People Matter, Not Profits. Re-Volt is Taking on the Monopoly System that Rewards Utility Overspending.

EWG President Ken Cook understands how to fight big business to protect consumers.

‘We’re trying to take the power away from the utilities who have had it for 100 years’

Ken Cook, Environmental Working Group president and co-founder

With more than 30 years leading the nonprofit Environmental Working Group that he co-founded, its President Ken Cook understands how to fight big business to protect consumers. He can spot profiteering and cronyism from a mile away – and as a northern Californian resident paying excessive electricity bills, he knows the three monopoly utilities are stiffing the state.

That’s why Cook is bringing EWG’s heavyweight backing to the Re-Volt.org, to tackle the big electric utilities and end the pattern of constant electricity rate and bill hikes.

“Environmental Working Group has taken on Big Oil, Big Food, Big Pesticide Companies, Big Agriculture, and now we’re taking on Big Electric Utilities,” he says.

Cook explains that the goal of Re-Volt.org movement is to take away the power that state’s three investor-owned monopoly utilities have to effectively ram through price increases without regulators stepping in. 

They’ve been able to get away with this because the California Public Utilities Commission, or CPUC, which should be standing up for consumers facing the second-highest electricity bills in the U.S., behind only Hawaii, is instead bending over backwards for the very companies that it’s supposed to regulate.

Whatever name it’s given -- regulatory capture, corporate cronyism, a rubber stamp for the utilities -- that’s what the CPUC is doing.

The five-member panel was created to carefully vet plans that utilities submit for both building out their infrastructure and tackling important issues like taking steps to prevent their equipment contributing to California’s ever-worsening wildfires.

Instead, it gives the power companies almost no resistance when it comes to approving their plans, which usually come with hefty price tags that benefit investors but harm consumers, as the costs are passed on through rate spikes and costlier bills.

Democratize energy

“We’re up against big electric utilities like PG&E who want to maximize profit and as they maximize profit they go to the CPUC, the bureaucrats who are supposed to be protecting us and regulating utilities and they’re having their way with these regulators and as a consequence rate increases keep going up,” says Cook.

To achieve that end, Re-Volt.org will be pressuring Gov. Gavin Newsom to take swift, decisive action to embolden the CPUC in standing up to the utilities and telling them enough is enough – that their plans need to change to benefit Californians. 

Cook says the fundamental goal of Re-Volt.org is to democratize energy production and distribution and storage. “We’re trying to take the power away from the utilities who have had it for 100 years, invest it locally in individual homeowners, renters, businesses, farms, school districts,” he says.

As no stranger to sparring with massive corporations, Cook is more than aware that this will be a challenge, and one that requires groups across the state to unite.

“We’re trying to build on the strength of the community organizations, homeowners, nonprofit organizations,” he explains. “We can’t afford to fight this alone, we have to fight it together.” 

Re-Volt.org is bringing Californians together to fight the utilities and bring about beneficial change for consumers.

Despite the scale of the challenge, Cook is optimistic that the campaign can have a valuable impact and help to bring about change within the CPUC, particularly as soaring electricity bills is an issue that crosses party lines and can bring people of all backgrounds together. 

“We want to have electricity that is generated locally, low-cost, we want electricity that protects the planet, all at the same time. These are issues that unite the entire political spectrum,” says Cook.

‘Very stark choice’

Just as the campaigns against Big Oil and other Big Industries required a team effort from community groups and others, the same is true for Re-Volt.org taking on California’s broken system where the Big Utilities call the shots and residents suffer.

“It’s a very stark choice. We’re going to send a message to utilities, to legislators in Sacramento, to the CPUC and to the governor. Things have to change, this is not okay,” says Cook.

TAKE ACTION

Call Governor Newsom

Let him know that we demand action from the CPUC to stop utility corruption.

(916) 445-2841

HERE’S A SCRIPT:

Governor Newsom - Enough is enough. The five commissioners that you appointed to the Public Utilities Commission have sacrificed the interests of millions of Californians to preserve the profits of investor-owned utilities and their shareholders.

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