As much as you like to laugh at Kalifornia (especially, IMO, the antics of the current NO OIL TRAINS OMG groups), you have to note that the Krazy State does use less coal (if we ever get SCE and DWP to drop the rest of their out of state contracts it will go really low) than most places in the US outside of the big-hydro-heavy PacNW. Utilities here are grumbling, but are learning how to manage systems with a diverse mix of sources rather than crying and stomping their corporate feet all the time (some of the time, yes).

The NO OIL TRAINS OMG groups do grate on me. There are good ways to address rail and oil safety and not so good. STOP EVERYTHING UNTIL THERE IS ZERO RISK is simply dumb, among other things because it's statistically an impossible test to meet so it's really a straw man for NO MORE FOSSIL FUELS. Face it: current society even in Kommiefornia (term used by others here here for the whole place, but appropriate mostly for coastal areas and not even all of them) can't operate without fossil fuels. And the super-clean fuels that are required in CA still need crude oil from someplace as refinery feedstock (mostly for CA-based refineries). If (with reasonable precautions) we can get crude for those refineries by train at lower cost than by tanker from some unstable place overseas, why can't I have lower gas prices using it?

Yes, we need alternatives. No, we can't eliminate fossil fuels overnight, or even in a moderately short time. As with many systems natural and man-made, it's more complicated than you think.