Will my teenagers be dead before nuclear waste is removed from the bluffs at San Onofre?

That rattles the mind as one contemplates the latest attempt by U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, to shake some action out of his brethren in Congress. In what might be read as an acknowledgement of facts on the ground — i.e., the snail’s pace at which the U.S. Department of Energy progresses on this extremely divisive national issue  — Levin has introduced, again, the “100 Year Canister Life Act.”

It would do exactly as it says: require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license only storage systems that can safely contain nuclear waste for an entire century.

That would more than double the required lifespan for temporary storage systems like the ones at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station,(and more than 70 nuclear plants like it across the nation). Right now, these waste storage systems must last 40 years.

“As I’ve said ad nauseam, the waste at San Onofre is the symptom of a greater problem,” Levin said on a webinar Feb. 2 hosted by the Samuel Lawrence Foundation. “The problem is that we lack a cohesive, comprehensive strategy to deal with spent nuclear fuel across the entire United States.”

More than 3.5 million pounds of nuclear waste are stored at San Onofre, near active faults, some 10 million people and the Camp Pendleton Marine base.

Nationwide, the problem is magnified by nearly a hundred-fold: Commercial reactors have generated some 90,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel to date, and those still operating could generate another 50,000 metric tons by 2060. That’s nearly 309 million pounds of highly radioactive nuclear waste “temporarily” strewn across some 75 sites nationwide, according to the DOE.

And about one-quarter of those sites no longer have operating reactors, resulting in “stranded waste,” like we have at San Onofre.

‘Raise standards’

The bill’s co-sponsor is U.S. Rep. Salud O. Carbajal, D-Santa Barbara, whose district includes California’s only operating nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon. Diablo was slated to close soon, but won a longer lease on life to help the Golden State meet energy demands.

“As we continue working towards long-term solutions… it is important to raise the standards for on-site nuclear waste storage,” Carbajal said in a prepared statement. “Raising these standards will also raise the confidence that nearby communities have in the safety of nuclear power plants, and until there is an agreement on the final storage site for these fuels, this change isn’t just a good precaution, it’s a necessity.”

The good news is that there’s almost $48 billion in the federal Nuclear Waste Fund to fund a permanent solution, already paid by consumers. It earned some $1.7 billion in interest last year.

The not-so-good news is that the DOE has been working on this for nearly half a century, and has little more than the moribund Yucca Mountain to show for it.

“We’re in this situation because the federal government tried to establish a long-term repository for the waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada without getting the permission or obtaining the consent of the state and all the affected localities and tribes,” Levin said on the webinar. “That was a recipe for failure. And it’s why all the fuel is still sitting in San Onofre today.”

On the upside, the DOE has resurrected a consent-based siting initiative that could, maybe, move waste off the bluffs in about 15 years. But DOE was supposed to have a permanent disposal site up and running by 1998, so you can’t blame folks for being a bit skeptical. That’s why more robust requirements for temporary storage make sense, supporters say.

Temporary?

“The whole design philosophy behind these canisters is that they were there essentially to be a temporary storage until the fuel would be moved to a permanent repository, but that is now an open-ended time frame,” said Gregory B. Jaczko, a physicist who once chaired the NRC, on the webinar.

“So these temporary canisters are now essentially permanent canisters for all intents and purposes, but they’re only licensed for a finite period of time, 40 years. And it’s largely expected that … the canisters will have to last longer than 40 years. So there’s just a lot of hand-waving about both from the agency and from the industry, about how you address that question.”

The systems may well will last longer than 40 years. “But at some point, whatever that time frame is that they will eventually no longer be able to meet their safety requirements and their safety standards … something will have to be done to repackage and remove the fuel and put it in new canisters,” Jaczko said. “Which is why I think Congressman Levin’s 100-year licensing for canisters is such an important piece of legislation because it really tackles that issue head on. And while 100 years may not even be sufficient in some cases, at least it’s more realistic.”

Activists who want the waste moved, pronto, have been worrying as storms eat away the dirt road leading to the surfing beach at San Onofre.

“This may be a good time to reflect on who is really in charge,” said a recent appeal from San Clemente Green. “The laws of nature always prevail. … Do you think it might be the right time to consider moving 3.6 million pounds of nuclear waste to higher ground while we still can? I’d say Nature is moving faster than we are in this often unrecognized RACE AGAINST TIME.”

The NRC tends to keep quiet about these sorts of proposals. San Onofre’s operator, Southern California Edison, is as eager to get it off the bluff as anyone.

“We appreciate the support of Reps. Levin and Carbajal of our focus on the safe, on-site storage of spent nuclear fuel,” Edison spokesman Jeff Monford said. “We remain committed to making off-site storage and disposal a reality so that we can clear the San Onofre site of the spent fuel, finish the decommissioning process and restore the land for unrestricted use by the Navy.

“Spent fuel has been safely stored at San Onofre for more than 50 years and stored in dry canisters for more than 20 years. We are committed to its safe storage as long as it remains at San Onofre.”

Levin said it’s critical that the best technology be used to keep communities as safe as possible. “I’m going to be pushing very hard for this bill to become law,” Levin said. “It’s not going to happen overnight, but we’ve got to keep at it.”

Here’s hoping my 19 and 13 year old girls will still be alive when that happens.

“I have been trying for more than two years to find a new space, gone down every possible rabbit hole, knocked on doors of buildings that aren’t for sale,” said Leslie Eisner, artistic director of the nearly 35-year-old company that’s losing its city-owned home near the historic San Juan Capistrano Mission to a redevelopment project.

“We’ve had five realtors working with us. We still don’t have a space. I just don’t know what else to do. The clock is ticking.”

There’s the low point in every second act where all seems hopelessly, desperately, irretrievably lost — and the Camino Real Playhouse seems to be there right now. But soft, what light in yonder window breaks? It’s at these most hopeless junctures that miracles can happen, actor Carla Naragon said.

“In every story there’s a hero and a villain and unexpected strangers who show kindness,” she said. “There’s an opportunity for heroes to show up. Maybe there’s a hero out there somewhere — maybe it’s in someone’s cosmic contract to come forward and have the experience of being a savior or a silent angel. This story has room for those people to come forward.”

It would be tragic to lose a community theater that managed to survive pandemic shutdowns, only to be felled by the outrageous fortune of California real estate. But it’s happening. Over the past several years, the Attic Theater lost its spot in Santa Ana. STAGEStheatre lost its spot in Fullerton. The Modjeska Playhouse lost its spot in Lake Forest.

“Real estate is expensive,” said Richard Stein, president and CEO of Arts Orange County. “It’s a bigger problem than just the community theaters — it’s everywhere in the arts. It’s very difficult to find affordable places to perform or exhibit. Thank God for Henry Segerstrom. That land for all those buildings — can you imagine?”

The Alchemy Theatre Company has been homeless since it launched in 2013. “I’ve been pushing to find a home for us, but rent is astronomical,” said Jeff Lowe, a founder. “Unless you have a city, an actual city council, willing to provide a building or put up a lot of money, it’s just not possible. And it’s tough to generate returning audience members when you don’t have a home.”

The now-shuttered Modjeska Playhouse knows. It never got back on its feet after the pandemic. Its landlord wanted to nearly double the rent — and wanted the entire lease term paid in advance.

