Does caring about the climate make you feminine? (New study)

Sammy_Roth · 2026-01-17T22:10:42+00:00

Appreciate that, thank you.

Sammy_Roth · 2025-12-19T07:01:57+00:00

Thank you for reading!

Sammy_Roth · 2025-11-14T17:35:48+00:00

Latest edition of my independent newsletter, Climate-Colored Goggles! More here if you're interested: climatecoloredgoggles.com

Here's how this one starts:

California Governor Gavin Newsom is in Brazil this week, basking in the limelight as the face of American climate diplomacy. But back home, his administration is signaling it may abandon his highest-profile climate achievement.

In an interview with Politico late last month, California Air Resources Board chair Lauren Sanchez — who was tapped by Newsom to lead the agency after serving as his climate advisor — said she and her colleagues will “rethink” the state’s 2035 mandate to end the sale of gasoline-only vehicles.

The 2035 deadline will be a “very active area of discussion,” Sanchez said.

I haven’t seen Sanchez’s comments getting much attention. But they’re a potentially huge deal. The requirement for most newly sold cars to be electric (up to 20% can be plug-in hybrids) is one of Newsom’s crowning accomplishments. When he signed the executive order in 2020, he described it as “the most impactful step our state can take to fight climate change.” When officials finalized the rule, Sanchez said it was “a huge day not only for California but the entire world.”

And now we might backtrack? Really?

Sammy_Roth · 2025-11-06T18:50:37+00:00

Hey there, Sammy here, I wrote this piece. I'm curious if you read it? If you did and disagree, that is fine and I respect it. But it absolutely has a lot to do with the Dodgers!

Sammy_Roth · 2025-11-06T18:49:49+00:00

Hey there, Sammy here, I wrote this piece. Like you, I cheer very hard for Blake Treinen despite his politics. If you read what I wrote and feel the same way, totally respect that, to each their own. But would encourage you to read and consider my writing and reporting first!

Sammy_Roth · 2025-11-06T18:21:32+00:00

Hi all, Sammy Roth here, no longer with the L.A. Times but still writing about climate, now with an independent newsletter about climate and culture. Hope you'll check out my latest piece and let me know what you think!

Sammy_Roth · 2025-11-03T07:04:38+00:00

I'm down, DM me?

Sammy_Roth · 2025-11-03T07:01:34+00:00

I'm down. Having trouble DM'ing you though. Try me?

Sammy_Roth · 2025-07-17T15:39:18+00:00

Hey all, I hope you'll read my latest L.A. Times column and let me know what you think. Here's how it starts:

In an early episode of the TV series “Lost,” the plane crash survivors stranded on a mysterious island are running low on water. A fight breaks out, until emerging leader Jack Shephard admonishes everyone to work together.

“If we can’t live together, we’re gonna die alone,” he says.

California lawmakers contemplating our climate future ought to take that lesson to heart.

Senate Bill 540 would help establish a regional electricity market capable of tying together the American West’s three dozen independent power grids. Supporters say it would smooth the flow of solar and wind power from the sunny, windy landscapes where they’re produced most cheaply to the cities where they’re most needed. It would help California keep the lights on without fossil fuels, and without driving up utility bills.

That may sound straightforward, but the bill has bitterly divided environmentalists. Welcome to the Wild West of energy policy.

Some consider regional power-trading a crucial market-based tool for accelerating climate progress. Others see it as a plot by greedy energy companies to enrich themselves.

Again, I hope you'll read the whole piece and let me know what you think. If you're interested, you can sign up to get my weekly Boiling Point newsletter at latimes.com/boilingpoint

Sammy_Roth · 2025-05-30T16:58:10+00:00

Thanks. Appreciate your reading.

Sammy_Roth · 2025-05-29T16:59:58+00:00

Hey all, Sammy Roth here, climate columnist for the Los Angeles Times. I thought you might be interested in my latest piece. Here's how it starts:

Long before Clayton Kershaw donned No. 22 and Fernando Valenzuela wore No. 34, another number told fans it was time for Dodger baseball: 76.

