Climate Leadership Meets the Affordability Test

For years, California policymakers have argued that residents are willing to shoulder higher costs in exchange for the state's aggressive climate policies. But a new analysis from Extracting Fact points to polling suggesting that assumption may be increasingly disconnected from the economic reality facing California families.

The article is part of Extracting Fact's examination of five energy policy assumptions California's next governor will inherit. One of those is the notion that Californians are broadly willing to pay more for climate leadership. According to the analysis, recent Public Policy Institute of California polling found that six in ten Californians are unwilling to pay more for renewable electricity.

That finding comes against a difficult affordability backdrop. California households already face some of the country's highest energy costs. Extracting Fact notes that California electricity rates are approximately 80 percent higher than the national average, while Californians also contend with the nation's highest gasoline prices.

The burden is particularly important for working-class Californians. A separate Extracting Fact analysis, drawing upon research from the Breakthrough Institute, found that California's economic growth has been heavily concentrated in a relatively small number of technology-driven counties while energy-intensive industries have declined. The Breakthrough researchers concluded that the costs associated with California's climate policies have fallen disproportionately on poorer and non-college-educated workers.

None of this requires California to abandon its environmental objectives. It does require policymakers to recognize that affordability is itself an important public policy objective.

California's next governor will inherit ambitious climate mandates alongside a transportation and energy system still overwhelmingly dependent upon conventional fuels. Policies that intentionally increase the cost of producing oil, refining gasoline, or generating reliable energy within California do not make those needs disappear. They can instead shift production elsewhere while leaving California families to absorb the resulting costs.

Climate leadership ultimately has to work for the people being asked to pay for it. If most Californians are telling policymakers there is a limit to what they can afford, Sacramento should listen.