In season one, episode six of the show “Sex and the City,” Carrie frets whether her new beau, Mr. Big, is keeping her from his social circle. Her worries were prompted by the plight of her friend Mike Singer, who had found an ideal lover in sales clerk Libby Biyalick, but who preferred to keep the affair secret because he was embarrassed to be seen with her in public.

In many ways, the association between the President and the environmental movement is a lot like that between Mike Singer and Libby Biyalick.

On the one hand, the greens and the President share an intimate relationship characterized by symbiotic back-scratching. Environmental special interest organizations increasingly are active in the business of political advertising on behalf the President and his party, which is the ultimate currency with any politician. And President Obama has shown much love for environmentalists, by waging an unprecedented war on their #1 enemy, the coal industry.

And yet, despite this cozy relationship, President Barack Obama clearly doesn’t want to be seen in public with the greens. In the course of three debates, President Obama never once mentioned “global warming,” nor did he tout any of his environmental policies (He mentioned CAFE standards and green energy, but that was in the context of “energy independence” and “all of the above”). Quite apart from bragging about his green bona fides, the President actually tried to appear more of a friend to fossil fuels than his opponent.

Ouch! Humiliation notwithstanding, environmentalists can take much solace in the fact that the President has delivered pretty much everything they could ask for in the way of anti-fossil fuel policies.

[Updated: 6:26 AM, 24 October 2012. I completely forgot to give an explanation for why President Obama wants to be private-not-public friends with environmentalists. At this point in a Presidential election, all of a candidate's actions and words have been focus-grouped and polled, such that they are carefully calibrated to achieve maximum appeal among independent voters. With this in mind, the President's debate performances  indicate that  the Obama campaign thinks independents give low priority to global warming.]

Earlier this week, I wrote about how Washington Post Wonkblog contributor Brad Plumer misread a report on which he blogged. Today, his colleague Ezra Klein devoted another Wonkblog post to an erroneous thesis—namely, that opposition to climate policies like cap-and-trade is a strictly partisan matter.

The impetus for Klein’s mistake was a New York Times column by David Brooks, titled “A Sad Green Story.” In the piece, Brooks argues that the prospects for a policy to mitigate climate change have effectively died for two reasons: (1) Al Gore is a highly partisan figure; and (2) a few high-profile taxpayer investments in green energy that failed (Solyndra, A123, et al.). Most of Brooks’ op-ed is given to the latter point, as is evident by his conclusion:

Global warming is still real. Green technology is still important. Personally, I’d support a carbon tax to give it a boost. But he who lives by the subsidy dies by the subsidy. Government planners should not be betting on what technologies will develop fastest. They should certainly not be betting on individual companies.

This is a story of overreach, misjudgments and disappointment.

Klein, however, took issue with Brooks’ “passivity.” According to his Wonkblog post:

This isn’t a story of overreach, misjudgements [sic], and disappointment. It’s a story of Republicans putting raw partisanship and a dislike for Al Gore in front of the planet’s best interests. It’s a story, though Brooks doesn’t mention this, of conservatives building an alternative reality in which the science is unsettled, and no one really knows whether the planet is warming and, even if it is, whether humans have anything to do with it. It’s a story of Democrats being forced into a second and third-best policies that Republicans then use to press their political advantage.

It’s a story, to put it simply, of Democrats doing everything they can to address a problem Brooks says is real in the way Brooks says is best, and Republicans doing everything they can to stop them. And it’s a story that ends with Democrats and Republicans receiving roughly equal blame from Brooks.

Klein has it wrong. Quite contrary to what he would have readers believe, opposition to climate policy is one of the very few areas of bipartisan agreement on Capitol Hill. On the one hand, the issue breaks down along geographic lines, rather than partisan ones, such that politicians from areas dependent on the production or use of fossil fuels tend to oppose climate policies, whether they are Republican and Democrat. On the other hand, politicians from both parties are always reluctant to enact policies, like a cap-and-trade, that engender economic hardship for their constituents. As a result, global warming is a low priority across the partisan divide. Consider:

• On June 6, 2008, in the immediate wake of the Senate’s rejection of the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade, which had been extensively reworked by Senator Barbara Boxer, 10 Senate Democrats—about 20 percent of the caucus at the time—sent Senator Boxer a letter explaining that they voted or would have voted against her cap-and-trade because it would cause “undue hardship” for their constituents.

