California's public utilities' credit ratings are burning down after regulators determined that about 70 percent of the state is now rated at high or extreme wildfire risk. California's Democrat-controlled Legislature has mastered the game of deviously nudging public utility regulators to raise fees and surcharges to pay for its progressive environmental initiatives rather than suffering the voter backlash from raising taxes. California residents, due to abundant hydro resources and being the nation's third largest oil-producer, used to have some of America's lowest retail electricity rates.  But residents paid 18.32 cents per kilowatt-hour (/kWh) in 2018, about 47 percent more than the national average of 12.47 cents/kWh. Much of that staggering $14.8-billion-a-year extra cost was siphoned off through environmental mandates and crony spending. The same is true for California retail gasoline prices that went from some of the lowest U.S....(Read Full Post)