EconomicDumb

California’s largest utility wants to continue a greenhouse gas mitigation program that almost no one supports, the San Francisco Chronicle reports:

A Pacific Gas and Electric Co. program that asks customers to fight global warming by paying a little extra on their electricity bills has enrolled just 31,000 people and takes far more money to run than it generates.

Now PG&E wants to extend the ClimateSmart program, even as consumer watchdogs question whether it’s worth the money….

Launched with great fanfare in 2007, ClimateSmart gives PG&E customers a way to go “carbon neutral.”

People who sign up for the program pay a monthly fee – usually less than $3 – to offset greenhouse gas emissions from the power plants that supply their electricity. Most of the money funds forestry projects that pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere….

But so far, only 31,000 PG&E customers have joined. That’s 0.6 percent of the utility’s 5.1 million customers, far fewer than expected. The California Public Utilities Commission, which approved the creation of ClimateSmart, predicted that 3.3 percent of PG&E customers would sign up.

Looks like the geniuses are still in charge at both PG&E and in California state government.