A Wall Street Journal editorial (”The Heat is Off,” July 1) printed a rebuttal to President Obama’s recent touting of California’s “energy-efficient policies.”

Obama used California as an example to the nation this week, saying:

“Californians consume 40 percent less energy per person than the national average.Think about that. California — producing jobs, their economy keeping pace with the rest of the country, and yet they have been able to maintain their energy usage at a much lower level than the rest of the country.”

But the WSJ reminded readers that California has the mildest climate of any state, so less energy is used in both winter and summer to moderate household temperatures.

The editorial also slammed Obama’s praise for California’s “paucity of power plants”:

“California uses more electricity than it generates–some 53 terawatt-hours more in 2007, or just over 20% of total consumption, according to the federal Energy Information Administration–which means it has to import power from other states not subject to California’s environmental restrictions.

“Californians pay an average of 14.42 cents a kilowatt-hour of electricity, the sixth-highest rate in the contiguous U.S. and more than the average of any region except New England. Obama, it seems, would like to make the rest of the country pay California prices for energy. It might be worth it if he could guarantee us California weather.”