“As much as we wanted to stay in the space, and as much as we wanted to continue as a theater company, their terms weren’t realistic, so we had to close,” said Christopher Sullivan. “Unless the theater is really well funded by donors, or the building they perform in is owned by the city making rents and day to day operating expenses less of a burden, it is very hard to survive in Orange County. Ticket sales are not enough to keep the doors open.”

Help wanted

Camino Real Playhouse appreciates the great deal it enjoyed for decades. The city of San Juan Capistrano allowed it to transform the city-owned former feed store/Pacific Bell building into a playhouse in 1991. Rent was almost free. Camino Real built up a beloved following — so beloved that a benefactor has pledged to help fund a new home so long as it remains in San Juan Capistrano. The money, however, won’t follow if the company leaves town.

Eisner has been looking. And looking. First in San Juan Cap. Then in surrounding cities, branching out further and further. Its proposal to move to a spot in San Clemente was met with great agitation by the city’s community theater; San Clemente took no action on it, and it seems moot.

“This past year we had over 11,000 people come through the playhouse to see our shows. Of 10 productions, eight had to be extended because every one sold out. We’re firing on all cylinders. If it wasn’t for the lack of a building….” Eisner said.

Some cities invest more than others in the arts. Laguna Beach owns the property that the Laguna Playhouse and Pageant of the Masters sit on, and charges them dramatically low rents for long-term leases — about $18,000 a year for the Playhouse, according to its recent audit. Garden Grove owns the Gem Theater, where One More Productions produces musicals and holds educational workshops. Brea’s city-owned Curtis Theater is available for creatives to rent, starting at about $500 per day.

Mission Viejo is studying the possibility of building a theater. Lake Forest’s city council chamber is a flexible space that can host performances.

San Juan Capistrano, meanwhile, has been on the generous-arts-benefactors list for decades — but alas. California eliminated redevelopment agencies to push surplus city-owned properties onto the market (and return them to the tax rolls). The developer’s original vision for the Playhouse site included a state-of-the-art performing arts center, but that disappeared from the project ultimately approved by the city council. The developer formed a nonprofit to raise $40 million to build the arts center elsewhere, but who knows when, and if, it will come to fruition?

The Camino Real Playhouse was told it would have to leave its home this year. No move-out date has been set, but not knowing what’s next causes enormous anxiety. Theaters need room to build and paint sets, store costumes, rehearse…. An optimal space would be a warehouse, some 10,000 square feet, with parking for 40 or 50 cars.

Eisner promised the late Barbara Jean (“BJ”) Scott, founder of the Camino Real Playhouse, that she’d take care of it for her. “It weighs on me,” Eisner said. “I want to make sure I fulfill that promise.”

Thinking out of the box

San Juan Capistrano City Councilmember John Campbell does not want to lose the Playhouse.

“They have been such an important, integral part of our community for decades. They’ve done so much for us, given back to the community… It’s a situation where we had no intentions of moving the Playhouse until we were literally forced to sell that property,” he said. “We want to keep them in town — but you can’t make someone sell them a building.”

Fellow Councilmember John Taylor feels the same way. He has served on the Camino Real Playhouse’s board. “It’s really important to me to have a community theater in the city,” Taylor said. “I’d be very sad to see it move.”

There’s no wrecking ball hanging over the playhouse just yet, and Taylor suspects it will have a bit more time at its current location than originally anticipated. As for what’s next — he understands that theater folks want space to perform as well as build and store sets and costumes, but real estate is so valuable these days that’s probably not viable. He suspects expectations will have to be adjusted.

“I wonder if they could do a thing with our local movie theater?” Taylor said. “And by the center where Marshalls is, there’s a vacancy … what about a long-term lease? The donor funding goes toward securing an endowment to pay the rent. I certainly would be creative if I had the offer of a large sum of money to make it work. A lot depends on whether the donors are willing to accept that.”

City funding, however, is out. “We’re really not in a position to be able to do that, unfortunately. I wish we were,” he said. “I wish we were like Dana Point or Newport Beach. They have millions and millions in their coffers. We run a really tight ship.”

Another out-of-the-box idea comes via Watermark OC Church, near the airport in Costa Mesa. It’s transforming thousands of square feet in its building — commercial industrial warehouse, 30-foot ceilings — into a theater.

“We feel like God called us to this space not to just serve the church, but to reach out and be a service to the community,” said Benjamin Applebee, lead pastor. “That’s our design. That’s our calling.”

The project has gotten the thumbs up from the warehouse’s owners association. Final approval is expected from the city of Costa Mesa shortly. Builders are being screened and the church hopes to finish the project before the end of the year.

Stein, of Arts OC, connected some homeless theater groups with the church to tour the space. The most common question: “When does it open?” Applebee didn’t have details on rental rates yet, but plans to make it affordable and convenient.

Edgier groups, like the homeless Alchemy, might not fit well in a church, and are forced to get creative. Consider “Drinkspeare,” its free show dedicated to “the Bard and the Bar.” The audience’s job is to get the actors tipsy before they perform Shakespeare, which leads to uproarious results. In February, Alchemy will do “Hamlet” at 8 p.m. Tuesdays at Craftsman Wood Fired Pizza in Placentia, and “Romeo and Juliet” at 8 p.m. Thursdays at the Lone Wolf Brewing Co. in Yorba Linda.

Lowe holds fast to Shakespeare’s wisdom: “It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves.”

Family

Much is at stake here. The arts enrich our lives, contribute to our health and well-being, and boost the local economy, particularly in tourism-heavy places like San Juan Capistrano, said Stein. “The whole culture of a community theater, a group of people working together to create art — that can’t be underestimated,” he said.

Camino Real has been doing that for folks in San Juan Capistrano — and throughout the region — for decades.

Jordyn Brady came to the Playhouse in 2021 to perform in “Little Shop of Horrors.” “I was so excited to be back on the stage — but what I didn’t expect was to find a family as well,” she said. “The Camino Real Playhouse turned into my home. The friends I’ve made turned into my forever family.”

Actress Naragon feels much the same way. She’s a therapist specializing in trauma care; the stage is her form of therapy. Theater is her church, how she connects with the divine, and Camino Real is one of her loves.

“Not all stories have happy endings, but I do believe — thank you, Shakespeare — that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy,” she said.

Bring it on, better angels. Bring it on.

“Today we will be introducing legislation to roll back the Public Utilities Commission’s proposed income-graduated fixed fee,” said Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, D-Thousand Oaks, on Tuesday.

“Today, 10 senators led by Senator Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, released a letter calling on the California Public Utilities Commission to reject a utility-backed proposal that would raise energy bills for millions of Californians by $360-$824 per year,” said a release from Wiener’s  office.

It seems important to point out that, at least overtly, neither the CPUC nor the investor-owned utilities are to blame for this wildly divisive “earn-more/pay-more” plan for funding upkeep of the grid. Rather — as lawmakers well know! — they are.

Wiener and Irwin both voted aye on the bill that codified it on June 29, 2022, as did the overwhelming majority of state legislators.

Though some lawmakers didn’t fully realize its implications at the time, the idea was tucked into a “budget trailer bill” that they passed with precious little public comment or debate at the bitter end of the session, which was then signed by the governor. Assembly Bill 205 repealed the existing cap on fixed charges — a wee $10 a month — and required the CPUC to develop fixed charges “on an income-graduated basis with no fewer than three income thresholds, such that a low-income ratepayer would realize lower average monthly bill without making any changes in usage.”

