California

Reducing the incentives for residential solar and battery storage also reduces the resilience of the power grid, something which Puerto Rico in the wake of the last hurricane shows us is vital. Having the efficiency of large solar plants is great when everything is perfect, but if your power is cut due to high winds and dry weather, known as a PSPS, or the power lines are downed by an earthquake, local solar and power storage helps people keep their homes and lives running, and prevents the deaths of the chronically ill, children, and seniors who are most vulnerable to temperature extremes.

Put another way, we should be expanding residential solar and local power storage, and make it more affordable than ever so the people most at risk due to climate change, people too poor to escape it, are provided local power generation from that giant fusion reactor in the sky. Instead, solar becomes more and more out of reach. Also, you can always tell how politicians feel about something. Unlike the Federal government, California doesn’t offer a tax credit for clean energy generation and storage, which aligns perfectly with the profit motives of Governor Newsom’s best friends at PG&E and SCE (over $1MM in campaign donations last I heard).