[saltcured]

While I understand the desire to have a progressive pricing scheme to offset some of the criticism around solar subsidies being "subsidies for the rich", I think this would be a terrible precedent as far as invasion of privacy. I think it is cynical overreach. There is absolutely no reason that the utility company should gain access to household income data of their entire market.

If the CA government thinks we should have this kind of pricing or means-based support of the utilities, I think they should design it into the income tax code and provide subsidies to the utility from collected tax revenue.

An alternative might be to extend current CARE, FERA, and Medical Baseline Allowance programs to extend discounts or payment assistance for households in need. But I think these programs may also be flawed in that they endanger the privacy of those needing assistance. The state tax board already has the necessary data and the state should not be supporting the creation of additional parallel systems.

[JPws_Prntr_Fngr]

The US is an increasingly transparent kleptocracy. How do you even start to unwind from this level of regulatory capture?

[concerned_]

More like unregulated capture. There is simply no way it legal for a utility to means test people. Regardless of where the data originated.

[electroly]

Utility companies already run credit checks on new customers. This doesn't seem like a big leap from that. They may already be estimating income based on the credit check. I don't disagree in theory but utility companies today, across the country, are already all up in your financial business.

Source: I got a new apartment in a new state and had a lot of difficulty proving that I make enough money to get electricity from the utility company. The utility company was harder to convince than the landlord renting me the actual apartment.

[autoexec]

Yeah, give support to low income people, but once we allow companies to charge us a percentage based on our individual earnings we're all screwed.