So before we explain the whys here, and the flurry of activity that erupted this week, let’s be clear that the CPUC was just following orders from lawmakers when it tasked the utilities (Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and Pacific Gas & Electric) and other “stakeholders” to propose income-based fixed charges.

“A sneaky way to make a big change in California law,” veteran Sacramento watcher Dan Walters of CalMatters called this budget-trailer-bill approach to policymaking.

Lawmakers are reaping the fruit of that process now. After hysteria broke out last year over the prospect of adding hundreds of dollars a year to the bills of higher-income folks, utilities ditched the income-based bit from their proposal entirely, settling on a straight $51 per month fixed charge for folks not in a low-income program.

Consumer advocates, however, balk, arguing that the law clearly mandates income-specific fixed charges to ease pressure on lower-income folks, and the CPUC must do exactly that — and do it by July 1.

The clock is ticking.

Why?

So here’s the rationale behind all this.

Electricity costs more in California than almost anywhere else in the nation. Prices have nearly doubled over the last decade, and that’s a tremendous problem when you’re telling everyone to abandon fossil fuels and go all-electric by 2035 — which, swallow hard, is just 11 years away.

A big driver of skyrocketing electric rates has been hardening the grid against wildfires, but those costs are not shared fairly by grid users, policymakers maintain.

Right now, the cost of delivering electricity is largely baked into the rates we pay for electricity itself. But it’s as expensive to bring energy to homes that consume gob-loads of power as it is to bring energy to homes that consume very little — like, say, rooftop solar households with no battery storage, who pump energy into the grid by day and pull it down at night. Those folks have largely escaped escalating infrastructure costs, even though they use the infrastructure, too.

So one of the ideas here is to simply divorce infrastructure costs from actual power costs. The price of power itself would drop — vital for the state to really go green — and the cost of maintaining the infrastructure would be more fairly spread, policymakers say.

So what happened this week?

You could say there was a contest over who hates the idea of an income-based fixed charge more.

Democrats Irwin, Wiener et al. introduced Assembly Bill 1999 — “Electricity: fixed charges” — repealing the income-graduated fixed charge requirement and the July 1 deadline. It would instead allow the CPUC to authorize fixed charges of $5 per month for low-income customers and up to $10 per month for others. Increases could not outpace inflation.

“Our constituents have had enough and so have we,” Irwin said at a press conference. “It’s time to put some reasoning back into how we charge for electricity in California.”

Now, Senate Republicans have been complaining about this idea for more than a year. Not to be outdone, they tried to force a floor vote “to repeal the law which created this mess.”

Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, proposed amendments to an election-related bill that would have “deleted” the income-based fee, which she said “unfairly targets hard-working families in all of our districts.”

“We are creating energy poverty in California, where bills are not sustainable for the average Californian,” Grove said. Though many lawmakers clearly agree, her proposal didn’t fly.

So where does all this theater leave us? The Democrats’ bill to repeal the income-based charge is slated for a March hearing, and just might fly. But until then, the CPUC’s marching orders remain the same: Create a fixed service charge based on income.

A dozen “stakeholders” have submitted nine different proposals “that all strive in different ways to balance the flat rate and usage rate elements of a residential customer’s bill,” a CPUC spokeswoman said in a statement. “We will carefully consider each of these proposals before adopting a billing adjustment.

“The implementation of this legislation is a critical step toward our climate goals because it will lower the usage rate, which means that it will be cheaper for consumers to charge an electric vehicle or run an electric heat pump, technologies we need to meet our decarbonization goals.”

‘Keep going’

The CPUC’s in-house Solomon-the-Wise — the Public Advocates Office, charged with protecting the Little Guy — agrees that change is needed.

Blocking a fixed charge will only move California further from its electrification, climate and affordability goals, officials said. Lower-income households pay too large a share of fixed costs, “and historic rate increases will be exacerbated if the CPUC is prevented from implementing equitable rate reform that will help to stabilize bills.”

It has concerns about the utilities’ $51 a month proposal, and favors a $25 fixed charge.

“This bill would kill a critical opportunity to help get electricity bills under control for Californians in the midst of a crippling affordability crisis,” said Theo Caretto, an attorney at Communities for a Better Environment, in a prepared statement. “The answer is to work with regulators to get this right, rather than sending us back to square one by dismantling this reform before it gets off the ground. We can — and must — ensure the wealthiest households pay their fair share.”

Matthew Freedman, staff attorney at TURN, agrees. “If the Legislature repeals current law, bills for low-income Californians, especially those living in hotter regions of the state, will skyrocket, in particular during the hottest months,” he said in a prepared statement. “New income-based fixed charges will reduce usage charges and require every customer, solar homeowner and non-solar renters pay their fair share for wildfire safety and climate investments.”

The CPUC should be allowed to complete its work on the fixed charge proceeding, Edison spokesman Jeff Monford said.

‘Titanic’

Loretta Lynch begs to differ.

She knows the CPUC. She was its president under Gov. Gray Davis from 2000-02, and was a commissioner until 2005. She’s had a long career as an attorney and expert on energy policy.

“This is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic rather than shrinking the size of the boat we’re on,” she said. “This is a bad idea.”

The real problem is that electricity rates in California are simply way too high and for no good reason — and this proposal does nothing to address that.

“What Californians pay to the private utilities is completely unwarranted and unsustainable,” she said. “What we’re really facing here is an affordability crisis, from my perspective, created by the California PUC and its inability to do its job and say ‘no’ to the utilities rather than giving them the sun, moon and stars. It’s an absolute travesty.”

The big three are allowed to collect some 10% as profit — but their income taxes are also built into rates, so Average Joe pays that, too, she said. Sometimes, when the utilities wind up collecting hundreds of millions more in profits than they’re technically allowed, CPUC has let them keep it, she said.

Lynch is not at all convinced that a drop in volume rates would mean lower electric bills for the lowest earners — “It could result in a rate increase for everybody,” she said. The utilities estimate it would cost some $75 million to get started, changing the billing systems, educating consumers, manning customer hotlines. And who is going to verify income levels? How much would that cost?

“California is in the top 10% of the country in terms of profit thrown at the utilities and in the bottom 10% for system reliability,” she said. “The utilities are making out like bandits. There are good reasons why even a poorly run municipal system can be better.”

Historically, this kind of radical change is done through legislation that’s well-vetted and extensively discussed, rather than shoved through in a few days as part of a budget bill, she said.

It would really hurt the middle class, she said. “People who make $100,000 a year are going to get slammed $400 to $600 more on their electric bills. My sister the school teacher and her husband the journalist are going to pay the same as Mark Zuckerberg.”

In summary: This is an ill-considered, cockamamie scheme and Lynch is heartened that there’s bipartisan opposition. “We don’t want to be first in the nation for letting the utilities pick our pockets even more,” she said. “This is egregious, and I’m embarrassed to have been a regulator in this system, seeing how it’s conducted now.”

Ouch. Let your lawmakers know what you think. We’ll keep you posted.

