Mike Levin

Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, met with labor, environmental and consumer groups Monday in Del Mar to discuss energy strategies if Democrats wrest control of the U.S. House of Representatives after the midterm elections in November.

“Energy bills are crushing consumers,” Levin said. “Rates are climbing, families are falling behind and folks want to know what their leaders are going to do about it.”

Earlier this year, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appointed Levin as co-chair of an affordability working group focused on gas and utility prices.

Levin said Monday that the group will come up with legislation “that we can introduce in the first hundred hours, the first hundred days and the first year should we be so fortunate to have a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives.”

The report is still in draft form, with Levin saying a final plan will be released before the election.

Asked for specifics, Levin mentioned protecting the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, that the Trump administration proposed eliminating during budget talks earlier this year.

Levin also mentioned “reasserting our war powers authority” regarding the war in Iran that has driven up gasoline prices and “standing up to the president on tariffs,” especially those imposed on Canada and Mexico.

“The president ran on reducing the cost of living; that was the whole theory of the case in the 2024 election,” Levin said. “And specifically, he said that he would cut your electric bill in half. He also said that he would dramatically reduce the price of gasoline. Exactly the opposite has happened.”

Since the start of the conflict in Iran, the average price for regular gasoline in San Diego has jumped from $4.69 on Feb. 28 to $5.69 on Monday, according to AAA.

Levin has served in Congress since January 2019. In the November election in California’s 49th Congressional District, Levin faces Republican Armen Kurdian, a retired Navy captain who lives in Vista.

“Give the drillers the opportunity to pull more oil out of the ground,” Kurdian said Monday. “Over-regulation and California energy policies have made it very hard for refiners to do their work here … We don’t need mandates. We just need to stop picking winners and losers in the energy industry.”

Soaring utility bills have become a hot-button topic for ratepayers across the country — especially in California.

Average residential electricity rates in the Golden State have grown faster than inflation, and last month the Public Advocates Office reported that SDG&E rates have swollen 97% in the past 10 years. Southern California Edison’s average residential rate has climbed 101% and PG&E’s has risen 69% during the same time frame, which runs through both the Trump and Biden administrations.

“California’s not perfect.” Levin said, “but I’m a proud Californian, and I’m proud of the investments that we’ve made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution and renewables and distributed generation and vehicle electrification … I do think that we’ve demonstrated in California that when you invest in renewable energy, the good far outweighs the bad.”

California has also established a host of clean energy programs and goals. Among them:

The state promises to derive 100% of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045 or sooner.

In 2022, the California Air Resources Board approved a scoping plan that included a commitment to build no new natural gas-fired power plants in the state.

And the state has a long-standing renewables portfolio standard that sets mandatory targets for electricity providers to increasingly boost their renewable energy sources.

The California Air Resources Board also administers a Cap-and-Invest program (formerly known as Cap and Trade) that sets a legally binding, declining limit on about 80% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. It requires industries to buy allowances for each metric ton they emit, thus providing an incentive for them to adopt cleaner technologies.