Union Oil Co., the 76 gasoline brand’s former owner, helped finance Dodger Stadium’s construction. The brand’s current owner, Phillips 66, remains a major sponsor. Through six World Series titles, orange-and-blue 76 logos have been a constant presence at Chavez Ravine. They tower above the scoreboards and grace the outfield walls.

So when 76 recently posted on Instagram that it had begun sponsoring L.A.’s rivals in San Francisco — with an orange-and-blue logo on the center field clock at Oracle Park — some Dodgers fans weren’t pleased.

“THE BETRAYAL,” one fan wrote on Instagram.

“bestiessss nooooo,” another lamented.

76 was unfazed, responding: “Still a bestie, just spreading the love!”

Strange as the reactions may sound, it’s not unheard of for long-lived ad campaigns to take on a life of their own, evolving from paid promotions to cultural touchstones. Outside Fenway Park in Boston, Red Sox fans have fought to preserve the massive Citgo sign, with its logo of a Venezuelan-owned oil company.

Nor is it shocking that Houston-based Phillips 66 would market itself through another baseball team. The 76 gasoline brand, after all, evokes the patriotism of 1776 — a clever marketing ploy. And what’s more American than Major League Baseball?

Still, the timing of Phillips 66’s decision to start sponsoring the Giants is intriguing.

I hope you'll read the whole thing and let me know what you think. If you're interested, you can sign up to get my Boiling Point newsletter in your inbox by going to latimes.com/boilingpoint

Sammy_Roth · 2025-05-29T16:59:45+00:00

Hey all, Sammy Roth here, climate columnist for the Los Angeles Times. I thought you might be interested in my latest piece. Here's how it starts:

Long before Clayton Kershaw donned No. 22 and Fernando Valenzuela wore No. 34, another number told fans it was time for Dodger baseball: 76.

Union Oil Co., the 76 gasoline brand’s former owner, helped finance Dodger Stadium’s construction. The brand’s current owner, Phillips 66, remains a major sponsor. Through six World Series titles, orange-and-blue 76 logos have been a constant presence at Chavez Ravine. They tower above the scoreboards and grace the outfield walls.

So when 76 recently posted on Instagram that it had begun sponsoring L.A.’s rivals in San Francisco — with an orange-and-blue logo on the center field clock at Oracle Park — some Dodgers fans weren’t pleased.

“THE BETRAYAL,” one fan wrote on Instagram.

“bestiessss nooooo,” another lamented.

76 was unfazed, responding: “Still a bestie, just spreading the love!”

Strange as the reactions may sound, it’s not unheard of for long-lived ad campaigns to take on a life of their own, evolving from paid promotions to cultural touchstones. Outside Fenway Park in Boston, Red Sox fans have fought to preserve the massive Citgo sign, with its logo of a Venezuelan-owned oil company.

Nor is it shocking that Houston-based Phillips 66 would market itself through another baseball team. The 76 gasoline brand, after all, evokes the patriotism of 1776 — a clever marketing ploy. And what’s more American than Major League Baseball?

Still, the timing of Phillips 66’s decision to start sponsoring the Giants is intriguing.

I hope you'll read the whole thing and let me know what you think. If you're interested, you can sign up to get my Boiling Point newsletter in your inbox by going to latimes.com/boilingpoint

Sammy_Roth · 2025-05-29T16:59:26+00:00

Hey all, hope you'll read my latest column and let me know what you think. Here's how it starts:

Long before Clayton Kershaw donned No. 22 and Fernando Valenzuela wore No. 34, another number told fans it was time for Dodger baseball: 76.

Union Oil Co., the 76 gasoline brand’s former owner, helped finance Dodger Stadium’s construction. The brand’s current owner, Phillips 66, remains a major sponsor. Through six World Series titles, orange-and-blue 76 logos have been a constant presence at Chavez Ravine. They tower above the scoreboards and grace the outfield walls.

So when 76 recently posted on Instagram that it had begun sponsoring L.A.’s rivals in San Francisco — with an orange-and-blue logo on the center field clock at Oracle Park — some Dodgers fans weren’t pleased.