Brad Fieldhouse is nearly 7 feet tall — seriously — and he’s the head of City Net, the nonprofit hired to do the 2024 Point in Time Count of homeless people in Orange County. I, nervously, stand ready to administer the survey, while the towering Fieldhouse explains to the young man exactly what we’re doing. We’d just like to ask some questions, it’ll help policymakers figure out how best to help, two $5 gift cards are available for your troubles…. Slowly, painfully slowly, the man shakes his head no, rises to his feet and retreats behind the building.

Another man, Bill, appears. He’s 60, once worked in plumbing, pulls a collapsible wagon filled with thin blankets. He flashes a white hospital bracelet that he won’t take off — he considers it his sole means of official identification — and tells us he was released from a facility in Long Beach just a few days ago. Heart disease. He hikes up his sweatshirt to reveal a not-inconsequential belly, upon which “LONG BEACH” is tattooed in capital letters.

“I’m trying to find some housing,” he says. “That’s why I come down here. You can trust people over here more.”

It’s Thursday, Jan. 25, the final night of the federally mandated homeless count that happens every two years. This is South Orange County, where — at least according to just about every southern city except Laguna Beach — official homeless shelters are unnecessary. It’s a responsibility southerners have gladly relinquished to northern cities like Santa Ana and Anaheim, while letting local churches and nonprofits wrestle with what’s left.

Local officials fear that opening a shelter means more homeless people will flock to their cities. There’s blaming and shaming because many of those who need help have substance use problems. And we’re trapped in a philosophical faceoff between those who argue that folks should be free to chart their own course without government intervention, and those who argue that civilized societies don’t allow sick and vulnerable people to live — and die — on public streets.

Attention, city councilfolk below the Irvine Mason-Dixon line: Homeless folks don’t just live in your cities, they die there, too. Forty-five homeless people took their last breaths in your cities in 2023 — a dozen in Mission Viejo, nine in San Clemente, six in Lake Forest, three in Laguna Hills, three in Dana Point, three in San Juan Capistrano, two in Laguna Niguel, and one each in Capistrano Beach, Ladera Ranch and Rancho Santa Margarita.

Progress

Clearly, city-supported homeless shelters aren’t the ultimate answer here — but they’re a pretty monumental step on the path to one.

When I built my house in Laguna Beach 20 years ago, parts of the stunning, seaside Heisler Park were bona fide homeless encampments. Main Beach and that cute, twinkly, art-gallery-laden downtown were dotted with the downtrodden as well. But in 2009, the city stepped up: It opened a city-owned and funded “low barrier” 45-bed emergency shelter, the only one of its kind in South County. That allowed it to tell folks, “You have a safe place to go. Go there.”

Has it made a difference? One of our team’s first assignments Thursday night was walking the length of Heisler Park, peering down to beaches and over lawns, looking for unhoused folks. We found not a single, solitary soul.

Let’s not be Pollyanna: Shelters are not a panacea. Four homeless people died in Laguna Beach last year, two trying to cross South Coast Highway. Homeless folks still camp around Laguna’s twinkly downtown, particularly near Main Beach.

Rex, 59, has one unseeing eye. He doesn’t want to go to a shelter; it’s not too cold to sleep outside if you have a sleeping bag, he says. Churches in town bring coffee and sandwiches to Main Beach every weekday morning, and on Sunday, he’s at the Women’s Club. “Homelessness,” he says, “is part of the American equation.”

There’s a bearded man on the bench by the pedestrian mall part of Forest Avenue. He eats with his fingers from a cardboard take-out box. The man recognizes the towering Fieldhouse and Fieldhouse recognizes him: They met in the wee hours earlier that morning, at the Jack in the Box on South Coast Highway. This man was with a belligerent guy who mistook Fieldhouse for a cop, probably fearing Fieldhouse would make him spill out the magic elixir secreted away in his cup.

This man, Sean, initially brushes us off as well. As we wish him a safe evening and retreat, he follows us and starts talking. One of his hands is wrapped in a dirty bandage.

“I appreciate what you’re doing,” Sean says, launching into a soliloquy about how smaller people like him are targets on the streets, how he has beaten up people bigger than Fieldhouse, how if they were drowning in the waves in the ocean he would “drag your ass to shore or die trying.”

“What would it take to get you indoors?” Fieldhouse asks. “A room of your own, where you can lock the door, have all your things, be under a roof, be safe?”

Nothing could get him indoors, Sean says.

Fieldhouse persists, borrowing Sean’s own words. “I think you’d like that. We’re going to do it, or die trying,” Fieldhouse says.

‘This is America’

The Point in Time Count is an enormous undertaking. It requires some six months of behind-the-scenes prep working with local cities, law enforcement and nonprofits, to understand where homeless people are likely to be, map out hotspots then assign teams to canvas them.

It takes another couple months to clean the data and finalize the numbers. Fieldhouse’s City Net has a $688,000 county contract to orchestrate this year’s count. More than 900 volunteers stepped up to help.

Doug Becht, director of the county’s office of care coordination, has worked these counts in New York and San Diego. Some 3,500 surveys had been logged in O.C. by Thursday evening.

“We understand the Point in Time Count does not ask every question. It misses folks. But it is a valuable tool,” Becht says.

There’s enormous hope that this year’s trend will be downward — and that southern cities will see the wisdom of stepping up.

“We continue to believe there is a need for shelter here,” Becht says. “Location is important. People in San Clemente don’t want to go to Santa Ana or Anaheim for shelter. It would be so great if we could do more. The county wants to partner with cities, but we are not going to push our way into cities that don’t want us.”

Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley was on a team in San Clemente early Thursday morning. She’s been taking South County city officials to Costa Mesa’s shelter, near the airport, and rather invisible to anyone who doesn’t know it’s there.

“We have options” she tells them. “We can reduce the visual impact of homelessness and better help people. We can no longer lead with the idea that ‘It’s their right to be on the street.’ We have to lead with offering shelter, helping people help themselves.”

The answer is not just housing — it’s permanent, supportive housing, which means professionals on site, the experts say. Plans and programs to boost this approach are underway in O.C. and throughout California.

O.C.’s median household income was $109,361 in 2022. Hours after our mission ended, on my way back to my nice warm home, I detoured past the Starbucks on North Coast Highway. Bill was there, huddled beneath his blankets on the hard sidewalk.

How, I keep asking myself, is this OK?

“This is America,” Fieldhouse says. “It is not OK to have people living and dying on the streets.”

“We all have our memories,” Jim Steiner, Steiner’s eldest son, told the Orange County Board of Supervisors. “He would often bring children home to spend time with us for the holidays, to experience love and family and laughter.”

But the thing that really showed the young Steiner that his late dad was something special was the day they had to run by the office — Orangewood Children’s Home for abused and neglected kids, which William Steiner muscled into existence by sheer force of will. As they entered a room filled with children, “every kid ran toward him and threw themselves in his arms screaming ‘Mr. Bill’s here!’ He called every one of them by their first names. That’s who our dad was. He truly was a special human being.”

County supervisors were more than pleased to approve a street name change to honor Steiner, who died in 2022, on Tuesday, Jan. 23. The street in front of Orangewood Children’s Home in the city of Orange will heretofore be known as Steiner Way, rather than Justice Center Way.

