Economy PG&E: Troubled Power Utility to Pay $125 Million in Fines and Penalties for the Kincade Fire of 2019

[Revolver]

To all the WarRoom posters and mods who live in California, get out while you still can.

Lmao.

 

[PEB]

Why don’t they bury the lines?
Add an increase to the bill to pay for it. Once paid drop the extra fee.

Because it costs around 2 to 11 million or so per mile to dig an place the lines. I live in Massachusetts an one town did just one street and decided it was to expensive. To do all of California everywhere would cost likely 10's of billions or more.

"
Frustrated by power outages this winter?

The solution seems simple enough — put the wires underground, away from the elements and falling trees.

No so fast, says Mike Durand, a spokesman for Eversource, a utility company that transmits and delivers electricity, natural gas, and water to 1.7 million customers throughout Massachusetts.

Durand says the biggest obstacle is cost.

According to a 2012 report by the Edison Electric Institute, the maximum cost of converting from overhead to underground distribution lines in a suburban setting is $2.42 million per mile. Converting higher capacity transmission lines costs up to $11 million per mile."

Electric companies will not touch this with a telephone pole.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bo...re85wcZhRNLcXq0rIVL/story.html?outputType=amp

 

[PEB]

Anyways the solution is far more simple decentralized power grid. Create smaller solar and wind installations around the state. Reduce the larger high power installations requiring massive high power lines from greater distance.

Oh older case in my town we have 2 multi-megawatt NG power stations plus two large solar arrays.

This will reduce the chances of additional fires and give greater control to shut off areas without taking down millions of homes.

 

[pinger]

God forbid the state take over PG&E. That's communism.

What California needs to do is hand billions in tax payer funded bailouts to the company to help make it whole again. That's the free enterprise solution. And the only right answer.

Bootstraps?

 

[Arkain2K]

CA cities to get money from state to relieve costs from PG&E power shutoffs
Cities can use the money to buy generators to help power essential services, like hospitals and fire stations
By Emily DeRuy | November 1, 2019​

Cities with residents and businesses still reeling from PG&E’s decision to repeatedly shut off power for customers across California in October are set to see some relief.

San Jose, Oakland and other major cities will each get $500,000 to help cover the costs of the power shutoffs that left millions of residents in the dark last month.

The money is part of a $75 million state fund mayors and other city officials can use to pay for generators or other backup energy supplies to keep crucial services like fire stations and hospitals up and running even when power is off.

PG&E has said it needs to cut power during hot, windy weather to prevent wildfires from sparking. The utility has been blamed for causing a series of wildfires across the state in recent years. Yet it may not have been enough. Officials are investigating whether the powerful Kincade Fire that threatened to level the towns of Healdsburg and Windsor in recent days may have been sparked by the company’s faulty equipment.

On Friday, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo thanked the state, specifically state Sen. Jim Beall, who joined him for a news conference at City Hall, for allocating the funding to local governments.

“Resiliency is the key word for every local community,” Liccardo said.

But both men blasted the utility company for failing to do enough to prevent the shutoffs in the first place.

“We’re disappointed in the management and operation of PG&E,” Beall said. “We’re finally at the end of our rope and we want something done about it.”

The company has said it could take a decade before it can make enough improvements to its infrastructure that it doesn’t need to rely on shutdowns to preemptively prevent fires. Beall said that was not acceptable.

“No, we want them to do it in three years,” the senator said. “I think they have to focus on dealing with their equipment and maintenance on their equipment immediately.”

In San Jose, Liccardo said he wants to use some of the funding to build up microgrids that could help power the city during future power outages.

“We are going all in,” the mayor said.

Setting up such a system would take significant time and more than half a million dollars. The first shutoff alone cost San Jose about that much, Liccardo said. And the money and supplies restaurants and businesses that had to shutter during the shutdowns lost adds up to even more.

“The bill is going to be much larger to get to the resilience we all want,” Liccardo said.

Liccardo said he also wants to explore reorganizing PG&E into a customer-owned utility, like a credit union, blasting the company for giving executives millions of dollars in bonuses even as it filed for bankruptcy and saddled residents with costly bills for unreliable service.

But, as Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement announcing the funds, the money is a first step. Each county in the state will get at least $150,000. In addition to San Jose and Oakland, Los Angeles and San Diego will also each get $500,000.

“PG&E failed to maintain its infrastructure and Californians are facing hardship as a result,” Newsom said. “For decades, they have placed greed before public safety. We must do everything we can to support Californians, especially those most vulnerable to these events. These funds will help local governments address these events and assist their most vulnerable residents.”