• On June 26, 2009, 40 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted against the American Clean Energy and Security Act, a cap-and-trade bill.

• During the 2010 summer, Senate Democrats held weekly caucus meetings to build support for a Senate companion bill to the American Clean Energy and Security Act. But the caucus never rallied behind the measure, and it was put on ice, without ever reaching the Senate floor for a vote.

If, as Klein believes, Democrats are “doing everything they can to address” climate change, then the 111th Congress would have enacted a cap-and-trade, at a time when Democrats held both Chambers and the Presidency. Instead, 40 House Democrats voted against the measure, which was subsequently shelved by Senate leadership.

And what about this week’s Presidential debate? As I posted earlier this week, President Obama—the leader of the Democratic Party—tried to prove that he was friendlier to fossil fuels than Romney. The president never even mentioned “global warming” or “climate change.” Does that seem like someone who is “doing everything they can to address” global warming? To be sure, the president is advancing climate regulations pursuant to an EPA power grab, but it’s nonetheless telling that he takes pains to avoid discussing these policies in public.

O…M…G! On energy policy, President Obama sounded better than Romney during the debate last night.

Of course, “sounded” is the operative word, as the President’s energy discourse wholly discounted reality. Here on planet earth, his administration is waging a war on energy. Oil and gas production is booming—but only on state and private lands unencumbered by the red tape and bureaucratic foot-dragging that has inhibited drilling on federal lands. In the last year, President Obama’s EPA promulgated two regulations that ban new coal-fired power plants (as if one wasn’t enough?). And when it’s not opposing energy that works, the Obama administration throws good money after bad trying to cultivate “green jobs” at companies that cannot compete without an everlasting inflow of taxpayer help.

That’s the real President Obama. Last night’s President Barack Obama was nothing like him. Debate Obama was an unabashed supporter of fossil fuel energy. ”Here’s a roundup of choice phrases:

On Oil, President Obama compared his record favorably to that of a Texas petroleum executive:

“We’re actually drilling more on public lands than in the previous administration and my — the previous president was an oil man.”

On Natural Gas, President Obama can’t get enough!:

“We continue to make it a priority for us to go after natural gas. We’ve got potentially 600,000 jobs and 100 years worth of energy right beneath our feet with natural gas…

…. And natural gas isn’t just appearing magically. We’re encouraging it and working with the industry.”

On Coal, President Obama warned that his opponent was an enemy of coal (by comparison, presumably, Obama was a friend of coal):

“And when I hear Governor Romney say he’s a big coal guy, I mean, keep in mind, when — Governor, when you were governor of Massachusetts, you stood in front of a coal plant and pointed at it and said, “This plant kills,” and took great pride in shutting it down. And now suddenly you’re a big champion of coal.”

Notably, last night’s President Obama never once mentioned “global warming.” I kinda liked last night’s Obama! I wish he were the Obama that actually exists. Alas, real-life Obama is a far cry from Debate Obama.

Romney, on the other hand, used his dialogue on energy policy to trumpet two harmful energy shibboleths: “energy independence” and “all of the above.” The problem with the latter (“all of the above”) is that it draws no line to leave out the inane. It’s an inherently imprudent slogan. “Energy independence” is equally terrible. We participate in international oil markets because that’s the cheapest way to meet our aggregate demand for products we want. This is not a problem and it doesn’t warrant a national energy policy.

These catch-phrases are insidious because they function as seemingly reasonable justifications for terribly misguided market intrusions. And they are vague enough such that they can accommodate virtually any bad idea under the sun. For these reasons, they are bandied about by both political parties.

For example, fuel economy regulations increase highway fatalities by making cars smaller. Yet they were signed into law by Republican President George W. Bush and expanded on by his Democratic successor. Both administrations predicated these killer regulations on the need to be “energy independent.” Ethanol is another idiotic, bipartisan policy that literally kills in the name of “energy independence.”

Similarly, subsidies to wind power producers enjoy bipartisan support, despite the fact that they are totally illogical because demand for wind is established by law in 30 states. It makes no sense to both subsidize supply and mandate demand. It’s not surprising that Democrats support big government give-aways to politically favored industries. Unfortunately, a significant percentage of the  Republican caucus also thinks that these handouts are part of an “all of the above” strategy.

