The most annoying part of living in the myriad potential wildfire areas around California lately has been a series of public safety power shutdowns imposed by companies like Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.
The stoppages, sometimes lasting as long as three days, are
plain acknowledgments from the companies that their equipment and their
maintenance practices are unsafe, inadequate to protect individuals from harm
and possible death. This renders service provided by the companies unreliable.
Yet, no one seriously threatens the survival or monopolies
of these companies, which admit they’ve killed upwards of 100 persons over the
last three years, while not one of their executives has served a single minute
in jail for their destructive decisions.
The bulk of the admitted deaths came in the 2018 Camp Fire
which incinerated the city of Paradise in Butte County. PG&E pleaded guilty
this year to manslaughter charges for 85 deaths. There could have been more
such guilty pleas in other places, but no district attorney outside Butte
County has brought criminal charges against any of the utilities or their
executives.
Yes, there have been penalties. Most famously, PG&E went
through bankruptcy and paid billions of dollars in cash and stock to a trust
representing many of its victims. The company’s board of directors was
cashiered and replaced. But some top executives escaped with gold parachutes
worth millions of dollars to go along with their guilty consciences.
Now come two further authoritative condemnations of the
companies, especially PG&E. In one, the ratepayer advocacy division of the
state Public Utilities Commission recommended fining the company $167 million
for its poor communication with customers about impending shutdowns aimed at
preventing new fires.
Said one division lawyer, “When a utility fails to provide
hospitals, fire departments and people with medical conditions with adequate
warning of its decision to execute a shutoff, it is endangering lives.”
This doesn’t appear to bother PG&E, according to the
Chicago-based law firm monitoring the company’s legally required attempts to
make power lines and transformers safer. The monitor’s report noted that
PG&E’s safety effort has been worse in 2020 than before.
“The monitor team has not seen a meaningful improvement in
the quality of work (on vegetation trimming),” said the report from the
Kirkland & Ellis law firm. “On a per-mile basis, (we are) finding more
missed trees in 2020 than (in) 2019.”
So PG&E is not only failing to tell key customers far
enough in advance when power cutoffs are coming, but it also has not notably
increased safety, despite all its at-fault fires of the last four years.
There is no such monitor for Edison or SDG&E, but Edison
admitted its power lines likely caused two large October blazes in Orange
County.
All of which leads some to believe it’s high time Gov. Gavin
Newsom activates a law known as SB 350, which he signed June 30, authorizing
the state to take over and/or force the selloff of parts of utility companies
failing to discharge their duties.
These companies have done precisely that. They cut off power
when it suits them. They do not compensate victims of those shutoffs, customers
sometimes paying for electricity they never get.
So far, Newsom does not take seriously the notion of
breaking up any utility, even PG&E. When this question arose during an
October news conference, Newsom claimed PSPS notifications are improved. “It’s
a different day,” he said. “But we do have the ability to take (PG&E) over.
We now have oversight and safety committees.”
He did not respond to the questions of why utilities should
be allowed to keep deciding how and when to warn customers and when to do
shutoffs. Nor did he respond to one customer who complained that “Every time I
pay my electric bill, I feel like I’m helping a murderer.”
Others are ready and waiting to take over parts of PG&E.
The many relatively new publicly-owned community choice aggregation outfits
around the state, for example, would love to take over power lines they now
must rent.
It’s time Newsom took this seriously. If he does not, he can
expect his inaction to be used against him when he seeks reelection in 2022.
