Two weeks ago, I dropped my 3-year-olds off at school for the first time. It was an exciting day – until I found out that the California state Assembly is planning an important program designed to keep kids like me in the classroom.
CalSHAPEor the California School Healthy Air, Plumbing, and Efficiency Program, helping schools improve air quality and cooling. Many of these systems are dangerous ancient or even disappear entirely in schools across the country. Upgrades help protect children from very hot, indoor air pollution, fire smoke and virus such as COVID. But despite the worsening effects of climate change, the Assembly has come up with plan that would eliminate what little funding we have to make schools safer – under the pretense of lowering California’s utility bills.
Opponents of Assembly Bill 3121, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, say that, on average, it gives customers electricity One-time credit for just over $20 on a single bill. That cannot sacrifice the health of students.
So why is this plan even on the table? Some MPs complained about high electricity prices. But this is a cheap political gimmick, not a solution.
Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine), who sponsored the bill, appears to be buying the utility’s false claim that small programs such as CalSHAPE are driving rising electricity costs. This is a distraction, intended to divert the attention of lawmakers from real issues, such as excessive utility profits.
In 2023, PG&E is on board $2.2 billion in profit, an increase of 25% from 2022. In the second quarter of 2024, the profit is the same 28% higher from a year before. The company has also announced plans to spend $900 million to purchase the relocated headquarters after completing the bankruptcy reorganization. Last year, San Diego Gas & Electric brought it almost $1 billion in profit. And Edison International – the parent company of Southern California Edison – reported $1.2 billion in net income in 2023, meh double the previous year. All the while California is struggling to pay its electricity bills.
Last year’s utility profits were almost 20 times more than CalSHAPE’s remaining funds. But the Assembly wants to cut this healthy school program to offer a one-time bill credit that is almost invisible instead of exploring other ideas such as using low-cost financing to reduce the profits of infrastructure investment utilities – a proposal that abandoned after the opposition of utility companies.
CalSHAPE is not currently paying anyone money – the funds are collected from past utility bills. California schools have submitted application for most of $250 million left in the program. Legislators should allow schools to have the money appropriated for them, instead of taking it back at the last minute.
The Santa Barbara Unified School District, where my children will start kindergarten in a few years, is hoping for $6 million in critical upgrades through CalSHAPE. And Tustin Unified, which Petrie-Norris represents, stands to lose more than $4 million in potential school funding if this plan passes.
Some think schools that have applied will still get funding if this bill becomes law, but the language is unclear. And if applicants get the dollars they deserve, it makes eliminating the program even more of a gimmick, resulting, by best guess, in about $3 back per ratepayer.
This version of the bill ā introduced after 10 p.m. Wednesday, when most Californians are asleep ā also cuts funding for solar at home is affordable and clean energy generation and storage. Legislators may have introduced the plan at the last minute because they knew it was wildly unpopular. A broad coalition of several unions, including United Steelworkers District 12 and the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO, delivered letter earlier this month opposed the idea. Improving our school buildings not only benefits students’ health; it also creates good-paying jobs for Californians.
CalSHAPE also protects our teachers from pollution, which is why the California Federation of Teachers, California Teachers Assn., California School Employees Assn. and the Service Employees International Union have all opposed this proposal. School employees should not breathe unhealthy air in the workplace.
Make no mistake, California is facing the crisis of affordability of means. Rates have risen rapidly in recent years. But to lower bills, policymakers need to address the real cost drivers, rather than launching attacks on school funding or slashing programs that bring rooftop solar to communities that have been left behind.
The rate crisis in California cannot be solved by political action. It will require innovative solutions and better regulation of monopoly utilities. What the legislature is proposing is like putting a Band-Aid on a wound that needs stitches. And our students and teachers will be the ones who suffer. When the Assembly and Senate convene on Saturday, legislators must stand with California’s children and vote for AB 3121.
Leah C. Stokes is an associate professor at UC Santa Barbara, senior policy advisor at Rewiring America and host of the podcast “A Matter of Degree.ā @leahstokes