To his credit, Romney scored points by contradicting the President with the fact that oil and gas production on federal land is down. And to his discredit, President Obama sounded ridiculous when he bragged about how many miles of oil and gas pipeline that have been constructed during his administration, without mentioning his unpopular decision to delay the Keystone XL pipeline.

Overall, I give last night’s Obama an B+ on energy policy. Mitt Romney scored a B. The real-life Obama’s energy policies get a giant, red F.

Last week, I blogged about how Grist’s David Roberts confused a recent study by the Brattle Group. This week, Washington Post Wonkblog’s Brad Plumer made the same mistake.

In the oft-misread study, Brattle Group analysts estimate how many coal-fired power plants will retire rather than install expensive-yet-pointless regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. A key determinant of how the market will respond to EPA regulations is the price of natural gas, a fuel that competes with coal. Simply put, the lower the price of gas, the more economical it would be for the owner of a coal-fired power plant to cease operations rather than pay for the EPA-mandated retrofits. Both Plumer and Roberts misunderstand the basic parameters of the study, such that they attribute coal power plant retirements solely to relatively low natural gas prices. In fact, these retirements are derivative of a decision faced by individual coal power plant operators across the country: Whether to install hundreds of millions–even billions–of unnecessary capital costs imposed by EPA, in an electricity market characterized by historically cheap gas.

Here’s Plumer:

Over the past few years, natural gas has become extraordinarily cheap, thanks to refined “fracking” techniques that allow companies to extract more gas from shale rock. What’s more, wind turbines have been sprouting up around the country and are getting steadily cheaper. The result? Both energy sources have been displacing coal. That would have occurred regardless of anything the EPA did.

And here’s Roberts:

The headline news: Brattle is substantially upping its projection of how many coal plants will retire, by about 25 GW. That’s huge. But it’s not happening because of EPA regulations.

I bolded and italicized the key sentences.

As I noted in my previous post, these power plant retirements likely would not have occurred absent EPA regulations. This is due to the simple fact that coal is less expensive than gas in most of the country, and it is projected to be significantly cheaper than gas in all regions. I know this because it says so on page 2 of the Brattle Group report.

[Update 3:14 P.M., 15 October 2012: Mr. Plumer has since rewritten the post. I can't tell exactly how so, because he did not track changes, but the piece is completely different. In a nutshell, he reworked it such that the post no longer makes the error I note above. Because that error is a fundamental misreading of his subject matter, the edits were significant. I tried to engage him in the comments section, but he did not respond.]

CEI Senior Fellow Chris Horner last week sat down with Media Research Center TV to discuss global warming alarmism. Below is video of the interview.

On Wednesday, the Commerce Department levied tariffs from 18 percent to 240 percent on solar panels imported from China. At best, this silly policy will increase the price of electricity in America; at worst, it could be the first salvo in a harmful trade war.

Renewable energy sources like solar and wind power are expensive and unreliable, so they cannot compete with conventional energy sources in the electricity market. Instead, demand for green energy is established by Soviet-style production quotas, known as renewable energy standards. More than 30 states have enacted such standards, which force consumers to use increasing amounts of green energy.

The cheapest way to achieve these solar energy consumption mandates is to import Chinese solar panels, due to the simple fact that solar panels manufactured in China are cheaper than solar panels manufactured in America. By adding an import tax on Chinese solar panels, the Obama administration is making electricity more expensive for citizens subject to renewable energy quotas.

And that’s the best case! Invariably, trade tariffs are tit-for-tat measures. China is likely to respond in kind. This is the slippery slope to trade wars, the impact of which would be devastating to the fragile global economy.

Proponents of the import duties claim that they are necessary so that the U.S. can win a race with China to capture global market share for green energy manufacturing. This reasoning is ridiculous. As I explained above, the market for green energy is wholly a function of government favors. Unfortunately for the green energy industry, political winds are quick to change. As costs mount, politicians will rescind the government’s support, and markets will crash. It’s already happened elsewhere. Now, it’s happening here: The American wind industry claims that it will shed half its workforce if the Congress allows a single tax credit to expire.