Liccardo said he would be “pushing for more” in the next budget cycle. And Beall said the state Senate has put together a task force set to meet in mid-November to explore how to address the issue moving forward. In the coming year, he said, the state will need to do everything from thin forests to fight climate change and pollution to combat wildfires and the effects they have on residents.

“We’re going to begin to discuss where we can go from here,” Beall said, adding that the aim is to piece together “a strong utility system in California.”

In a new blog post on Friday, Newsom said the state deserves world-class utilities that are safe, affordable and environmentally friendly. Next week, the governor will gather PG&E executives, shareholders, wildfire victims and others in Sacramento to “accelerate a consensual resolution to the bankruptcy cases that creates a new entity — one that better reflects California values and will advance massive safety transformations beginning before next fire season.”

If that doesn’t happen, Newsom warned, “the state will not hesitate to step in and restructure the utility.”

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11...mbursement-for-costs-from-pge-power-shutoffs/

 

[GearSolidMetal]

Lmao.

For every post you make while in California, Revolver, you sound poorer and poorer.

Get out before you sound homeless!

 

[freakroor]

I've been to Northern California. Not a fan. Good luck guys.

northern california has 4 national parks

 

[Revolver]

For every post you make while in California, Revolver, you sound poorer and poorer.

Get out before you sound homeless!

Yea man. A flyover like Kansas is where everyone should go. Lmao

 

[GearSolidMetal]

Yea man. A flyover like Kansas is where everyone should go. Lmao

Fuck no.

If everyone came here, it turn into a worse shithole than California.

 

[Revolver]

Fuck no.

If everyone came here, it turn into a worse shithole than California.

You’re better than this. Actually no you’re not. Enjoy your shithole. Lmao.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

You’re better than this. Actually no you’re not. Enjoy your shithole. Lmao.

And you enjoy yours.

 

[Arkain2K]

California Mayors Join Campaign to Make PG&E a Cooperative
Leaders of more than a dozen cities, including Oakland and Sacramento, back the idea of making the utility customer-owned
By Rebecca Smith | Nov. 5, 2019

The mayors of Oakland, Sacramento and more than a dozen other California municipalities are joining San Jose in a campaign to buy out the investor-owned PG&E Corp. PCG 13.06% and turn it into a giant customer-owned cooperative.

The idea, first floated last month by San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, is winning support from mayors and county commissioners who represent approximately one-quarter of the population served by PG&E’s utility subsidiary, Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

The coalition plans to deliver a letter Tuesday to the California Public Utilities Commission and Gov. Gavin Newsom asking that such an option receive fair and full consideration before the state approves any bankruptcy reorganization plan. The company filed for chapter 11 protection in January, citing an estimated $30 billion in wildfire liabilities.

PG&E has adamantly opposed the sale of any part of its system. Chief Executive Bill Johnson last month rejected an offer by San Francisco to buy the portion of PG&E’s electric network that is within city limits for $2.5 billion.

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said in an interview that his city, which has its own electric utility but relies on PG&E for gas service, has to start considering alternatives.

“I’m signing on in solidarity with my fellow mayors whose constituents are suffering under PG&E,” said Mr. Steinberg, a Democrat who formerly led the state senate. He added that his city enjoys “the benefit of electricity being a public commodity and overseen by people who are accountable to the public.”

Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs said that his constituents worry about power shut-offs by PG&E whenever “the wind picks up.” He said that creating a customer-owned utility “allows us to put people ahead of profits, safety ahead of dividends and local control ahead of corporate rule.”

Last week, Mr. Newsom named Ana Matosantos, his cabinet secretary, as the state’s new “energy czar.” He instructed her to try to broker a deal between PG&E’s shareholders and bondholders—who are fighting for control of the company—to enable the company to exit bankruptcy by the middle of next year. If the sides cannot find agreement, California may intervene and pursue other options, including a state takeover of PG&E, Mr. Newsom said.

The Democratic governor is scheduled to meet with representatives for the different stakeholders in the bankruptcy case Tuesday morning, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Liccardo, San Jose’s mayor, said that public officials in the coalition feel that the existing bankruptcy reorganization plans are unlikely to produce a utility strong enough to fulfill the state’s need for reliable, affordable service.

“The governor has opened a door for us, by getting directly involved,” Mr. Liccardo said. “That means we have an opportunity to see a reorganized utility emerge that doesn’t just fulfill the legal requirements under bankruptcy law but could address the larger public need for a more responsive utility.”

