Lawmaker pushes utility profit limits
A San Diego lawmaker introduced bills to cap utility profits and tighten oversight of wildfire-prevention spending with the stated goal of lowering electricity bills. The proposals add to state-level pressure on utilities as households face rising energy costs.
AB 1677 cbs8.com would tie the allowable return for investor‑owned utilities to the long‑term U.S. Treasury bond rate plus 4 percentage points (the bond rate cited at about 4.7%), replacing the roughly 10% returns utilities have been earning under current CPUC settings. cbs8.com Boerner’s office projected annual savings of roughly $250 million to $1 billion for California ratepayers if the profit cap were enacted. cbs8.com The companion measure would require independent audits of wildfire‑mitigation spending after a 2021 audit found San Diego Gas & Electric could not clearly account for about $240 million authorized for 2019–2020 wildfire prevention. cbs8.com SDG&E responded that the audit did not conclude funds were missing and said the report compared non‑comparable datasets. cbs8.com The California Public Utilities Commission voted 4–1 in December 2025 to keep authorized returns near 10%, with recent authorized returns reported as PG&E 9.98%, SDG&E 9.93%, Southern California Edison 10.03% and Southern California Gas 9.78%. prnewswire.com