Plainly, so-called “sustainable” energy is reliant on unsustainable government support. It should go without saying that this is a poor business model. When the renewable energy bubble bursts, the global industry leader will be the biggest loser. With that in mind, the supposed race with China for green technological supremacy is one the U.S. would be wise to forfeit.

[N.B. I made these points in an interview with Press TV, available below.]

Yesterday at Grist, David Roberts posted about a recent Christian Science Monitor article titled, “Study: EPA Regulations Squelch U.S. Coal Industry,” which he labeled “misleading dreck.” According to Roberts,

The story, from “guest blogger” Charles Kennedy, refers to a report [PDF] from the research consultancy Brattle Group. So I went and read the report. And it doesn’t say what Kennedy says it says. At all. In fact, it says something close to the opposite….

The report is an update of its brief from late 2010 on potential coal-plant retirements. The headline news: Brattle is substantially upping its projection of how many coal plants will retire, by about 25 GW. That’s huge. But it’s not happening because of EPA regulations. In fact, say the authors, the change is “primarily due to changing market conditions, not environmental rule revisions, which have trended towards more lenient requirements and schedules” (his emphasis).

Roberts is plainly confused when he writes that “it’s not happening because of EPA regulations.” The entire point of the Brattle Group’s 2010 and 2012 analyses is to forecast how the electricity market will respond to scores of billions of dollars in capital costs being imposed by the EPA on the coal industry. Thus, in a 2010 study, the Brattle Group concluded that 50 GW to 67 GW of coal-fired electricity would retire rather than install EPA-mandated retrofits, given 2010  market conditions (i.e., electricity demand and natural gas prices). And in a 2012 update of the 2010 report, the Brattle Group concluded that 59 GW to 77 GW of coal-fired electricity would retire rather than install EPA-mandated retrofits, given current market conditions (i.e., electricity demand and natural gas prices).

In each analysis, the direct impetus for the retirement of coal units is the cost of retrofits required by EPA regulations. And the cheaper the price of natural gas, the more utilities will opt to fuel switch or participate in the wholesale market, rather than pay for retrofits at their coal-fired power plants. This is why the updated 2012 Brattle Group report estimated a 25 GW increase in coal power plant retirements over the 2010 report–because gas prices are still depressed, so it is more economical for utilities to switch fuels than it is for them to comply with EPA requirements. Roberts, however, implies that utilities would choose to shutter coal power plants based on the price of natural gas alone; he fails to acknowledge that EPA regulations remain the underlying cause of the utilities’ choice to do so.

Given that the price of coal is projected to be significantly cheaper than the price of gas—as it states on page 2 of the 2012 Brattle Group report—it is likely that most, if not all, of these coal-fired power plants would continue operating, were their owners not forced to spend hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars, on EPA-mandated retrofits. To put it another way, natural gas can beat coal, but only with EPA’s help. For similar reasons, Chesapeake Energy (a natural gas company) gave $25 million to Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign. Because a war on coal is great for gas!

Now, it would be one thing if these retrofits actually served a public health purpose. Alas, they don’t, which was the subject of a previous post. Instead, EPA is targeting the coal industry with costly, nonsensical regulations for no discernible reason other than to placate the environmentalist wing of the President’s political party. Of course, this is crummy policy making, especially in the midst of a difficult economy.

On September 21, the Cooler Heads Coalition hosted a Capitol Hill briefing on “The Costs and Benefits of Green Jobs,” featuring Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of a new book, Regulating to Disaster: How Green Jobs Policies Are Damaging America’s Economy.

Video of the briefing is below.

I can understand why President Obama would deny that his administration is waging a war on coal. In the midst of difficult economic times, it would be politically risky if he told the bald truth, that his administration has launched a pincer attack on both coal production and consumption, for no discernible purpose other than to placate a political constituency.

I do not, however, understand why informed reporters (most recently, at Politico) and esteemed colleagues (Cato) mistakenly posit that the war on coal is an empty rhetorical device. The truth is so obvious; I can’t fathom how they miss it.

Consider: In 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency promulgated two regulations—the Utility MACT (final) and the Carbon Pollution Standard (proposed)—that effectively ban the construction of new coal-fired power plants. This is extraordinary. An Agency within the Presidency, without a Congressional mandate, has closed the future for an industry that provides 40 percent of the nation’s electricity. And for what? Not for any public health benefit, to be sure.