Under the coalition’s buyout proposal, bonds worth as much as $50 billion would be sold to finance a buyout of the big utility, whose territory spreads across 70,000 square miles of Northern and Central California. Customers would repay bonded indebtedness through their monthly energy bills.

A customer-owned utility would set its own rates but would be subject to safety rules set by federal and state officials. Profits from utility operations would be reinvested in the utility’s gas-and-electric networks, not paid out to shareholders as dividends. The utility paid out roughly $7 billion in dividends in the past decade, Mr. Liccardo said, whereas “a model that aligns financial interests with the public interest of our communities is deeply desired by all of us.”

In a draft of their letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, coalition members said they are not pursuing public ownership because of “mere anger or angst” at PGE’s power shut-offs but because they think the utility has to be “re-imagined.”

The coalition wrote that the bankruptcy proceeding has resulted in a clash between Wall Street investor groups that has produced a “spectacle, without regard for what will be left behind when the financial players inevitably leave the scene.”

“We face the need for a completely re-engineered and reconstructed system to adapt to the realities of climate change and poorly maintained infrastructure,” the letter to the CPUC and Gov. Newsom states. “PG&E cannot meet these challenges if it stumbles out of bankruptcy, barely able to raise capital, and suffering prohibitive costs.”

In addition to San Jose, Oakland and Sacramento, Mr. Liccardo said the coalition has garnered support from mayors representing Berkeley, Cotati, Elk Grove, Hayward, Petaluma, Richmond, Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley, Sonoma, Stockton, Sunnyvale and Windsor. He said commissioners from Marin, Santa Cruz, San Benito and Yolo counties also are supporters.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-mayors-join-campaign-to-make-pg-e-a-cooperative-11572955201

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

PG&E Struggles to Find a Way Out of Bankruptcy
California’s largest utility needs to reach a settlement with victims of wildfires and other creditors while fending off calls for a state takeover.
By Lauren Hepler, Peter Eavis and Ivan Penn | Nov. 19, 2019

After an autumn marked by mass blackouts and wildfires, Pacific Gas & Electric is racing to craft a plan to escape bankruptcy. That plan needs to satisfy fire victims and state officials who are threatening to take over PG&E, California’s largest utility, unless executives improve its safety record.

If PG&E doesn’t reach an agreement with victims and other creditors by early next year, the utility might not be able to participate in a new state wildfire fund. A federal bankruptcy judge could also strip control from its management and board, or allow it to be broken up, with the pieces sold to the highest bidder.

These tensions surfaced in a court hearing on Tuesday in which PG&E asked a bankruptcy judge to limit its liability for wildfires, and at a legislative hearing that featured the company’s chief executive on Monday in Sacramento.

Another big problem for PG&E: California’s fire season isn’t over yet. A dangerous combination of high winds and dry conditions is expected as early as Wednesday morning, and PG&E has said it could cut power to up to 150,000 customers. That works out to about 400,000 people — when accounting for shared addresses — in 16 counties across Northern California, including wine country and the Sierra foothills.

So far this fire season, the utility has pre-emptively shut off power to nearly three million people in central and Northern California, some for as many as five days. PG&E has said the blackouts help guard against fires ignited by the sparks created when windblown tree branches hit live power lines. But critics, including state and local government officials, have said PG&E has done a poor job of warning residents about the shut-offs, which have had a disproportionate impact on low-income families that cannot afford generators or batteries, and on older and sick residents who rely on electric medical devices.

For some, the blackouts have amounted to “a big screw-you,” said State Senator Bill Dodd, a Democrat whose district includes Napa and Sonoma, during the hearing on Monday.

PG&E has warned that it might have to employ such blackouts for up to a decade while the utility makes up for deferred maintenance. The chief executive, Bill Johnson, told lawmakers on Monday that it aimed to move faster and reduce the number of affected customers by one-third or more starting next year. To do so, it is installing backup energy systems like microgrids, underground power lines and weather cameras.

“It’s not acceptable to me to have another year like this,” Mr. Johnson said.

Not everyone is willing to wait. State Senator Mike McGuire, a Democrat who represents the area where the Kincade fire burned 174 homes recently, is one of many lawmakers who have said the state should consider offering a “public option” for electricity. PG&E has already stumbled twice, he said on Monday, with a deadly 2010 gas explosion and several devastating fires in the last two years.

“I think we’re on our third strike,” Mr. McGuire said. “They’ve failed us too many times.”

Mr. Johnson acknowledged that state lawmakers and regulators had the power to revoke PG&E’s franchise but said those efforts would have to overcome legislative and constitutional obstacles.