“My last conversation with your dad was about, of course, a project he was working on in Tustin to help families,” Supervisor Katrina Foley told the Steiner children assembled. “He was very passionate about it – he was really a great example of how, after leaving office, he continued to serve the community. He stayed involved, always tried to find nonpartisan ways to support the community.”

Supervisors and Orange city councilmembers spoke about the support and advice William Steiner gave them on doing their jobs (including the advice his mother once gave him: “You want to hold public office? No! Don’t do it!” He didn’t listen either).

Orange city councilmember Jon Dumitru hopes that, years from now, people will wonder “Who was this Steiner guy?” Google his name and learn about him. “He was an absolute tiger in defense of children who had nobody,” Dumitru said.

This cements a piece of history, honors Steiner’s work, and hopefully inspires others to lean in and do the same, Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said. “He had a special place in his heart for our most vulnerable children.”

He’d stammer, turn beet red and protest vociferously — but deep down, we suspect the late William Steiner would be tickled silly that a street might be named after him.

Steiner — the fun-loving child welfare activist, force behind Orangewood Children’s Home, mentor to foster youth, fish-out-of-water politician and genuinely nice guy — died in 2022 at age 85.

Right now, the street in front of Orangewood is called Justice Center Way, but a proposal to change it to Steiner Way will be considered by the County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Jan. 23.

The street is in the city of Orange, where Steiner once served on the school board and city council before becoming a county supervisor.

“He’d blush all over as he’d be surprised to be so honored,” said friend and former chief of staff Mike Spurgeon. “He’d then give the credit to all of the principal movers and shakers, such as Gen. William Lyon, who made Orangewood become a reality. Then he’d call all of his children and friends and share the news starting with — ‘Can you believe this?!’ “

The proposal was placed on the agenda by Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, who represents the district Steiner once represented.

Steiner was born in Iowa and came to California as a child, when his father took a job with a steel company during World War II. He grew up in Bell (where his mother would later fight city corruption), earned a degree in criminology from UC Berkeley and a master’s in social work from USC.

He went to work with the Los Angeles County Department of Adoptions, Metropolitan State Hospital and other residential treatment programs for abused and neglected kids, the Good Samaritan Centers, then became head of Orange County’s Albert Sitton Home for abused and neglected children in 1978.

There, Steiner almost went to jail for refusing a judge’s order to return a child to a home that he felt was unsafe (he managed to convince the judge of that at a subsequent hearing). But conditions at the facility appalled him. Sometimes there was no hot water. Sometimes there weren’t enough beds so kids had to sleep on the floor. County officials said they didn’t have the money to fix things, they said — so Steiner got creative.

He leveraged his considerable charm and a righteous cause into a private-public partnership that raised some $8 million to build the Orangewood Children’s Home shelter, a spacious, Spanish-style complex of a dozen buildings that opened in 1985. The shelter housed some 150 kids a day, and Steiner was famous for knowing most of their names. He and his then-wife fostered kids and raised five of their own. In 1986, he left to become executive director of the Orangewood Foundation, which would go on to raise millions more to support Orange County youth.

The work made him a local darling. Steiner served on the Orange Unified School District’s board, then on the Orange City Council. He also had the ear of state officials, which led to his fateful appointment to the Board of Supervisors shortly before the county’s historic bankruptcy. He won the Child Advocate of the Year Award and Crystal Vision Philanthropy Award and Lifetime Achievement Awards. Orangewood’s “William ‘Bill’ Steiner Heart of Service Award” is named after him.

Steiner’s proudest achievement was always Orangewood and the devotion he felt toward abused and neglected kids, his family has said. He was a famed champion of childhood.

The Postal Service, Sheriff’s Department and Fire Authority have already signed off on the street name change. Folks can share their thoughts at the public hearing at the supes’ meeting, where friends are expected to talk about what a great guy he was.

Steiner always wanted to be considered a “white hat” — the good guy who rides off into the sunset. It appears he has gotten his wish.

It’s no secret that California electric bills are among the highest in the nation. Changes are coming that may make the monthly ritual less painful for some — and more painful for others (say, folks who aren’t in low-income programs and solar panel owners).

The California Public Utilities Commission is in the throes of establishing a “fairer” fixed monthly service charge, and it has become a bloody political battle (surprise surprise). Presently, the cost of delivering power is largely baked into the rates we pay for electricity itself. One of the ideas behind the coming changes is to divorce infrastructure costs from actual power costs, on the theory that it’s as expensive to get energy to homes that are highly efficient as it is to get it to homes that consume gob-loads of power.

While critics denounce this as a “utility tax” — including Irvine’s Vice Mayor Larry Agran, who’s organized a public information session on it from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 25, at Irvine City Hall  — officials bristle at that language and stress that the proposals do not change the amount of money that utilities collect.

Utility profits are set by the CPUC at roughly 10%. Think about the proposed changes like this: Under the old method, the utility collected $100. Under the new method, the utility will still collect $100 — but who pays that $100, and how, will shift.

How much?

Many plans are being bandied about.

The utility companies’ latest proposal is for a flat $51 a month for all residential customers who are not in lower-income programs. Folks in low-income programs would pay a lower fixed charge of $10 or $15 a month.

The Public Advocates Office — the CPUC’s in-house Solomon-the-Wise, charged with protecting the little guy — favors more evenly spreading infrastructure and maintenance costs among grid users, but proposes smaller fees. It favors a monthly charge of $30 for most customers, and $4 or $7 for those in low-income programs. “The bill impact will be partially or fully offset by resulting reductions in average electricity rates,” the Advocate says in its primer.

Other proposals are floating around as well, from solar groups, consumer groups, environmental groups. Suffice to say that commission folks are being bombarded with messaging and are supposed to make decisions by July, which will take effect in 2025 or 2026.

The CPUC has no choice on this one. This change comes thanks to a budget trailer bill passed with little public comment or debate in 2022: Assembly Bill 205. It repealed the existing cap on fixed charges — a wee $10 a month — and required the CPUC to develop fixed charges “on an income-graduated basis with no fewer than three income thresholds, such that a low-income ratepayer would realize lower average monthly bill without making any changes in usage,” says a Senate analysis of the bill.

Suffice to say that the income-based bit has been wildly unpopular and is going the way of the dinosaur.

‘Utility tax’

Agran is among hundreds of critics urging the Legislature to repeal the “utility tax” by June. They maintain that, while customers on low-income programs may see decreases in their monthly bills, millions of working people who don’t qualify for those programs will see bills increase.

“A high Utility Tax would increase electricity bills for anyone with a small energy footprint, and will hit particularly hard for working class and low-income people who live in an apartment or small home just because they live in a small space,” Agran’s flyer for the session says. “Even a $30/month Utility Tax would increase bills on all (non-low-income) ratepayers who do not use much energy.”

Hundreds of officials and activists have signed letters objecting to “the un-democratic and opaque way in which the Utility Tax was enacted, passed in three days without any public hearings or discussion,” the letter says. “The people of California deserve a voice in any major policy change with such wide-ranging consequences.”

A monthly fixed charge entrenches the problem of high electricity prices rather than solving it, they say.

“Electricity prices are too high mainly due to the increasing costs of unnecessary long-distance power lines, liability when those lines create wildfire risks and generous utility profits that drive this spending. A Utility Tax does not fix that underlying problem because it just rearranges who pays what — harming millions of working-class people in the process. The true solution to stabilizing the high cost of electricity is to reduce our overdependence on long-distance power lines through greater conservation and local clean energy.”

