San Diego City Council endorses state legislation trying to reduce utility bills
The San Diego City Council passed a resolution Tuesday in support of a package of bills wending their way through the California Legislature, aimed at curbing rising utility rates.
“For years, I’ve heard from families across San Diego, especially in City Heights, Stockton and Mount Hope, who are making impossible choices between keeping the lights on and putting food on the table,” said District 9 Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera during a news conference at Civic Center Plaza, about 90 minutes before the resolution passed on the consent agenda.
The legislative package consists of bills in the current session in Sacramento that include requiring audits of utility profit rates, tying executive bonuses to affordability outcomes, adding further public review of spending by power companies and enhancing the ability of home batteries and electric vehicles to supply power back to the grid.
“The city of San Diego is telling the Legislature to pass 10 bills that rein in utility profits, stop overspending and put ratepayers first,” said Anthony Dang, policy and community outreach manager for the Climate Action Campaign, an environmental group that helped bring the measure forward.
A city council resolution does not have the force of law, nor does it directly impact the fate of legislation in the Assembly or state Senate.
When asked if Tuesday’s action was merely symbolic, Council President Joe LaCava said, “I think it’s important for the local jurisdictions to send a strong and unambiguous message to Sacramento … it is one tool we have in the toolbox.”
“We’re the second-biggest city in the state and I don’t think we act like it often enough,” Elo-Rivera said. “So we need to be leaning in and letting the state know that we’re going to make sure that folks see what’s happening in Sacramento.”
The 2026 legislative session ends on Aug. 31.
High utility bills have become a hot topic as the cost of living in California keeps rising.
The most recent Senate Bill 695 report, an annual look at investor-owned utility costs, said rates have grown faster than inflation in recent years and predicted they will keep going up in the near future.
In the San Diego Gas & Electric service territory, the report projected rates for residential electricity and natural gas customers will swell about 22% from 2024 through 2028. That’s an average annual increase of about 6%.
Energy costs “don’t behave like normal business expenses,” Katrina Oprisko, owner of Earthwell Refill, a small business in Kensington, said at Tuesday’s news conference. “They just keep climbing and there’s nothing you can do about it. Rates go up with little warning and no real recourse.”
The council resolution comes one day after SDG&E kicked off deliberations over its 2028-2031 general rate case by submitting thousands of pages to the California Public Utilities Commission, known as the CPUC.
Essentially a budget request, a general rate case estimates what the commission thinks it will cost for an investor-owned utility to maintain and upgrade the power system over a four-year period.
SDG&E officials are requesting an estimated revenue requirement of about $3.8 billion for 2028. If approved by the CPUC, that would result in a bill increase of 8.6% for average residential customers with electricity and natural gas hookups, compared to 2027 estimates.
The CPUC’s five voting commissioners will make the final decision on whether to accept, reject or make changes to SDG&E’s general rate case application, which will go through a detailed review process that includes input from many stakeholders, including filings and comments from consumer groups.
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This story was originally published June 16, 2026 at 3:38 PM.