The regulatory justification for the Utility MACT is particularly risible. Its purpose is to protect a supposed population of pregnant, subsistence fisherwomen, who consume at least 225 pounds of self-caught fish from exclusively the 90th percentile most polluted fresh, inland water bodies. You can’t make this stuff up! Notably, EPA never identified a single member of this putative population. Rather, they are modeled to exist.

The EPA’s case for the Carbon Pollution Standard is subtler, but no less pointless. In the proposed rule, EPA never even tried to tether the regulation to a specific benefit accruable to the American people. This makes sense, because there are no such benefits. U.S. policy on new electricity generation (like the Carbon Pollution Standard) is an insignificant driver of global greenhouse gas emissions relative to coal-fueled Asian economic growth. In fact, the Carbon Pollution Standard rested on a discretionary authority; there was no pressing concern. EPA merely exercised an option resulting from the Agency’s endangerment power grab.

Thus, neither the Utility MACT nor the Carbon Pollution Standard engenders a “real” public health benefit. On the other hand, the rules will cause expensive energy, which is a very real cost to be borne by all of society.

For existing coal-fired power plants, EPA’s strategy is to impose three types of expensive retrofits on every existing coal-fired power plant, regardless whether or not they would serve an actual purpose. The three controls are: selective catalytic reduction for nitrogen oxides; scrubbers for sulfur dioxide; and electrostatic filters for fine particulate matter. The aforementioned Utility MACT would require scrubbers and electrostatic filters. EPA is using the Regional Haze rule to compel selective catalytic reduction systems. Regional Haze is the archetype of all-pain, no-gain regulation. It’s an aesthetic regulation, whose benefits are literally invisible.

All told, these emissions control systems cost hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars. With gas prices at rock-bottom, many utilities will choose to close coal-plants rather than pony up these huge capital costs. According to FERC, almost 81,000 megawatts of electricity generation are “likely” to retire due to regulatory costs.

And all of the above regulations are only on the demand-side of the coal industry! On the supply-side, EPA is waging war on coal production for similarly nonsensical reasons.

In particular, the Obama administration has targeted a subset of coal mining, known as mountaintop removal. That man actually moves mountains is especially galling to environment interest groups, who fiercely oppose the practice in the courts. Mountaintop removal mining may offend green sensibilities in San Francisco and New York, but it’s absolutely essential to the economic well being of certain regions of West Virginia and Kentucky.

In the summer of 2011, EPA imposed Clean Water Act requirements for saline effluent from mountaintop mining operations that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson admitted would be impossible to meet. Under the Clean Water Act, States are afforded a significant role in policymaking, but EPA issued the salinity standards by fiat. Due to the latter procedural violations, West Virginia and Kentucky sued. On these grounds, the standards were struck down by the federal district court for the District of Columbia earlier this year.

The Court only ruled on grounds of administrative law. It’s a pity the judge didn’t consider the legality of EPA’s salinity standards, per se. According to EPA, the regulation was necessary because States were insufficiently protecting an order of short lived insects, known as mayflies. There’s a law to protect insects. It’s called the Endangered Species Act and it’s administered by the Interior Department. EPA has no business imposing onerous bug-protections on West Virginia and Kentucky.

Speaking of the Interior Department, it’s working on a second regulation that would effectively outlaw mountaintop removal mining. It’s known as the Stream Buffer Zone Rule. This regulation entails a radical reinterpretation of the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMACRA). The Interior Department’s Stream Buffer Zone rule would interpret the SMACRA—the purpose of which is to sanction surface coal mining—such that the law banned surface coal mining. Again, you can’t make this up!

The invaluable Rep. Doc Hastings, Chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, has doggedly investigated this attempt to pervert the purpose of the Congress’s intent. Although the administration has refused to fully cooperate, the Associate Press last year unearthed evidence that consultants to the Interior Department estimated that the rule would cause the loss of 7,000 jobs in Appalachia.

I’m a libertarian, but I accept regulation as an efficient societal response to problems caused by society. To put it another way, I fully support the imposition of expensive pollution-control technologies, in order to address real problems. However, none of the four coal industry-killing regulations explained above would actually mitigate a real problem.