‘False’

The utilities bristle at the “utility tax” language.

“This is false,” said Southern California Edison spokesman Jeff Monford. “The proposed fixed charge would not be an added fee above customers’ energy charges. Instead, it is a restructuring of the electricity bill, which would lower the cost of each kilowatt-hour customers use.”

The utilities’ current proposal does not include an income-based fixed charge, other than the lower charge for customers participating in low-income programs, he said.

The Public Advocate, for its part, thinks the approach is the right one.

“A monthly fixed charge on customers’ electricity bills will cover some or all of the electric grid’s fixed costs (e.g., power line maintenance & wildfire prevention) that do not vary based on electricity usage,” it has said. “The fixed charge is intended to reduce power bills for lower-income customers and decrease electricity rates for all customers.”

Many rooftop solar owners, long insulated from the rate pain felt by their on-the-grid neighbors, would find themselves having to shoulder a good deal more of the infrastructure costs than they do now. Since most depend on the same infrastructure as everyone else for power once the sun goes down, they should also pay for its upkeep, the thinking goes.

The Public Advocate says its fixed charge proposal is a relatively small portion of total bills, so customers would still be able to “significantly reduce” their energy bills with solar investments.

The fixed charge would apply to customers of Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric, Pacific Gas & Electric and community choice power programs. Panelists at the Irvine session are slated to be economist Ahmad Faruqui, Chapman University post-doctoral fellow Ariane Jong-Levinger, Flagstaff Research principal Josh Plaisted, and Solar Rights Alliance advocacy and development director Cailey Underhill.

Folks can register for the Irvine session at https://www.vicemayorlarryagran.org/informational-briefing-new-utility-tax.

John Eastman bemoaned the “surreal, exhausting battle to defend my integrity” in a recent fundraising email, pinning the price tag for his legal defense at some $3 million to $3.5 million and politely pleading for donations.

The erstwhile dean of Chapman Law — who faces criminal charges in Georgia for trying to overturn former President Donald Trump’s election defeat, and the potential loss of his law license in California — said he faces “an onslaught of false charges leveled by radical leftwing lawyers working with lawfare groups. Tragically, many of these false charges were repeated nearly word-for-word by State Bar prosecutors and form the basis of the Bar’s prosecution against me.”

Eastman’s GiveSendGo account — whose fundraising goal creeps ever higher — has surpassed $615,000, but is nowhere near enough. “Though I have been blessed with over half a million in donations to my legal defense fund, I have already incurred legal costs of three times that amount,” his email says. “I urgently need your help to move forward with my defense.”

The pitch goes on to make factual claims that, at best, raise a few eyebrows. For a fast fact-check we turn to “Eastman Claims vs. Reality,” an entertaining, if stinging, analysis by Laguna Niguel attorney James V. Lacy.

We’ll remind you here that Lacy is no leftwing radical engaged in “lawfare,” but a bona fide conservative who served in the Reagan and Bush administrations, and as a Trump delegate in 2016. Lacy maintains that Trump would have been much better off if he never met Eastman.

‘Claims v. Reality’

Says Eastman: “This has been a surreal, exhausting battle to defend my integrity and legal actions from an onslaught of false charges leveled by radical leftwing lawyers working with lawfare groups.”

Says Lacy: “Are the charges false? The facts charged are based on his own actions, like calling Georgia legislators and trying to arrange for fake electors. They include conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer. Two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree. Two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings. Conspiracy to commit filing false documents.

“And… are they leveled by ‘radical leftwing lawyers?’ No, plenty of right-wing lawyers are leveling the charges, including the former Reagan White House Counsel and Appellate Judge John worked for, J. Michael Luttig, and Vice President (Mike) Pence’s counsel Greg Jacob, who went to the same law school as John.”

Says Eastman: “My legal team has demolished the State Bar’s claim that there was no evidence of fraud or illegality in the 2020 elections….our team did a magnificent job and made a clear and compelling case that my representation of President Trump had a strong factual basis as well as a compelling legal basis under the law and constitution.”

Says Lacy: “This is total baloney. Eastman was never able to establish meaningful proof of fraud or illegality. To the extent there was ‘illegality’ it had to do with empowering voters during a pandemic. The law favors voting. There has never been any finding anywhere of meaningful election fraud or illegality. Eastman’s ‘experts’ at the trial almost to the person did not qualify as experts, and his top Constitutional expert John Yoo actually testified he did not agree with Eastman’s interpretation of the Constitution and that Biden won the election ‘fair and square.’”

Says Eastman: “Our team put on a wide array of credible witnesses that, for the first time, laid bare in a courtroom many of the illegal and fraudulent activities that occurred in critical states such as Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania.”

Says Lacy: “As above, most of the witnesses were not qualified as experts because they were not. Former California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown was not qualified as an expert and her testimony was basically she did not know him too well, met him a couple times a year at legal conferences, and had a good impression of his scholarship. Nothing about election fraud.”

Says Eastman: “I had the courage to assist President Trump bring lawful, substantive allegations of election illegality before courts and appropriate elections officials pales in comparison to what we still face.”

Says Lacy: “He lost everywhere.”

‘Big lie’

Eastman’s big lie is in the first sentence of his first, infamous, two-page memo, Lacy said: “Seven states have transmitted dual slates of electors to the president of the Senate.”

“It was not true. There were not dual slates of electors in any legal sense,” Lacy said.

“Fake elector facts: The fake certificates were created by Trump allies in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico, who sought to replace valid presidential electors from their states with a pro-Trump slate, according to documents obtained by American Oversight.

“They sent these fake certificates after Trump himself failed to block governors from signing the real certificates. Specifically, Trump encouraged Republican governors in states like Georgia and Arizona not to certify the election results, and falsely claimed the elections were fraudulent. But these GOP officials ignored Trump, followed the law and awarded the electors to Biden.”

Lacy reminds us of the words of former Marine and current U.S. District Judge David O. Carter (“Based on the evidence, the court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021″ and “Dr. Eastman likely acted deceitfully and dishonestly each time he pushed an outcome-driven plan that he knew was unsupported by the law”).

Eastman faces a slew of criminal charges in Georgia, including violating the state’s RICO Act, filing false documents, soliciting a public officer to violate the oath of office and other criminal conspiracies. He has pleaded not guilty.

He awaits a decision on charges of “dishonesty and moral turpitude” from a California State Bar judge, which may well cost him his law license. Eastman has indicated he’ll appeal an unfavorable decision to the California Supreme Court and possibly beyond, to the U.S. Supreme Court. Which, of course, would cost more money.

‘$3 million+’

“As difficult as these past months have been, it’s clear to me that what my family and I have endured thus far because I had the courage to assist President Trump bring lawful, substantive allegations of election illegality before courts and appropriate elections officials pales in comparison to what we still face,” Eastman’s email says.

“If the State Bar judge rules against me and recommends that I be disbarred, I have the right to appeal but my law license will be suspended in the process. This will cripple my ability to earn a living doing what I have loved and excelled at for decades. Meanwhile, I face a highly-partisan prosecutor in Georgia who is determined to put me in prison for years to come….