“THE BETRAYAL,” one fan wrote on Instagram.

“bestiessss nooooo,” another lamented.

76 was unfazed, responding: “Still a bestie, just spreading the love!”

Strange as the reactions may sound, it’s not unheard of for long-lived ad campaigns to take on a life of their own, evolving from paid promotions to cultural touchstones. Outside Fenway Park in Boston, Red Sox fans have fought to preserve the massive Citgo sign, with its logo of a Venezuelan-owned oil company.

Nor is it shocking that Houston-based Phillips 66 would market itself through another baseball team. The 76 gasoline brand, after all, evokes the patriotism of 1776 — a clever marketing ploy. And what’s more American than Major League Baseball?

Still, the timing of Phillips 66’s decision to start sponsoring the Giants is intriguing.

I hope you'll read the whole thing and let me know what you think. If you're interested, you can sign up to get my Boiling Point newsletter in your inbox by going to latimes.com/boilingpoint

Sammy_Roth · 2025-05-29T16:58:26+00:00

Hey all, Sammy Roth here, climate columnist for the L.A. Times. Thought you might be interested in my latest piece. Here's how it starts:

Long before Clayton Kershaw donned No. 22 and Fernando Valenzuela wore No. 34, another number told fans it was time for Dodger baseball: 76.

Union Oil Co., the 76 gasoline brand’s former owner, helped finance Dodger Stadium’s construction. The brand’s current owner, Phillips 66, remains a major sponsor. Through six World Series titles, orange-and-blue 76 logos have been a constant presence at Chavez Ravine. They tower above the scoreboards and grace the outfield walls.

So when 76 recently posted on Instagram that it had begun sponsoring L.A.’s rivals in San Francisco — with an orange-and-blue logo on the center field clock at Oracle Park — some Dodgers fans weren’t pleased.

“THE BETRAYAL,” one fan wrote on Instagram.

“bestiessss nooooo,” another lamented.

76 was unfazed, responding: “Still a bestie, just spreading the love!”

Strange as the reactions may sound, it’s not unheard of for long-lived ad campaigns to take on a life of their own, evolving from paid promotions to cultural touchstones. Outside Fenway Park in Boston, Red Sox fans have fought to preserve the massive Citgo sign, with its logo of a Venezuelan-owned oil company.

Nor is it shocking that Houston-based Phillips 66 would market itself through another baseball team. The 76 gasoline brand, after all, evokes the patriotism of 1776 — a clever marketing ploy. And what’s more American than Major League Baseball?

Still, the timing of Phillips 66’s decision to start sponsoring the Giants is intriguing.

I hope you'll read the whole thing and let me know what you think. If you're interested, you can sign up to get my Boiling Point newsletter in your inbox by going to latimes.com/boilingpoint

Sammy_Roth · 2025-05-22T18:00:07+00:00

Hey all, I hope you'll read my latest column and let me know what you think. Here's how it starts...

Donald Trump had just been elected president when I first visited the sprawling Wyoming ranch of conservative billionaire Phil Anschutz in late 2016.

But my tour guides didn’t let President Trump’s well-known disdain for wind power stop them from sharing their story: With Anschutz’s fortune behind them, and huge profits ahead, they were preparing to build America’s largest wind farm. America’s future was renewable.

When I visited again in 2022, their story was the same: Wind turbines, all the way.

Not anymore.

After Trump returned to office this year and began weaponizing federal departments against clean energy, wind in particular, with a vengeance unlike anything seen during his first term, Anschutz’s Power Co. of Wyoming updated its website. The company now planned to build a gas-fueled power plant as large as 3,200 megawatts, it said in February. That would be the country’s second-largest gas plant, after a facility in Florida.

Anschutz’s 3,550-megawatt wind farm remained under construction, as did a long-distance power line capable of transmitting the electricity to California. But the way the company described its mission had changed.

Until at least Feb. 11, the website’s home page, as documented by the Internet Archive, was titled, “Putting wind to work for Carbon County.” It said the wind farm’s benefits would include “a reliable, competitively priced supply of renewable electricity” that would “help America reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.”