“This could turn out different ways, but we do have a plan in front of the bankruptcy court to emerge as PG&E,” he told lawmakers.

That hostility serves as the backdrop for a fierce battle in bankruptcy court over how much money PG&E will pay wildfire victims, insurance companies, public agencies and other creditors. The company recently lost the exclusive right to propose a plan for resolving its bankruptcy. That opened the door for holders of PG&E’s bonds and the group representing wildfire victims to propose a competing plan.

The bankruptcy judge overseeing the case, Dennis Montali, recently appointed a mediator to try to get PG&E, its bondholders and the victims to reach a settlement.

On Monday, in an effort to reach a deal, PG&E increased the amount it is willing to pay to settle fire claims to $25.5 billion, from $18.9 billion.

But it’s not clear whether that will satisfy all parties. While the victims and the insurance-claim holders have the biggest claims against the company, others are also fighting to maximize their share of the $25.5 billion. Federal, state and local agencies say they are owed some $7.5 billion for fighting fires started by the utility’s equipment, taking care of victims and covering other costs.

Another big point of contention is how those claims will be paid. Under earlier proposals, holders of insurance claims, many of which were bought by hedge funds, would have gotten $11 billion in cash. But other claimants, including the wildfire victims, would have been paid almost entirely in stock in the new, reorganized PG&E. Since stock can lose value, many people and organizations would prefer cash.

Robert Julian, a lawyer for the wildfire victims, said in bankruptcy court on Tuesday that PG&E’s settlement with the insurance-claims holders had become “the elephant in the room” in the bankruptcy. The claims holders have not attended recent mediation sessions, he said.

“We can’t resolve this case because they’ve taken all the cash,” Mr. Julian said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has also come out against the deal with insurance-claim holders, calling it premature. If victims, PG&E and insurance-claim holders cannot come to an agreement, “the State of California will present its own plan for resolution of these cases,” lawyers for Mr. Newsom wrote in a recent legal filing.

Lawyers for insurance creditors have said their clients have given up a lot by agreeing to accept $11 billion for claims that originally totaled $20 billion. Any “remorse” that fire victims’ lawyers may feel for “not moving more quickly and settling their claims is ultimately irrelevant” to the bankruptcy court’s decision about whether PG&E made the right call by settling with the insurance claim holders, the group’s lawyers wrote in a Nov. 11 court filing.

Some California politicians are considering drastic measures. Sam Liccardo, the mayor of San Jose, has proposed turning PG&E into a customer-owned entity. All fire claims in bankruptcy would be paid in cash under that plan, according to Alan Gover, a lawyer who is working on it.

PG&E must emerge from bankruptcy by June in order to participate in a fund that California set up this year to shield the state’s largest utilities from future wildfire claims. If there is no settlement among PG&E, fire victims and other creditors by early next year, however, two other potentially lengthy trials are set to begin. These would decide the utility’s liability to fire victims with the help of a jury and expert witnesses.

While PG&E has repeatedly promised to pay all fire victim claims in full, bankruptcy experts say that troubled companies often find it difficult to do so, and that many victims are left with much less than they hoped for.

“You kind of have to put ‘in full’ in quotation marks,” said Ralph Brubaker, a professor who specializes in bankruptcy at the University of Illinois College of Law.

Judge Montali last week extended the deadline for people who lost homes and property in a PG&E-linked fire to file claims to Dec. 31, from Oct. 21. Some victims had said just days earlier that they had not yet filed claims because of confusion about the process or trouble getting back on their feet.

“I am sure we missed thousands of people,” said Helen Sedwick, a lawyer who lost her home to fire in 2017 and has dedicated time to registering the claims of fellow survivors.

“Many people were starting from scratch,” she said. “Once they learned about it, there was a frantic sense of ‘I need to understand this and do something quickly.’”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/19/business/energy-environment/pge-bankruptcy-blackout.html

 

[High Altitude]

Open up your check books Californians, because in the end, it is you who is going to pay for all of this.

 

[Arkain2K]

The head of PG&E told angry California lawmakers Monday that the nation’s largest electric utility wasn’t fully prepared for the effects of its power outages.

 

[Arkain2K]

An ABC10 investigation of PG&E’s federal political spending found the majority of California’s congressional delegation continued to accept money from PG&E’s federal Political Action Committees (PAC) even after the monopoly was convicted of federal crimes and blamed for sparking wildfires that killed 109 people between 2015-2018.