“They are trying to completely destroy me. I am categorically innocent of all the charges against me and I am doing everything in my power to defend myself and expose the truth.”

Eastman said he’s $1 million in the hole, on top of what the legal defense fund has covered, and needs another $1 million by February to defend himself in Georgia.

“My wife and I have worked hard all our lives to earn a middle-class living for our family. We have no way to handle the $3 million+ in legal expenses that this lawfare assault will cost. We’re completely dependent on the generosity of people of good will like you to help,” it says.

An anonymous donor gave $498 a few days ago, employing the language of holy war.

“You are the salt of the earth,” the donor wrote. “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. We pray for you and thank you so much for fighting this battle. The battle belongs to the Lord.”

It’s like a scene from an old Western, where one cowboy shuffles into the dusty lane and tells the other, “Don’t know if this town’s big enough for both of us.”

In the movie, the cowboy might spit, but this spat involves two accomplished community theater companies who’ve been comfortably separated by more than 8 miles of highway for decades. Instead, a palpably panicked missive from San Clemente’s little Cabrillo Playhouse went out warning its patrons that the San Clemente City Council might bring another theater company to town — San Juan Capistrano’s Camino Real Playhouse, a bigger theatrical gorilla that’s losing its long-time home near the historic mission to a redevelopment project.

“While we support expansion of the San Clemente arts scene, we feel this proposal would be a direct threat to our operation, especially since we are in the midst of our largest fundraising program in recent years,” said an unsigned email from the folks who run San Clemente’s Cabrillo that landed in my inbox.

“Since neither the Camino Real Playhouse nor the Cabrillo playhouse sells out every seat for every production, we believe such a move would endanger the future of both playhouses.”

The San Clemente City Council is slated to discuss negotiations over “price and terms” for space at 1030 Calle Negocio, in a rather industrial part of town, with the soon-to-be-homeless San Juan Cap Camino Real Playhouse in closed session on Tuesday, Jan. 16.

Less threatening

Now, this is a big change from what the city council was considering in December, which set off the panic — a space for the San Juan Cap theater smack dab in the San Clemente Community Center on Calle Seville, just a stone’s throw from the resident Cabrillo Playhouse.

Under this new proposal, though, the two companies would be separated by more than 3 miles, rather than a few hundred feet. Folks from the San Clemente group said that’s better, but they’re still a bit nervous. Can the community of about 64,000 support two community theater companies?

“We were concerned when Camino Real wanted to take over the San Clemente community center a half block from us,” Michael Lopez, Cabrillo Playhouse producing artistic director, said by email. “Parking in San Clemente is a problem for our patrons, and would this mean that the city is sponsoring this new theater? (We have been in San Clemente for 70 years).

“Since we now understand — but do not know for sure — that they may have found a different location not so close to us, we are not opposed to that. We have long been supported by the community and we do understand that another theater in the city will have some impact on that, but we think that more live theater in Orange County is positive. So many small theaters have closed since the pandemic. Let’s keep the arts alive.”

San Clemente’s Cabrillo Playhouse is in the midst of a “Raise the Roof!” campaign to fund new theater seating and, literally, raise the ceiling over its stage to make room for improved lights, sets and stage space. Cabrillo is run by the nonprofit San Clemente Community Theatre, which got nonprofit status in 1953 and moved to its current location on Avenida Cabrillo in 1966.

The San Clemente theater just about broke even on a modest budget of nearly $153,000, according to its latest tax filing with the IRS, and features productions including “A Comedy of Tenors” (“One hotel suite, four tenors, two wives, three girlfriends, and a soccer stadium filled with screaming fans”), “The 39 Steps” (“Mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of Monty Python and you have … a fast-paced whodunit”) and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”

New neighbor?

Meanwhile, the South Orange County Community Theatre, which runs San Juan Cap’s Camino Real Playhouse, is a much bigger operation, with revenue of $547,000, according to its latest tax filing. It has been mounting productions for some 35 years, and moved into the antique city-owned feed store/turned Pacific Bell building/turned playhouse on Camino Real in 1991.

Its productions feature “The One-Act Play That Goes Wrong (in 2 acts)” (“…an unconscious leading lady, a corpse that can’t play dead, and actors who trip over everything (including their lines)”), “Deathtrap” (“Unknown dramatist Clifford Anderson has sent his new thriller to award-winning Broadway author Sidney Bruehl….”), “Don’t Dress for Dinner” (“an evening filled with mistaken identities, bribery, deception and plans that go disastrously awry”) and Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.”

What happens this fall for Camino Real has been something of an agonizing mystery. It has been casting about for a new home in San Juan for years as redevelopment swallows its city-owned site. The original vision for that project was a first-class facility providing “robust performing and fine arts programming” amid fine full-service restaurants, retail shops and office space. But that vision ran into one obstacle after another, and the performing arts portion was dropped from final plans approved by San Juan Cap’s city council.

The developer has created a nonprofit aiming to build that arts facility elsewhere in San Juan Capistrano, but none of that will happen soon enough to give the Camino Real Playhouse a new home in San Juan this fall.

“During the next couple of years, the organization will be conducting a capital campaign to raise the funds necessary to build and operate” a new San Juan Capistrano Performing Arts Center, according to the new nonprofit’s first filing with the IRS. Its mission is “to offer a diverse array of professional and community performing arts and educational programs for audiences of all ages,” and it reported $260,000 in donations and nearly $55,000 in expenses.

Folks from the Camino Real Playhouse would love to stay in San Juan, but it just hasn’t worked out. They expect the theater’s patrons will continue their support wherever the playhouse lands — hopefully expanding the theater-going audience in its new home, rather than dividing it.

Victor Cabral, mayor of San Clemente, urged calm all around. The council will consider the Camino Real proposal in closed session Jan. 16 just as it considers any other proposal, he said. It can decide “Yes, we’d like to do this,” or “No, we don’t want to do this,” or strike some sort of compromise or do nothing right now at all. It will report something out from closed session only if there’s action, he said.

“They are two different community theaters, and they seem to offer different kinds of productions,” Cabral said. “I think they could both survive — but I don’t think we’re at that stage yet. We’re just looking at the proposal.”

In 2019, banks and credit unions collected $15.5 billion through overdraft and non-sufficient funds fees. In 2022, that shrank to $7.7 billion, according to the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (formed after the Great Recession to protect the little guy — which some folks love to hate). Great, right?

The perhaps not-so-good news: Banks still collect billions in these fees. About one of every four households still pays them, and they’re mostly folks at the lower end of the income ladder whose bank accounts dry up at week’s or month’s end, just before new money arrives.

The left-leaning non-profit Accountable.US looked at data from the 10 largest banks still charging these fees and found that, in the first three quarters of 2023, they collected more than $2.34 billion. And that was before most folks started holiday shopping!

“While a number of banks have started to lower these fees — and the total volume of fees has started to go down overall — overdraft practices still penalize customers with limited resources and create financial obstacles for them,” the CFPB said. “CFPB research has found that people who pay more than 10 overdraft fees per year end up paying nearly three-quarters of all overdraft fees, and on average, these frequent overdrafters paid $380 in overdraft fees during the year.”

These folks are more likely to be economically disadvantaged, have limited education and be non-White, the CFPB found. While only 10% of folks with annual household income above $175,000 paid these fees, about 34% of households with income below $65,000 did.

