SACRAMENTO – As residents in portions of 16 counties across Northern California, including Lake County, prepared for their fifth widespread Public Safety Power Shutoff in the past 45 days, Senator Mike McGuire and the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee held a special hearing to look at what actions can be taken to protect Californians.
“This is the third strike for PG&E – the first was the San Bruno explosion and cover-up, the second was the massive wildfires of 2017 and 2018, and strike three is the debacle of a response to these power shutoffs,” said McGuire. “PG&E has failed us too many times. All options need to be studied and on the table – including breaking up the utility.”
McGuire has been named Co-Chair of a Senate Working Group focused on energy and insurance stability. He will be helping lead the legislative discussion on power shutoffs, stabilizing California’s insurance market and wildfire resiliency.
“Holding PG&E accountable will be one of the top priorities of the legislature this coming year. We must expedite grid hardening, grid modernization and vegetation management around PG&E’s lines, especially in the most fire critical regions, which is most of the North Coast,” he said. “We must mandate a clear timeline for these critical improvements, we must protect seniors and the medically fragile, set new laws that require backup power for cell phone towers and we need to ensure the California Public Utilities Commission does their job and holds this utility accountable. Californians deserve so much better.”
Ana Matosantos testified at a Senate hearing Monday. She’s Gov. Gavin Newsom’s energy czar and also serves on a board overseeing the financial restructuring of Puerto Rico, including the island’s electric grid. “We don’t want Californians to think they’re living in Puerto Rico because they are not,” she said.
PG&E Chief Executive Officer William Johnson told the senators: “Repeatedly turning off power for millions of people in one of the most advanced economies in the world, even in the interest of safety, is not a sustainable solution to the wildfire threats we face.”
PG&E faces tough questions
California lawmakers heaped harsh criticism on PG&E for its massive power shutoffs, with some calling for a public takeover of the bankrupt utility.
Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco: “This company in my mind has forfeited its right to operate as an investor-owned utility.”
High hurdles and huge cost
The California Public Utilities Commission would have to revoke the utility’s franchise and the state would have to overcome the 5th Amendment, which prevents taking private property for public use without just compensation.
In a daylong Senate oversight hearing, PG&E Chief Executive Officer William Johnson said: “I do work for the shareholders, let’s not kid ourselves about that.”
He’d like to keep PG&E in private ownership but sought to strike a conciliatory tone, acknowledging that an Oct. 9 blackout affecting 2 million customers “wasn’t perfect.”
He said the utility is working to reduce the blackout footprint by one-third by next year’s wildfire season, even as the wildfire risk has dramatically increased.
Sen. Bill Dodd, a Napa Democrat said, “I looked at what happened on Oct. 9 as a big ‘screw you’ to your customers, to the Legislature, to the governor.”
McGuire, added, “You are behind in modernization, grid hardening and vegetation management.”
Johnson said the utility has invested $30 billion in its system over the past decade.
“Where did you spend that $30 billion?” asked Sen. John Moorlach, a skeptical Republican from Costa Mesa.
—CAL Matters reporters Judy Lin and Dan Morain contributed to this report