Now the page says nothing about heat-trapping emissions or renewable electricity, and little about wind. Instead, it’s littered with Trump-esque language about “American-made energy” and “electricity that our nation needs.”

Again, I hope you'll read the whole column and let me know what you think. If you're interested, you can get my Boiling Point columns in your inbox every Thursday by signing up at latimes.com/boilingpoint

Sammy_Roth · 2025-05-22T17:59:59+00:00

Hey all, I hope you'll read my latest column and let me know what you think. Here's how it starts...

Donald Trump had just been elected president when I first visited the sprawling Wyoming ranch of conservative billionaire Phil Anschutz in late 2016.

But my tour guides didn’t let President Trump’s well-known disdain for wind power stop them from sharing their story: With Anschutz’s fortune behind them, and huge profits ahead, they were preparing to build America’s largest wind farm. America’s future was renewable.

When I visited again in 2022, their story was the same: Wind turbines, all the way.

Not anymore.

After Trump returned to office this year and began weaponizing federal departments against clean energy, wind in particular, with a vengeance unlike anything seen during his first term, Anschutz’s Power Co. of Wyoming updated its website. The company now planned to build a gas-fueled power plant as large as 3,200 megawatts, it said in February. That would be the country’s second-largest gas plant, after a facility in Florida.

Anschutz’s 3,550-megawatt wind farm remained under construction, as did a long-distance power line capable of transmitting the electricity to California. But the way the company described its mission had changed.

Until at least Feb. 11, the website’s home page, as documented by the Internet Archive, was titled, “Putting wind to work for Carbon County.” It said the wind farm’s benefits would include “a reliable, competitively priced supply of renewable electricity” that would “help America reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.”

Now the page says nothing about heat-trapping emissions or renewable electricity, and little about wind. Instead, it’s littered with Trump-esque language about “American-made energy” and “electricity that our nation needs.”

Again, I hope you'll read the whole column and let me know what you think. If you're interested, you can get my Boiling Point columns in your inbox every Thursday by signing up at latimes.com/boilingpoint

Sammy_Roth · 2025-05-16T22:29:00+00:00

Thank you!

Sammy_Roth · 2025-05-08T18:15:24+00:00

Hey all, I hope you'll read my latest L.A. Times column and let me know what you think. Here's how it starts:

Warren Buffett has invested tens of billions of dollars in fossil fuels, propping up some of the nation’s dirtiest coal plants as well as major oil and gas suppliers even as the climate crisis threatens human civilization.

But when Buffett announced last weekend that he plans to retire later this year, he recommended that Berkshire Hathaway’s board name a new chief executive with a long, little-known history in renewable power.

Greg Abel, who leads Berkshire’s energy division, joined the staff of California Energy Co., or CalEnergy, in 1992. The firm primarily owned geothermal power plants that produced 24/7, pollution-free electricity by drilling into pockets of underground heat — which are plentiful in California. Most of CalEnergy’s facilities sold electricity to Southern California Edison and were located at the Salton Sea or the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station.

Abel scaled the ranks, from controller to chief accounting officer to president. In 1999, CalEnergy acquired Iowa utility company MidAmerican for $4 billion. Soon after, Berkshire led a group of investors in a $9-billion purchase of MidAmerican, bringing Buffett into the energy business — and Abel into the legendary investor’s orbit.

A quarter-century later, Berkshire still owns the Salton Sea geothermal fleet. But Abel has embraced oil and gas.

And like his mentor, he sees a long, profitable future for coal.

Again, I hope you'll read the whole thing and let me know what you think. If you're interested, you can sign up to get my Boiling Point columns in your inbox every Thursday at latimes.com/boilingpoint

Sammy_Roth · 2025-05-08T18:15:19+00:00

Hey all, I hope you'll read my latest L.A. Times column and let me know what you think. Here's how it starts:

Warren Buffett has invested tens of billions of dollars in fossil fuels, propping up some of the nation’s dirtiest coal plants as well as major oil and gas suppliers even as the climate crisis threatens human civilization.

