This Valentine’s Day, Tom Steyer Asks You to Break Up with Your Electric Monopolies

SAN FRANCISCO — Today, in honor of Valentine’s Day, Steyer for Governor launched a campaign to break up with your utility monopoly. The campaign featured ads running in California print publications, a video message from Steyer, and a website where California residents can submit their personal breakup message to one of the three big utility companies.

The following is the transcript to Steyer’s Valentine’s Day message:

Great news. It turns out your utility company loves you. Isn’t that nice? 

This is the PG&E substation that lit on fire. This is the famous one. This is the one that shut down San Francisco.

Patti Poppe, the CEO of PG&E, said this year, she wants to lead with love as part of PG&E’s transformation.

This is the same Patti Poppe who makes $17 million a year, has the second most expensive utility in the United States of America, and twice the average of outages. Thank you so much.

But let’s be clear, a monopoly can’t love you. A monopoly is an abusive relationship. A monopoly produces the highest prices for the worst service. That ain’t love. 

Come on Patti. Let’s get into the real world. It’s almost Valentine’s Day. 

Here’s what some of your customers really think about you.

“Our bill for January was $1,400. Please stop the madness.”

“PG&E is just pure evil at this point. How can it even be up for debate, raising rates yet again when they have already made record profits?”

“They love your money!”

“I will vote for any politician that opposes these [expletive].”

I’m not feeling the love. She wrote that letter because they’re losing the public. 

Monopolies can’t love you. They want to own you.

It’s time for California to break up with the electric monopolies and put ratepayers first.

Title card: Tell your utility it’s over: Utilitybreakups.com.

Steyer is the only gubernatorial candidate with a plan to break up the utility monopolies forcing California residents to pay the second-highest energy bills in the country, after just Hawaii. Steyer has vowed to break up PG&E, SDG&E, and SCE to drive down costs for everyday Californians as governor.

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