 

[Low Test With da Best]

It'll be worse if the state takes over. I'm a union worker and us and state employees are about the same when it comes to laziness and incompetence. We want to get paid the most amount of money doing the least amount of work possible. And we want pension after we put in our 20 years. Not just regular pensions, but A-class pensions. Only difference is the state will charge you more.

similar in a sense to cops. They hate us til they need us. When hurricane sandy hit in NY oh boy did they need us. Begging after a few days of outages.

although it is weird that we make the most money during other people’s misery but it is what it is. We did 16 hour days 7 days a week for months. I saw guys checks who were making much more then time and they taking home 15-20k a week. I was like 6-7k. Was great. Love Mother Nature

they also pay us for what we know not exactly how much we do. Utilities are serious biz

When you guys read that PG&E's trimming came up 66% short of target do you imagine that's due to lineworkers etc not wanting to receive a fat check and not working as much as their bosses tell them to, or you think it's more an issue of the bosses not scheduling all the necessary work in order to save the company money?

 

[Oliver Clothesoff]

I live in Silicon Valley and as bad as PG&E is, nobody I know wants our shitty corrupt Govt, to take over our Power Grid. In the meantime... I just bought one of these:

 

[Arkain2K]

PG&E reaches $13.5 billion settlement with Northern California wildfire victims
MICHAEL JAMES AND JORGE L. ORTIZ | USA TODAY​

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. announced a $13.5 billion settlement late Friday with Northern California victims who suffered enormous losses in the 2017 and 2018 wildfires, some of the most devastating in U.S. history.

The settlement resolves all claims made against the beleaguered company, which has been under a virtual fire of its own ever since the blazes ripped across the California landscape.

In announcing the settlement, the company said the agreement is subject to a number of conditions that have to be met in accordance with PG&E's Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization plan. A federal bankruptcy court will have the final say.

“From the beginning of the Chapter 11 process, getting wildfire victims fairly compensated, especially the individuals, has been our primary goal. We want to help our customers, our neighbors and our friends in those impacted areas recover and rebuild after these tragic wildfires,” said CEO and President of PG&E Corporation Bill Johnson.

“There have been many calls for PG&E to change in recent years. PG&E’s leadership team has heard those calls for change and we realize we need to do even more to be a different company now and in the future. We will continue to make the needed changes to re-earn the trust and respect of our customers, our stakeholders and the public. We recognize we need to deliver safe and reliable energy service every single day – and we’re determined to do just that.”

Earlier this week, a new report by state regulators detailed how PG&E failed to properly inspect and maintain the equipment that ignited the November 2018 Camp Fire, which devastated the Northern California town of Paradise, killing 85 people and destroying 18,804 structures.

A California Public Utilities Commission investigation of the events that led to the catastrophic blaze concluded that the company violated 12 state safety rules, which regulators deemed not a rare instance but instead “indicative of an overall pattern of inadequate inspection and maintenance of PG&E’s transmission facilities.’’

Among the violations cited in the 696-page report: The utility neglected to conduct detailed climbing inspections that could have detected the equipment malfunction that sparked the inferno and failed to correctly prioritize a safety hazard.

An aging tower where a worn hook broke and helped ignite the fire had not been subjected to a climbing inspection since at least 2001, the report said.

A previous investigation by Cal Fire, the state’s fire protection agency, had determined in May that PG&E power lines actually started two blazes near Paradise, with the first one overtaking the other.

PG&E, which in January filed for bankruptcy protection as it faced a slew of lawsuits and more than $20 billion in liability from the Camp Fire and other destructive blazes in 2017 and 2018, did not contest the CPUC findings, saying they confirm Cal Fire’s conclusions

“Without question, the loss of life, homes and businesses is heartbreaking. The tragedy in Butte County on Nov. 8, 2018, will never be forgotten,’’ the company said in a statement. “We remain deeply sorry about the role our equipment had in this tragedy, and we apologize to all those impacted by the devastating Camp Fire.’’

The statement also points out the steps PG&E has taken to mitigate wildfire risks, including enhanced inspections in fire-prone areas through the use of drones and climbing crews, along with accelerated repairs of damaged equipment.

In addition, PG&E is among the utilities looking into technology-based solutions to the pressing problem of wildfires, which have become increasingly destructive for a number of reasons that include climate change, a major contributor to vegetation drying and becoming more combustible.

https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/4362200002

 

[tdluxon]

As someone who lives in NorCal and has been on pg&e for basically my whole life, I’d say a state government takeover would be an absolute disaster. The CA state government is ridiculously inefficient and there’s a huge budget deficit, it’d be from bad to worse.