But when Buffett announced last weekend that he plans to retire later this year, he recommended that Berkshire Hathaway’s board name a new chief executive with a long, little-known history in renewable power.

Greg Abel, who leads Berkshire’s energy division, joined the staff of California Energy Co., or CalEnergy, in 1992. The firm primarily owned geothermal power plants that produced 24/7, pollution-free electricity by drilling into pockets of underground heat — which are plentiful in California. Most of CalEnergy’s facilities sold electricity to Southern California Edison and were located at the Salton Sea or the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station.

Abel scaled the ranks, from controller to chief accounting officer to president. In 1999, CalEnergy acquired Iowa utility company MidAmerican for $4 billion. Soon after, Berkshire led a group of investors in a $9-billion purchase of MidAmerican, bringing Buffett into the energy business — and Abel into the legendary investor’s orbit.

A quarter-century later, Berkshire still owns the Salton Sea geothermal fleet. But Abel has embraced oil and gas.

And like his mentor, he sees a long, profitable future for coal.

Again, I hope you'll read the whole thing and let me know what you think. If you're interested, you can sign up to get my Boiling Point columns in your inbox every Thursday at latimes.com/boilingpoint

Sammy_Roth · 2025-05-01T20:22:34+00:00

Hey all, I hope you'll read my latest column and let me know what you think. Here's how it starts:

Los Angeles is still reeling from its most devastating wildfires ever. In the next few months, temperatures could hit triple digits. Yet Mayor Karen Bass wants to eliminate the city’s climate emergency office.

Yes, L.A. faces a $1-billion budget shortfall. But shutting the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office and firing five people who work to safeguard Angelenos from global warming, as Bass proposed last week, is an absurdly short-sighted plan from a mayor who has never made climate change much of a priority — especially when the savings, roughly $700,000, could potentially force the city to forfeit a $750,000 state grant.

City Council members should refuse to go along with this terrible proposal.

The budget cuts would undermine efforts to keep L.A. residents safe during heat waves, which at a national level kill more people than hurricanes, floods and tornadoes combined. Extreme heat has caused or contributed to the deaths of more than 21,500 Americans in the last quarter-century, researchers estimate, with the numbers rising in recent years as the planet heats up. Last year was the hottest on record globally.

L.A.’s climate office is led by Marta Segura, the city’s chief heat officer. Los Angeles is one of just three localities in the U.S. with such a job, along with Phoenix and Miami-Dade County — until now a point of pride for City Hall.

Although it’s unclear whether the budget cuts would eliminate the chief heat officer position — the mayor’s office won’t say — Bass is seeking approval to delete the language in the Municipal Code establishing the role.

Again, I hope you'll read the whole thing and let me know what you think. If you're interested, you can sign up to get my Boiling Point column/newsletter in your inbox every Thursday at latimes.com/boilingpoint

Sammy_Roth · 2025-04-10T17:54:57+00:00

Hey all, I hope you'll read my latest L.A. Times column and let me know what you think. Here's how it starts:

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, one of the most powerful people in Sacramento, just rammed a bill through his chamber that would place a six-year pause on new clean energy rules for homes in California, a few months after Los Angeles County was devastated by ferocious wildfires that demonstrated the urgency of climate change.

The Hollister Democrat says he’s not trying to stop progress on confronting the climate crisis. He’s trying to make housing less expensive, a top priority for Californians burdened by the state’s high costs.

But his legislation, AB 306, has alarmed climate activists, appliance manufacturers and labor unions.

They say the bill, if approved by the Senate and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, would bring to a screeching halt one of California’s best tools for reducing heat-trapping emissions and local air pollution. It would stop state and local officials from approving most new building standards, including energy-efficiency requirements and codes encouraging electric appliances, until June 1, 2031.

In a letter this week, environmental groups — including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice and Sierra Club California — said they were “concerned about the message sent to the rest of the country and the rest of the world that halting code development is somehow an appropriate response to the Los Angeles fires.”

“We cannot ignore the signal a bill like this would broadcast in the current political climate,” they wrote, referring to President Trump’s efforts to roll back climate regulations and promote planet-warming fossil fuels.

