The California Climate Credit is a program administered by the

California Public Utilities Commission The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC or PUC) is a regulatory agency that regulates privately owned public utilities in the state of California, including electric power, telecommunications, natural gas and water companies. In addition ...

and the

California Air Resources Board The California Air Resources Board (CARB or ARB) is the "clean air agency" of the government of California. Established in 1967 when then-governor Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford-Carrell Act, combining the Bureau of Air Sanitation and the Moto ...

in which ratepayers receive a refund on their gas and electricity bills. The refund is paid in biannual installments for residential customers and monthly for small businesses. The funding for the refund comes from the utility providers who pay a

carbon tax A carbon tax is a tax levied on the carbon emissions required to produce goods and services. Carbon taxes are intended to make visible the "hidden" social costs of carbon emissions, which are otherwise felt only in indirect ways like more sev ...

for polluting the air, and the refund is the dividend portion of the

carbon fee and dividend A carbon fee and dividend or climate income is a system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change. The system imposes a carbon tax on the sale of fossil fuels, and then distributes the revenue of this tax over the entire popu ...

program created by the

Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, or Assembly Bill (AB) 32, is a California State Law that fights global warming by establishing a comprehensive program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all sources throughout the state. AB32 was c ...

. The refund represents only a portion of the carbon tax collected, with the rest of the funds collected going towards programs to fight climate change. The program is only applied to customers of for-profit utilities. Municipal utilities in California (such as the

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is the largest municipal utility in the United States with 8,100 megawatts of electric generating capacity (2021-2022) and delivering an average of 435 million gallons of water per day to more ...

, the

Sacramento Municipal Utility District The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is a community-owned electric utility serving Sacramento County and parts of Placer County. It is one of the ten largest publicly owned utilities in the United States, generating the bulk of its p ...

, and the

Imperial Irrigation District The Imperial Irrigation District (IID) is an irrigation district that serves the Imperial Valley in Southern California. Established under the State Water Code, the IID supplies roughly of Imperial Valley farmland with raw Colorado River water ...

) do not pay the carbon tax that funds the program because the California Public Utilities Commission only regulates privately owned utilities. The program was announced in 2014 with the first payments made in 2015. The program was set to expire in 2020, but in 2017 it was extended to 2030.

Disbursement

No action is required to receive the credit; customers automatically receive a credit on their bill under the line item "California Climate Credit". As of 2022, the following utility companies participate in the program: *

PG&E The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is an American investor-owned utility (IOU). The company is headquartered in the Pacific Gas & Electric Building, in San Francisco, California. PG&E provides natural gas and electricity to 5.2 millio ...

(electricity and natural gas) *

SDG&E San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) provides natural gas and electricity to San Diego County and southern Orange County in southwestern California, United States. It is owned by Sempra, a Fortune 500 energy services holding company based in San Di ...

(electricity and natural gas) *

SCE SCE is an abbreviation with multiple meanings: Science * Short-channel effect, a secondary effect describing the reduction in threshold voltage Vth in MOSFETs with non-uniformly doped channel regions as the gate length increases * Saturated calomel ...

(electricity only) * Pacific Power (PacifiCorp) (electricity only) * Liberty Utilities (CalPeco Electric) (electricity only) * Bear Valley Electric Service (electricity only) * All Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs) (electricity only) *

SoCalGas The Southern California Gas Company (trading as SoCalGas) is a utility company based in Los Angeles, California, and a subsidiary of Sempra Energy. It is the primary provider of natural gas to Los Angeles and Southern California. Overview Its ...

(natural gas only) *

Southwest Gas Southwest Gas Holdings, Inc. () is an investor-owned utility based in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. The company provides natural gas service to over 2 million residential, commercial, and industrial customers in parts of Arizona, Nevada, and ...

(natural gas only) Customers of utilities that provide both electricity and natural gas receive separate credits for electricity and natural gas. For residential customers, each customer gets the same credit amount, regardless of how much energy the customer consumes. For small businesses, the credit is proportional to the amount of energy used. For the majority of residential electricity consumers, half the annual credit is applied in April and the other half is applied October. For natural gas consumers, the credit is applied in April in full. 10.7 million eligible residential customers saved an average of $35 on their electricity bills in October 2014. The credit amount differs depending on the utility company. In April 2022, credits ranged from $29.96 per household to $132.85 per household.

COVID-19 Response

In 2020, the credit was modified slightly in response to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

. The motivation for the COVID-19 modification was twofold: (1) offsetting the financial impact of predicted increased residential electric bills after the Governor's

stay-at-home order A stay-at-home order, safer-at-home order, movement control order (more common in Southeast Asia), or lockdown restrictions (in the United Kingdom) – also referred to by loose use of the terms (self-) quarantine, (self-) isolation, or lockdow ...

was announced on March 19, 2020, and (2) by reducing utility bills, encouraging residential customers to invest in energy efficient and money-saving products. The credit in April 2020 was disbursed as normal, but the October 2020 credit was moved up and disbursed 50% in May 2020 and 50% in June 2020.

References

External links

California Climate Credit
at the

{{DEFAULTSORT:California Climate Credit Carbon finance Environment of California Air pollution in California Politics of California