of California, who depend on you to do the job
safely,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup told a
PG&E lawyer during an April probation hearing,
KQED News reported.
PG&E has acknowledged shortcomings in its first
big power shutoff and agreed to rebate affected
customers, but CEO Bill Johnson has repeatedly
said the blackouts protect the public. He’s said it
will take a decade to get PG&E’s system to a place
where widespread blackouts aren’t necessary.
Company officials say they’ve invested $27 billion
in their power system over the past decade.
For all PG&E’s faults, power companies operate
in one of the most highly regulated industries
in the country, their investments overseen by
the CPUC, which failed to foresee the fire risk or
adequately force PG&E to prepare for it.
“The PUC is tasked with overseeing PG&E and
making sure they’re making decisions in the
interest of the public good,” said Knittel, of MIT.
California regulators and lawmakers squandered
an opportunity to impose sweeping changes on
a hobbled PG&E nearly 20 years ago when the
utility landed in bankruptcy court the first time,
after California’s energy crisis.
Instead, after three years of wrangling, PG&E
worked out a plan, much of it in secret, with
a former utility industry executive, Michael
Peevey, then-president of the CPUC.
Other regulators and consumer activists tried
to block that deal, calling it a travesty. But
after a few minor concessions, PG&E emerged
from bankruptcy protection in April 2004 with
a customer-backed $7.2 billion bailout that
enabled it to charge abnormally high electricity
rates for nearly a decade. The surcharges,