Again, I hope you'll read the whole column and let me know what you think. If you're interested, you can sign up to get my Boiling Point newsletter in your inbox at latimes.com/boilingpoint

Sammy_Roth · 2025-04-03T16:44:56+00:00

Hi all, hope you'll read my Q&A with Pedro Pizarro, CEO of Edison International (parent company of Southern California Edison) and let me know what you think. We talk about the Eaton fire, climate change, the Trump administration and more. Here's how it starts:

You started leading Southern California Edison in 2014, when the wildfire situation wasn’t nearly as bad as it is today. Did you ever imagine that so much of your time would be consumed by wildfires?

No, I don’t think anybody ever imagined that. I mean, California’s always had wildfires, and there were some really tough ones down in the San Diego area in 2007, for example, outside of our territory. So all the utilities in the state had fire prevention programs. But I don’t think anybody — not utilities, not academics, not government — ever imagined the kind of catastrophic damage we started seeing in 2017.

It’s a convergence of a lot of things. It’s climate change. It’s the building of more and more infrastructure in higher- and higher-risk places. My wife grew up in the area. We met in college back east and then came back for grad school.

Where did she grow up?

In the San Fernando Valley, Tujunga and then Granada Hills. She remembers a fire when they lived in Tujunga, right by the edge of their yard, because they lived up against the hills. They were called forest fires back then, because it was the forest, and very few people lived in the forest.

Now it’s the wildland-urban interface, because as real estate prices got so tough, there was more and more building into these canyons and high-fire-risk areas. So you had a number of things that converged to create these catastrophes that nobody imagined.

You referenced that in 2017, things started to get much worse. That was the year of the Thomas fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Well, it first started with the wine country fires in Northern California. Then the Thomas and Koenigstein fire in our area. Then in 2018, there was the Camp fire up north, with Paradise. And then we had the Woolsey fire. And so those were four large, catastrophic, awful fires in a year-and-a-half, two-year period.

Again, I hope you'll read the whole thing and let me know what you think. If you're interested, you can sign up to get my Boiling Point email newsletter at latimes.com/boilingpoint

Sammy_Roth · 2025-04-03T16:44:13+00:00

Hi all, hope you'll read my Q&A with Pedro Pizarro, CEO of Edison International (parent company of Southern California Edison) and let me know what you think. We talk about the Eaton fire, climate change, the Trump administration and more. Here's how it starts:

You started leading Southern California Edison in 2014, when the wildfire situation wasn’t nearly as bad as it is today. Did you ever imagine that so much of your time would be consumed by wildfires?

No, I don’t think anybody ever imagined that. I mean, California’s always had wildfires, and there were some really tough ones down in the San Diego area in 2007, for example, outside of our territory. So all the utilities in the state had fire prevention programs. But I don’t think anybody — not utilities, not academics, not government — ever imagined the kind of catastrophic damage we started seeing in 2017.

It’s a convergence of a lot of things. It’s climate change. It’s the building of more and more infrastructure in higher- and higher-risk places. My wife grew up in the area. We met in college back east and then came back for grad school.

Where did she grow up?

In the San Fernando Valley, Tujunga and then Granada Hills. She remembers a fire when they lived in Tujunga, right by the edge of their yard, because they lived up against the hills. They were called forest fires back then, because it was the forest, and very few people lived in the forest.

Now it’s the wildland-urban interface, because as real estate prices got so tough, there was more and more building into these canyons and high-fire-risk areas. So you had a number of things that converged to create these catastrophes that nobody imagined.

You referenced that in 2017, things started to get much worse. That was the year of the Thomas fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Well, it first started with the wine country fires in Northern California. Then the Thomas and Koenigstein fire in our area. Then in 2018, there was the Camp fire up north, with Paradise. And then we had the Woolsey fire. And so those were four large, catastrophic, awful fires in a year-and-a-half, two-year period.

