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This thread is about PG&E's dire situation in NorCal and the on-going fallout from their shoddy operation.
If you lack the basic knowledge required to participate on this particular subject matter, please read and learn rather than making contributions of no value.
Thread Index:
- ‘Blood money' | California politicians and campaigns received $2.1 million from bankrupt, guilty PG&E (March 2, 2021)
- PG&E, Troubled California Utility, Emerges From Bankruptcy Protection
- PG&E Ordered to Pay $3.5 Million Fine for Causing Deadly Fire that Killed 84 (June 18, 2020)
- Pacific Gas & Electric confessed to killing 84 people in wildfire (June 16, 2020)
- PG&E reaches $13.5 billion settlement with Northern California wildfire victims (Dec 2, 2019)
- PG&E Struggles to Find a Way Out of Bankruptcy (Nov 19, 2019)
- California Mayors Join Campaign to Make PG&E a Cooperative (Nov 5, 2019)
- CA cities to get money from state to relieve costs from PG&E power shutoffs (Nov 1, 2019)
- Why not bury California's fire-prone power lines underground? The reason is sky high (Oct. 11, 2019)
- PG&E reaches second settlement relating to wildfire claims for $11 billion (Sep 13 2019)
- Power lines keep sparking wildfires. Why don’t California utility companies bury them? (NOV 16, 2018)
California governor says if PG&E can't "figure it out", the state could take it over
By Madeline Holcombe, CNN | November 02, 2019
By Madeline Holcombe, CNN | November 02, 2019
The state of California could take over Pacific Gas and Electric if the utility company does not pull itself out of bankruptcy by the middle of next year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a news conference Friday.
"PG&E as we know it may or may not be able to figure this out. If they cannot, we are not going to sit around and be passive," Newsom said. "If Pacific Gas and Electric is unable to secure its own fate and future ... then the state will prepare itself as backup for a scenario where we do that job for them."
The Northern California utility, which has come under fire recently for cutting power to thousands of people as part of its plan to prevent wildfires, filed for bankruptcy protection in January while facing billions of dollars in claims tied to deadly fires. Newsom said that his office aims to get the company out of bankruptcy by June 30, 2020 by first working on a plan with PG&E and other stakeholders.
"We want to bring everyone together, we want to broker a deal. It's what we do," he said.
But if an agreement isn't reached, he said, the state could step in.
"PG&E as we know it cannot persist and continue," the governor said, adding that the company has to be "completely transformed, culturally transformed, operationally transformed with a safety culture first and foremost as part of that fundamental transformation."
PG&E has been criticized recently for a practice known as Public Safety Preventative Shutoffs (PSPS), which intentionally cuts electricity to avoid causing fires during high winds and dry conditions. The utility giant cut power to thousands of customers on multiple dates in October as California faced strong winds that PG&E said posed wildfire threats. The utility's equipment has been blamed for starting deadly wildfires in the state in the past and the company has filed reports saying that its equipment may again be linked to at least three of the more than a dozen fires of the past week.
Newsom has been among the critics of the preemptive shutoffs.
"We cannot afford the kind of PSPSes we've experienced over the course of the last week. We had people out in some circumstances for one full week without power," Newsom said. "You gotta consider the life impacts of these power cutoffs."
PG&E gives customers credit on their bills
After an October 9 shutoff, Newsom demanded that PG&E "be held accountable" and provide rebates or credits after leaving thousands in the dark and some customers without power for days.
"Californians should not pay the price for decades of PG&E's greed and neglect," Newsom said in a news release. "PG&E's mismanagement of the power shutoffs experienced last week was unacceptable."
The city of San Jose said the shutoff had cost it at least half a million dollars.
On Tuesday, PG&E said in a news release that it will give a one-time credit of $100 to residential customers and $250 to business customers on their bills. The company said it is sending reimbursements for the specific event "due to the hardship caused by the website and communications issues," not because of political pressure.
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What do you think, NorCal folks?
When your twice-bankrupted regional electric company only managed to get less than 1/3 of its required tree trimming work done and now have to cut off power to entire cities whenever the wind is strong enough to knock over a chair because of the thousands of trees currently protruding onto power lines and transmission towers, may be it's not a bad idea to have a change of ownership, huh?
On the other hand, PG&E is also on the hook for billions in damages for the fires it caused in NorCal, I'm not sure if taxpayers are keen on taking on such a toxic asset and have their tax dollars paying for PG&E's mounting legal troubles, not to mention that your electricity bills would probably double when your utilities is run by the same fine politicians behind the multi-billion dollars High Speed Rail boondoggle.
If the state government does takes over PG&E, the billions of dollars required to hire more subcontractors to catch up on PG&E shoddy in-house maintenance work (that they have fell behind for YEARS) will likely be passed onto tax-payers as well.
Either way, prepare to clench your cheeks, 2020 gonna be a rough year up north.
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