the town. Reader, we ask you to consider that you have time to save your own, if you remember Red Bluff. The lights may stay off there, but you can keep them bright where you are if you remember its once-shining example.
(Separate Response by Asm. Singh)
There are parts of the general response that I agree with and parts I do not, but instead of saying that in detail I will say this. The majority’s refusal to wield the power of the government in this situation is a fine-enough choice inasmuch as it represents a commitment to limiting the scope of government. But their reasoning is selective, their refusal to consider options is shameful, and their choices represent a failure of the capacity of the state to achieve much of anything. Californians must remember that the government cannot help them, and here it demonstrates that again. The people of Red Bluff who had this happen to them deserved at least assistance with relocation, but we offer them nothing and ask them to be happy about that. That is not fair or reasonable, and I vote no. We spend much more money on much dumber things, and turning on the lights or paying people’s moving expenses wouldn’t have been too far to go if we committed to doing it only one time.
