On August 6, Janisse Quiñones, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Engineer at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, was in Mojave for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Eland Solar-plus-Storage Project. “This celebration marks a critical step toward LADWP’s accelerated goal of 100% clean energy by 2035,” Quiñones said.

On the same day, the LADWP issued a “boil water notice” for Porter Ranch and Granada Hills. “Effective immediately, customers located within the affected area need to boil their water before using it to drink, cook, make ice cubes, prepare food such as washing vegetables, or to brush teeth until further notice,” the utility said.

And there, in microcosm, is what’s wrong with the city-owned utility, now fully captured by pointless climate-change alarmism.

It’s important to remember that what California does has no effect on the global climate. The whole state accounts for 1% of global greenhouse gases, so we could close down every utility, refinery, manufacturer and dairy, and it would make no difference to the climate. The state’s costly policies are not “leadership.” They’re blithering idiocy.

A broken valve caused 9,200 LADWP customers to have no water service for a week, which is a reminder that the aging water and power infrastructure in Los Angeles needs a certain amount of timely maintenance and replacement. But the department’s spending priorities are elsewhere. 

And we still don’t have accountability for the empty reservoir and dry hydrants that contributed to the devastation in the Pacific Palisades in January. It’s almost as if changes to personnel or policies might distract from the preferred narrative that “climate change” caused the fire catastrophe.

So Quiñones was in the desert on August 6, cutting a ribbon. “This celebration marks a critical step toward LADWP’s accelerated goal of 100% clean energy by 2035,” she said. 

According to L.A.’s Office of Public Accountability, implementing the “LA100” plan will raise rates by about 7.7% per year. “We shouldn’t blindly charge ahead for 2035 come hell or high water,” the ratepayer advocate said last July. 

But Mayor Karen Bass said she was “proud to continue Los Angeles’ global leadership on climate change.”

The Eland Solar-plus-Storage facility cost $2 billion and has the capacity to produce 758 megawatts of solar electricity paired with 300 megawatts of battery power that can last four hours. Under ideal conditions, it can produce 7% of the electricity needed by Los Angeles, enough to power “more than 266,000 homes.”

The facility was described by the Los Angeles Times as being “as large as 13 Dodger stadiums, parking lots included.”

“We need about 10 more of these to hit our goals,” said Quiñones. 

Really? To meet the LA100 plan target, ratepayers will have to pay for another $20 billion of facilities and see utility equipment cover enough land for 130 Dodger stadiums, including parking lots? 

It likely will cost much more than $20 billion due to interest payments on LADWP debt.

Bond rating agencies generally approve of LADWP’s credit quality because customers have to pay whatever the city charges. But there could be liability ahead for the wildfire damage, and in the view of one rating agency, “LADWP’s ability to maintain rate affordability and strong financial metrics while meeting highly capital-intensive energy transition mandates is an evolving credit challenge.”

In its “2023-2026 Strategic Plan,” LADWP states that by June 30, 2026, it will have “secured voter support as required for needed structural reforms to LADWP’s rates.” This is described further as a plan for an amendment to the City Charter to create “a larger assistance fund.”

That sounds a lot like a tax on some ratepayers to subsidize others who can’t pay the insanely high utility bills.

But instead of spending your ratepayer dollars to maintain the infrastructure for reliable water and power, LADWP and the city that owns it are burning through billions to meet useless climate targets, while figuring out ways to raise rates even higher. 

It’s insulting that ratepayers are paying the inflated salaries of the people who are doing this to them. Bass hired Quiñones in April 2024 at a salary of $750,000, nearly double what her predecessor earned.

Maybe the City Charter should be amended to address that.

Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley

Originally Published: August 12, 2025 at 3:53 PM PDT