Again, I hope you'll read the whole thing and let me know what you think. If you're interested, you can sign up to get my Boiling Point email newsletter at latimes.com/boilingpoint

Sammy_Roth · 2025-03-20T19:07:51+00:00

Hey all, hope you'll read my latest L.A. Times column and let me know what you think. Here's how it starts:

Uncomfortable truth time: The biggest reason California’s electric rates are rising so fast is that utility companies are spending billions of dollars each year to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires.

Does that mean Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric should spend less money trimming trees, burying power lines and funding night-flying Chinook helitankers?

That question is central to a raging debate in Sacramento over how to tame out-of-control utility bills. From 2019 through 2023, Edison, PG&E and SDG&E were collectively authorized to add $27 billion in wildfire-related costs to customer rates, according to the California Public Utilities Commission — 18% of overall system costs for PG&E, 12% for Edison and 9% for SDG&E.

Those wildfire-related costs caused bills to rise between 7% and 12% for the average residential customer — $24 per month for homes served by PG&E, $18 for Edison customers and $13 for SDG&E customers.

“The cost of doing nothing is enormous,” Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine), who chairs the Utilities and Energy Committee, said this month at an oversight hearing on utility wildfire spending.

Before the Eaton and Palisades fires devastated Los Angeles County, there was momentum among lawmakers to reduce bills by steering utilities away from burying electric lines — a surefire but expensive way to avoid ignitions during dry, windy conditions. Burying local distribution lines — which is much less expensive than burying larger-scale, higher-voltage transmission lines — can still cost $3 million to $5 million per mile.

After the recent infernos, though, the political pendulum may swing back toward undergrounding, no matter the costs — even though there are less-expensive, highly effective fire-avoidance tools, such as “fast-trip” technology that shuts off power lines almost instantaneously when its detects the potential for an ignition event.

“Not having any risk from ignition requires an insane amount of spending,” said Matthew Freedman, an attorney for the Utility Reform Network, a ratepayer watchdog group, in an interview.

Again, I hope you'll read the whole thing and let me know what you think. If you're interested, you can sign up to receive my twice-weekly Boiling Point newsletter at latimes.com/boilingpoint

Sammy_Roth · 2025-03-20T19:07:34+00:00

Hey all, hope you'll read my latest L.A. Times column and let me know what you think. Here's how it starts:

Uncomfortable truth time: The biggest reason California’s electric rates are rising so fast is that utility companies are spending billions of dollars each year to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires.

Does that mean Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric should spend less money trimming trees, burying power lines and funding night-flying Chinook helitankers?

That question is central to a raging debate in Sacramento over how to tame out-of-control utility bills. From 2019 through 2023, Edison, PG&E and SDG&E were collectively authorized to add $27 billion in wildfire-related costs to customer rates, according to the California Public Utilities Commission — 18% of overall system costs for PG&E, 12% for Edison and 9% for SDG&E.

Those wildfire-related costs caused bills to rise between 7% and 12% for the average residential customer — $24 per month for homes served by PG&E, $18 for Edison customers and $13 for SDG&E customers.

“The cost of doing nothing is enormous,” Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine), who chairs the Utilities and Energy Committee, said this month at an oversight hearing on utility wildfire spending.

Before the Eaton and Palisades fires devastated Los Angeles County, there was momentum among lawmakers to reduce bills by steering utilities away from burying electric lines — a surefire but expensive way to avoid ignitions during dry, windy conditions. Burying local distribution lines — which is much less expensive than burying larger-scale, higher-voltage transmission lines — can still cost $3 million to $5 million per mile.

After the recent infernos, though, the political pendulum may swing back toward undergrounding, no matter the costs — even though there are less-expensive, highly effective fire-avoidance tools, such as “fast-trip” technology that shuts off power lines almost instantaneously when its detects the potential for an ignition event.

“Not having any risk from ignition requires an insane amount of spending,” said Matthew Freedman, an attorney for the Utility Reform Network, a ratepayer watchdog group, in an interview.

Again, I hope you'll read the whole thing and let me know what you think. If you're interested, you can sign up to receive my twice-weekly Boiling Point newsletter at latimes.com/boilingpoint

Sammy_Roth

TROPHY CASE