It's called supply and demand. People lived out there before AC even existed, so it's not as if your electricity is comparable to food, water and oxygen when it comes to survival.
I think the theory behind congestion pricing is that it sounds like it will reduce traffic, until people think about it just punishes a captive audience.
Maybe, but it may also give people and their employers incentives to modify their travel as well. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach adopted their own version of a "congestion pricing" model to encourage drayage truckers to pick up their loads during overnight hours. They imposed a surcharge on any transactions during peak daytime operating hours of the port and the surrounding highway system. The program was so successful that it sort of defeated the original purpose ... because now many of the terminals are seeing hundreds of trucks lining up to be the first ones through the gates the minute the surcharge period ends in the evening.
Before AC Tucson wasn’t like this. The Sonoran desert used to end 100 miles south. We had water in the rivers.
But it’s not really the truckers that decide when to pick up their loads. Businesses decide when to hand over their loads. Now of course if the truckers are having to pay more they pass that onto the customer. But there was probably a solution that didn’t involve fattening Long Beach coffers. But try getting those past the city council.