Lights Out in La La Land

Blackouts hit Los Angeles as climate policies wilt in the heat

WSJ editorial. 

"Meet modern life in Los Angeles. On Sunday night the Hollywood Bowl had to cancel a concert because of a city power outage. On Saturday a brief blackout disrupted a University of Southern California football game. Why aren’t La La Land’s progressive leaders upset? Maybe because they’re partly responsible.

Heat waves with triple-digit temperatures are unpleasant, though not unusual during the summer in the South and West. Yet Los Angeles’s electric power system suffered widespread failures this weekend as temperatures surged, causing more than 70,000 utility customers in the city and surrounding neighborhoods to lose power, including the Los Angeles Coliseum and Hollywood Bowl.

Tens of thousands of Californians in other parts of the state also lost power, but L.A.’s grid meltdown was the worst. Its municipal utility, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), faulted overloaded cables and overheated equipment. Customers were told they might not get power back for more than 24 hours. Better crash at a friend’s place—and hope it doesn’t lose power.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass blamed the outages on “extreme heat.” But the electric systems in Arizona, Texas and Nevada withstand sizzling temperatures without buckling. Why can’t L.A.? Perhaps because the municipal utility has prioritized the city’s climate goals over hardening its system and replacing aging equipment.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2021 announced plans to put the city “on the fast track to a 100% renewable energy future.” He was joined by LADWP leaders and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who declared the city’s “study” would be “proof that the clean energy transformation is not only possible, but preferable.” Sure, if you don’t mind blackouts.

LADWP has been spending heavily on building out green energy and subsidizing electric vehicle chargers. But something has to give, and that has been electric reliability. The utility has skimped on grid repairs to prevent rates from surging even more than they have. Since January 2021, electric prices in the Los Angeles metro area have climbed 36%.

Los Angeles is a portent of the not-so-bright green future that awaits America if today’s climate policies continue."