It takes a certain amount of gall to ask the country to follow your state’s lead on energy policy when your state currently has the nation’s highest electricity prices. But that is exactly what California Gov. Gavin Newsom did last week. Hopefully, voters will choose not to follow him.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Newsom correctly notes that, “more than two-thirds of California’s electricity now comes from clean sources such as solar, wind and geothermal.” He further brags that “roughly a quarter of new car sales are electric vehicles,” and that “Caltrain’s rail service connecting the Bay Area converted from diesel to electric, a key part of the state’s high-speed rail vision.”
Recommended Stories
- Democrats need to be more than anti-Trump
- The end of the homeless industrial complex
- Cancel Senate recess to confirm Trump nominees
Newsom goes on to claim that the United States was on a similar track “until President Trump came along” and took us back “the days of dirty coal and lung cancer,” but that there is still time for voters to reject Republicans and “follow California’s lead.”
What Newsom leaves out of his fairy tale is that California currently has the highest electricity prices in the continental United States. Only Hawaii pays more for its energy. And it is not like California’s electricity prices are just a little bit higher. They are double the national average. Newsom writes in his op-ed that, “None of this is by chance.” On that point, he is correct. California’s clean energy taxes and mandates are absolutely to blame for the state’s record-high energy prices.
And electricity is not just an isolated sector of the economy. Energy costs are borne by residents with air conditioning and other household appliances, but also by manufacturers, distributors, software developers, and anyone who works in an office. Energy literally touches every aspect of our economy. Higher energy prices mean lower economic growth across every sector.
In 2024, the United States spent roughly $500 billion on energy. Newsom wants to double that cost. That is a yearly half trillion dollar tax hike on the American people.
Contrast the California approach with Texas, which, despite much faster economic and population growth than California, has electricity prices around the national average. In 2024, California added 2.5 gigawatts of solar power capacity, 3.8 gigawatts of battery capacity, 1.6 gigawatts of natural gas, and .5 gigawatts of wind. That might sound impressive but in that same time frame Texas added 9.7 gigawatts of solar, 4.4 gigawatts of battery capacity, 3.4 gigawatts of natural gas, and 3 gigawatts of wind.
In total, while Newsom’s clean energy path in California added just 8.4 total gigawatts in 2024, Texas’s all of the above on energy path added 20.5 gigawatts, almost three times as much new power. At the same time, California’s air is not any meaningfully cleaner than Texas nor is their lung cancer rate meaningfully lower.
Americans face a clear choice going forward: follow the California model of high taxes, burdensome regulations, electric vehicle mandates, and tens of billions spent on a high-speed train to nowhere, or an all-of-the-above approach that allows consumers the choice of which cars and appliances they want to buy, and allows them to power their choices with affordable energy.
THE END OF THE HOMELESS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
California’s record shows that lofty rhetoric about “leading the way” doesn’t put affordable power into people’s homes. While Newsom touts mandates and subsidies, Californians are stuck with the highest electricity prices in the continental United States and little to show for it in cleaner air or better health outcomes. Meanwhile, Texas proves that embracing an “all of the above” strategy, including the expansion of solar and storage while still investing in natural gas and wind, delivers far more new capacity at a fraction of the cost. Voters should reject Newsom’s model of high taxes, heavy regulation, and energy scarcity, and instead choose policies that ensure abundant, reliable, and affordable power for all Americans.