So what’s going on? It seems to me that this administration is warring on coal for reasons of political expediency. As I wrote in a post last week,

Remember, environmental special interests are a significant component of the President’s organizational base. And for them, coal is evil, because it is “dirty.” That’s why, way back in 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board that he would “bankrupt” the coal industry if elected President. Now, EPA is following through on the President’s promise. The powers of the presidency are the means by which he satisfies the environmentalists’ desired ends. To be sure, it’s an American outrage that the fate of an entire industry can thus be subjected to the capricious winds of presidential politics, but that’s a different blog post. For now, it suffices to say that this Administration is imposing billions of dollars of costs, in the midst of difficult economic times, in order to placate a political constituency, and for nothing else.

Even if you don’t agree with me (that the war on coal is a political sop to the green component of the President’s base), it’s indubitable that there is, in fact, a war on coal now being waged by the Obama administration. In this post, I discuss four regulations that would effectively ban industries in both coal production and consumption. There are many more such regulations in the pipeline, unfortunately. Among them are: Clean Water Act 316(b) standards, coal ash regulation under RCRA, OSHA underground dust standards, Carbon NSPS for existing coal plants, Endangered Species protections for minnows in Appalachian streams, another Interstate Transport rule….

We’re in terra incognita. There’s no precedent. Without a Congressional mandate, the executive has taken it upon itself to seek out and destroy an industry. In so doing, agencies are seeking out novel powers pursuant to existing statutes. To me, as a free marketeer, it’s outrageous that the fate of an entire economic sector can hang in the balance of a Presidential race. It should go without saying that the shifting sands of politics are an unsuitable foundation for wealth creation in America. I’ll end by hopefully quoting Ty Webb: “This isn’t Russia. Is this Russia? This isn’t Russia.”

Yesterday, by an 8-3 vote, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved CleanPowerSF, a municipal energy plan that would force about half the city’s ratepayers into using electricity that was generated entirely from renewable sources, like wind and solar power.

The cost? According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the measure would increase utility bills about 23 percent*.

And I thought renewable energy was supposed to be competitive! California already has the 13^th most expensive electricity rates in the country, so this 23 percent green energy premium is on top of relatively high utility bills. [updated 10:23 AM, 9/20/2012: I completely forgot to mention that this renewable energy is 23 percent more expensive than conventional energy (in a market, California, whereby a state law forbids the consumption of coal, the most conventional electricity source) after accounting for federal, state, and municipal subsidies. Moreover, I don't know the extent to which this "100 percent" renewable power is "real" rather than an artificial construct. The grid requires a reliable flow of power, but renewable energy is intermittent, and there's no technology to store utility-scale electricity. Therefore, I presume CleanPowerSF entails a reliance on imported hydropower (the "real" source of power) while the city purchases renewable energy credits (which are basically the environmental attributes of renewable energy produced elsewhere) equal to the amount of hydropower consumed. This is necessary because Californians don't consider hydropower to be "green" due to the fact that it harms some kinds of fish. Again, this is reasoned speculation on my part--I can't imagine how CleanPowerSF would work otherwise. I'll post again when I find out.]

In addition to being expensive, CleanPowerSF is also coercive. On the basis of already-conducted public surveys that purport to have identified those neighborhoods that are willing to pay more for green energy, the city has chosen 375,000 customers who will be automatically enrolled into CleanPowerSF. That’s about half the ratepayer base. It is incumbent upon these unfortunate residents to opt out of the program. By making participation a default option, the city is trying to take advantage of humankind’s innate aversion to dealing with minutiae, and thereby compel (dupe) as many citizens as possible into using 100 percent green, expensive energy. It’s an old sales trick.

Evidently, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee’s support for CleanPowerSF is tepid. There’s no guarantee he’ll lend his approval, which is necessary for the project to move forward. I appreciate his reservations.

As I’ve argued here, here, and here: San Francisco could have achieved its green dreams, at zero cost, by freeing the city’s electricity market from the shackles of socialism. Instead, municipal leaders have opted to trade one government granted monopoly (PG&E) for another (Shell, the sole provider of electricity for CleanPowerSF).

*The Chronicle reports that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission estimated that lower income customers, with utility bills of $40 per month, would see an increase of $9.55. For the average monthly utility bill, which the Energy Information Administration pegs at $81 in California, the San Francisco PUC estimated that the increase would be $18.53.