Banks say that a great deal of innovation has come to this space over recent years and overdraft programs provide vital short-term liquidity to those who need it the most.

A battle brews as the CFPB prepares to crack down on these fees — and the banking industry gears up to defend them.

What are they?

Overdraft fees are charged when your financial institution determines that your checking account doesn’t have enough funds to cover an expense — but pays it anyway. We’ve heard that can happen with alarming regularity right before the paycheck arrives (ahem).

Non-sufficient funds fees are what some banks charge when they decline transactions that would dip the account into negative territory.

Overdraft fees “are often assessed for reasons people do not expect or understand, chip away at needed income including public benefits, and take a heavy toll on families living paycheck to paycheck,” the CFPB has said. “And, overdraft fees can ultimately drive people out of banking altogether….

“Some people are saddled with fees when they have several pending transactions and a low balance. Indeed, many overdrafts happen soon before someone receives a paycheck or benefits payment — times when account balances are likely to be low.”

Here are the overdraft fees made by the 10 largest banks that still have them, according to federal data crunched by Accountable, from January through September of 2023:

• JPMorgan Chase & Co., America’s largest bank, $839 million.
• Wells Fargo, $681 million.
• PNC Financial Services, $194.5 million.
• TD Bank, $171.6 million.
• U.S. Bank, $158.2 million.
• Bank of America, $103 million.
• Fifth Third Bank, $81 million.
• Citizens Bank, $72.9 million.
• BMO Harris, $26.3 million.
• First Citizens Bank, $15.6 million.

It’s a sensitive thing, as there has been skullduggery in this space.

In past years, myriad banks paid hundreds of millions in fines and legal settlements on accusations they manipulated transactions to maximize these fees. One tactic was to reorder customer transactions from largest to smallest, rather than processing them in chronological order, so fees piled up because account balances fell faster. Another was to enroll customers in overdraft programs and charge them overdraft fees without their consent.

Banking reps say a great deal has changed since then, and any emphasis on misdeeds of the past is like your big sister assuming you’re still 12 even after you’re all grown up.

Reform

There have been major voluntary reforms as of late, industry reps say, and they don’t need more blasted federal regulation.

In 2021, Ally Bank — “The Largest Digital Bank In The U.S.” — eliminated overdraft fees on all accounts. “Overdraft fees are a pain point for many consumers but are particularly onerous for some. It is time to end them,” CEO Jeffrey Brown said at the time.

Capital One eliminated overdraft and non-sufficient fund fees for its consumer banking customers — and continued to provide free overdraft protection — that year as well. “The bank account is a cornerstone of a person’s financial life,” said a prepared statement from Richard Fairbank, CEO. “It is how people receive their paycheck, pay their bills and manage their finances. Overdraft protection is a valuable and convenient feature and can be an important safety net for families. We are excited to offer this service for free.”

Chase increased the overdraft buffer from $5 to $50 — effectively eliminating overdraft fees for customers with a negative balance of less than $50 — and stopped charging overdraft fees if the trigger transaction was $5 or less.

In 2022, Citigroup eliminated overdraft fees, increasing “financial inclusion in underserved communities.” Bank of America reduced overdraft fees from $35 to $10 and eliminated non-sufficient fund fees, shrinking revenue by more than 90 percent. Chase decided it would not charge overdraft fees if the account balance was restored to at least “negative $50” by the end of the next business day.

“For more than a decade, Chase has focused on helping customers who want the option of overdraft when they’re short on cash or in a time of need,” spokesman Peter Kelley said by email. “We pay millions of transactions totaling billions of dollars each year on accounts with insufficient funds. Because of the changes we have made, nearly 70% of these transactions do not incur any overdraft fee.”

A Wells Fargo spokesperson said that customers seek choices in how they manage personal finances. “Today we offer customers a low cost, no overdraft fee bank account, Clear Access Banking. We also have introduced automatic features for our customers, including an Extra Day Grace period before incurring any overdraft fees, and tools to manage their money, such as balance alerts. We are focused on providing our customers clear, transparent options that inform their decisions and help them avoid fees.”

Chris Powell, executive vice president and head of consumer checking and deposits at Citizens, said the bank has worked to make banking more flexible and transparent, eliminating non-sufficient funds and savings overdraft protection fees, offering a program to let folks access their paychecks up to two days early, and creating overdraft-free accounts designed to increase banking access to all consumers. Overdraft fees have dropped by more than 50% since 2019, and by 80% since 2008, Powell said in an emailed statement.

And here’s the thing, the Consumer Bankers Association says: Folks don’t have to have overdraft protection. They can open accounts that expressly do not have it. They can decline it where it’s offered. The industry trade group makes its case at a new website, OverdraftFacts.com.

‘Critical financial cushion’

“The Value of Overdraft Services,” its title page says, “(And why government mandates are misguided).”

Overdraft services remain a valued and preferred option to payday loans, car title loans or even pawn shops, it argues. “These non-bank alternatives to overdraft not only deprive consumers of the high level of protections they’ve come to expect from a well-regulated bank, they’re also significantly more expensive,” it argues. “According to the CFPB, a typical payday loan … charges an annual percentage rate (APR) of almost 400 percent.”

The CFPB is offering a one-size-fits-all regulatory regime that could stifle years of bank-led innovation, hinder competition and lead to fewer choices for consumers, it argues.

Well-intentioned regulation “could inadvertently damage the financial resilience millions of Americans who knowingly use and rely on overdraft as one of the few emergency safety net tools still available within the well-regulated banking system,” the bankers say. “For many hardworking families, this feature provides a critical financial cushion to cover unexpected expenses in times of need – whether to pay their rent or simply put food on the table.”

The CFPB isn’t convinced. It notes the industry’s progress, but clearly sees room for improvement.

In fall of 2022, it ordered Regions Bank to pay nearly $200 million in relief for charging customers surprise overdraft fees. In December, it announced an enforcement action against Wells Fargo including some $205 million in surprise overdraft fees.

In October, two customers seeking class-action status sued Fifth Third Bank, alleging it charged “unconscionable” overdraft fees on debit transactions even when their bank accounts had enough money to cover purchases.

A Fifth Third spokesperson said it doesn’t comment on pending litigation, but will continue to defend itself vigorously. The bank has reduced overdraft fees, eliminated non-sufficient funds fees and returned deposit item fees, and offers an “Extra Time” program giving customers 24 hours to make deposits to avoid overdrafts.

After the CFPB delivers its latest, expected any day, there will be a comment period (up to 60 days), then a review, culminating in a final rule. It’s an election year, bankers observed, and cynics might see some political motivation behind the “junk fee” narrative. Consumers who’ve endured hundreds of dollars worth of these charges, however, might see wisdom.

“In our view, the banking industry would have not done any self-reflection or self-regulation had the Biden administration not publicly called out these greedy practices and announced their intent to crack down on them,” said Accountable’s Jeremy Funk by email.

“To the extent some banks have reined it in, it seemed guided more by ‘getting ahead of coming regulation’ than ‘doing the right thing for consumers.’  Meanwhile, megabanks like Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JPMorgan seem intent on clinging onto these practices until the bitter end when looming regulations take effect.”

Stay tuned. And keep an eye on those bank statements!