PG&E now spending over $13.5 million to stop Steyer, who has vowed to break up their monopolistic power. 

SAN FRANCISCO – As Tom Steyer hammers home his commitment to taking on special interests to lower costs for working Californians, PG&E is spending millions of dollars to send a message of their own: Steyer is the biggest threat to their profits, and they’ll spend whatever it takes to maintain the status quo.

A new, in-depth KQED report uncovers the record-breaking amount of cash being spent by the utility monopoly – which today totals over $13.5 million – a reflection of how seriously PG&E and corporate special interests take Steyer’s promise to break up their monopoly power.

The piece highlights “Steyer’s ambitious plan to cut electricity bills” that would ultimately “reduce the utilities’ guaranteed profits” – and put money back into the pockets of California families. 

In addition, the piece covers key details of the story: the record spending from PG&E;  SoCal Edison’s CEO panic over Steyer on their most recent earnings call; and expert analysis that shows Steyer’s plan would have "significant potential savings for California electricity customers.”

“Utilities are ripping people off, and they’re scared of the only candidate in the race who will hold them accountable for ripping people off,” said Steyer for Governor Spokesperson Danni Wang. “Tom’s fighting for working people. Becerra is fighting for corporations and their death grip on the status quo. Californians deserve better.” 

Excerpts of the full piece are below. Read/listen to the article here.

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KQED: PG&E Spends Millions Against Tom Steyer. What’s Behind the Clash?

Tom Steyer’s crusade against California’s electric utilities, including a plan to slash rates and lower profits, may explain why PG&E is spending a record amount in a governor’s race.

…PG&E, the Oakland-based utility giant, has shelled out more than $12 million to oppose the Democratic investor, a historic level of spending for the utility in a governor’s race.

…central to the conflict between the progressive billionaire and the power behemoth, experts say, is Steyer’s ambitious plan to cut electricity bills. That platform is built on a pledge to wield the governor’s power over appointments to install regulators who will reduce the utilities’ guaranteed profits.

“That is a material threat to utility investors,” said Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford University.

…But Steyer is relishing the clash, arguing that the utility’s big-dollar effort to stop him is proof of the power it holds — and the change he vows to bring.

He has cast the state’s three investor-owned utilities — PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — as bogeymen standing in the way of a more affordable life in California.

“I’ve said that we are going to regulate them differently and introduce local competition,” Steyer told KQED. “And they clearly think it’s worth $10 million as a bet to try and defeat me because they want to preserve their monopoly. I think that’s corrupt.”

Californians pay the second-highest electricity rates in the country after Hawaii, and those rates have grown much faster than the national average this decade. At the heart of the price spike are wildfire-related costs that the utilities have passed along in part to customers.

In response, Steyer is proposing to appoint reform-minded regulators to oversee the utilities. He promises that those appointees will cut utility profits, more closely examine the cost-effectiveness of wildfire spending and promote small-scale power generation, such as rooftop solar and microgrids.

To Steyer’s supporters, the politics of a utility crusade are undeniably positive. Voter antipathy toward the state’s large power providers cuts across urban progressives wary of monopoly power, rural residents anxious about utility-sparked fires and suburban solar customers furious about utility efforts to claw back rooftop benefits.

“This is an issue that is felt by not just the progressives but the moderates who also try to fight utility costs,” said Assemblymember Alex Lee, a progressive Democrat from San José who has endorsed Steyer. “We are all lamenting together that utilities have way too much power.”

Steyer is leading with a bold promise: a 25% drop in electricity rates. He has paraded that vow in town halls, candidate debates and unceasing television advertisements. On Valentine’s Day, Steyer released a “break-up message” video outside a PG&E substation in San Francisco in which he called out the company’s CEO, Patti Poppe.

Steyer’s broadsides against the electric giants caught the eye of utility leadership — particularly after former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s campaign imploded amid sexual assault allegations, making the possibility of a Steyer victory more realistic.

Pedro Pizarro, the CEO of SoCal Edison’s parent company, said on an April earnings call that he did not see any “fact basis” to Steyer’s promise of a 25% rate cut.

“We have been very pointed about taking on things that are not connected to fact like those, and being outspoken about them,” he said.

PG&E has gone further — emerging as the top anti-Steyer spender in the closing weeks ahead of the June 2 primary.

The utility has contributed $12.6 million to a committee named Californians for Resilient and Affordable Energy, No on Steyer for Governor 2026. That committee has sent $12.5 million to an anti-Steyer independent expenditure committee, called California is Not for Sale.

The California Chamber of Commerce’s political arm, JOBSPAC, sent over $7.7 million to California is Not for Sale — after receiving roughly $2 million from each of the state’s investor-owned utilities in April. A spokesperson for the Chamber said decisions on campaign spending are made by JOBSPAC leadership, not individual donors.

The anti-Steyer super PAC has also drawn contributions from groups representing realtors, homebuilders and correctional officers.

…The $12.6 million PG&E has spent against Steyer is hardly a financial avalanche in the context of costly California campaigns. The utility spent over $46 million to support a single initiative, Proposition 16, a failed 2010 measure that would have made it harder for cities and counties to create local power providers.

But the anti-Steyer spending marks PG&E’s largest such outlay in a governor’s race, according to online filings with the California secretary of state’s office, which date back to 1999.

…Much of Steyer’s electricity agenda is built on appointments he is eyeing for the five-member California Public Utilities Commission. The next governor will appoint two commissioners in January and replace three others over the course of their first term.

The CPUC has been at the center of bitter fights between utilities and ratepayer advocates over rooftop solar benefits, the structure of electricity bills and wildfire-related spending.

Former CPUC President Loretta Lynch, a frequent agency critic, said regulators have not properly scrutinized utility spending, which has resulted in higher bills for customers. Steyer could bring the first change to that dynamic in decades, she said.

“It’s not surprising if you look at it that way that the utilities are going all out to fight the candidates who are going to stop their gravy trains,” she added.

Steyer said he will appoint commissioners who push the utilities to more quickly connect new customers to the grid (spreading the system’s fixed costs more broadly) and incentivize the power providers to spend on solar and battery storage, instead of building expensive new transmission lines and substations.

But the most threatening proposal for California power companies is Steyer’s call for a cut in utility profits, said Wara.

…“If that could be accomplished, there is a significant potential savings for California electricity customers,” Wara said. “Of course [utilities] object to that — it would be crazy if they didn’t.”

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