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Dr. Bains Proposes Ending the "Climate Tax" During Extreme Heat Days

For immediate release:

SACRAMENTO, CA – Assemblymember Dr. Jasmeet Bains today announced Assembly Bill 2611, critical legislation designed to protect California’s working-class families and public schools from exorbitant utility penalties during dangerous heatwaves. The bill corrects a structural inequity in the state’s energy pricing system that disproportionately punishes inland renters for using air conditioning to survive extreme summer temperatures.

Currently, California’s tiered electricity pricing is designed to encourage energy conservation by hitting customers with expensive "Tier 2" surge pricing when they exceed a baseline energy allotment. However, this policy fails completely for low-income renters in the Central Valley, who routinely face over 100 days of 90°F+ weather annually.

Because renters have no legal authority or financial ability to make structural energy-efficiency upgrades to their homes, such as installing double-pane windows, adding modern insulation, or upgrading decades-old HVAC systems, they are unable to meet the state's conservation goals during a heatwave.

"For too long, our state's utility rate structure has operated as a regressive geographic tax on Central Valley families," said Assemblymember Dr. Jasmeet Bains. "California's tiered pricing is supposed to incentivize conservation, but you cannot price-incentivize a renter who has no control over the insulation in their walls or the efficiency of their air conditioner. We are financially penalizing families for living in older, inefficient buildings they have no way to fix. When the temperature breaks 90 degrees, running the AC is not a wasteful luxury. Sacramento and the smug elites on the foggy coast need to stop looking down their nose at families in the Valley when we turn on the air conditioning."

AB 2611 establishes a targeted, data-driven rate cut by:

  • Prohibiting utilities from applying rates above the Tier 1 baseline during any hour the National Weather Service records temperatures above 90°F.
  • Safeguarding economically vulnerable residential customers (those eligible for CARE or FERA) and public schools that are most at risk during heat events.
  • Targeting relief in designated "Hot Climate Zones" (Zones 10–15), ensuring relief goes exactly where the environmental hazard is most severe.

"As a physician, I have seen firsthand the devastating health impacts of extreme indoor heat on our elderly, our children, and our chronically ill," Dr. Bains concluded. "We cannot continue to balance the state’s energy conservation goals on the backs of our most vulnerable renters. AB 2611 ensures that energy affordability is based on human necessity and public health, not on the sensibilities of limousine liberals in San Francisco."

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Dr. Jasmeet Bains represents the 35th Assembly District in Kern County, including the cities of Bakersfield, Delano, Wasco, Arvin, Shafter, and McFarland.