CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2019, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2019, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“WILL THIS
BE YET ANOTHER PHONY PUC INVESTIGATION?”
If you
want to see a phony investigation, check out virtually every one of the last
decade involving the California Public Utilities Commission. It will be no
surprise if a new investigation due for a formal kickoff Aug. 13 in San
Francisco turns out the same.
This
so-called “investigation” will determine whether Pacific Gas & Electric Co.
should be sanctioned for apparently violating several laws and PUC orders while
admittedly helping start many of the huge wildfires that afflicted California
in 2017 and 2018.
Unlike
past investigations, this one most likely won’t have to use subterfuges or very
mild penalties to let PG&E off the hook. One of those past investigations
was into the PUC’s own apparent criminal collusion with the Southern California
Edison Co. in forcing customers to pay most costs of dismantling the San Onofre
Nuclear Generating Station.
That one,
which saw a few search warrants served and spurred a fearful PUC to use $10
million in public funds hiring criminal defense lawyers for its individual
commissioners, disappeared quietly just after then-Gov. Jerry Brown endorsed
former state Attorney General (now presidential candidate) Kamala Harris for
the U.S. Senate in 2016.
Other PUC
“investigations” produced token fines for PG&E and Edison, later recouped
via rate increases imposed on customers, whom bureaucrats like to call
“ratepayers.”
The new
proceeding won’t need subterfuge because of the rushed-through law creating
California’s new wildfire bailout fund to protect privately owned utilities.
That law changes the rules.
Formerly,
it was up to the utilities to prove they acted “prudently,” whatever that
means. To defend themselves now, companies need only show their acts were
consistent with what a “reasonable” utility would do. The burden of proof has
shifted 180 degrees.
To oppose
a finding that utilities were reasonable, consumers must now analyze the
actions of virtually every utility in America. It’s a much tougher and more
expensive standard for consumer advocates, who lack the funds and large-scale
legal manpower utilities deploy in all their proceedings.
“It’s a
crazy standard,” says Mike Aguirre, the former San Diego city attorney now
attempting to get the wildfire fund law (better known as AB 1054) thrown out by
U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who presides over PG&E’s bankruptcy
case. “We will be reminding the judge that we are dealing with a convicted
felon that has violated probation.”
Aguirre
led the legal effort that forced a huge reduction in the San Onofre settlement
years after its questionable approval.
When he
calls PG&E a convicted felon, it’s because a federal court criminally
convicted PG&E for its actions in the multi-fatal 2010 San Bruno gas line
explosion and Alsup this year ruled it violated probation before the more
recent spate of fires.
All this
is background for the PUC “investigation,” needed under AB 1054 if PG&E is
to tap the taxpayer-financed wildfire fund in order to help pay tens of
billions of dollars in claims it anticipates from fires it helped cause.
Part of
the very order setting up the PUC proceeding notes that the commission’s own
Safety and Enforcement Division found PG&E “failed to follow industry best
practices” and its “vegetation management practices and procedures were
deficient and equipment operations were in severe condition.”
Given that
finding, it would be hard for the five commissioners to find PG&E acted
prudently, as those words virtually define the opposite. But prudency no longer
matters, under the law pushed urgently by Gov. Gavin Newsom and passed by huge
majorities of legislators, the vast bulk of whom took campaign donations from
PG&E in the last election. Newsom himself accepted more than $200,000 and
has called queries about it “weird.”
Newsom
claims the culture of the PUC has changed, but the law he hustled through
appears designed to preserve the old culture favoring utilities over their
customers. That law also allows the PUC to authorize unlimited rate increases
to pay back bonds the state can issue to cover utility wildfire liabilities, if
companies are found to have acted reasonably.
All of
which makes the new “investigation” worth watching, if only because it is
crucial to PG&E’s interests and could be very costly to its blameless
customers and those of other utilities with big wildfire liabilities.
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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net
Suggested pull-out quote: “Utility company
prudency no longer matters.”
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