Posts Tagged: PG&E
News
Don’t be fooled by the precipitation, the snowpack, the wildflowers. When winter ends, it’s unlikely that California’s iconic landscape will sustain the moisture to withstand the 100-degree summer and fall. California has yet to recover from the 5-year drought that began in 2012. For four years, record wildfires have ravaged the state, including the Tubbs Fire in Napa and Sonoma in 2017 and the Camp Fire last year that wiped out the town of Paradise in Butte County.
Podcast
State Sen. Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, is more than just the senator representing California’s 10th Senate District. He’s also a bankruptcy lawyer, giving him an unusual insight into Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s recent bankruptcy declaration.
Podcast
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the largest utility in California, filed for bankruptcy protection on Jan. 29, citing billions of dollars in potential liabilities from the utility giant’s potential role in sparking a series of devastating California wildfires. That means reporter J.D. Morris, who has been covering the issue for the San Francisco Chronicle, is a busy man, indeed.
News
A final decision looms on whether to close California’s last operating nuclear power plant. The California Public Utilities Commission will hear closing arguments tomorrow, Nov. 28, on the fate of the controversial Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Luis Obispo County. The commission is expected to make a decision by the end of the year.
News
Six years after the devastating San Bruno natural gas pipeline blast led to the deaths of eight people, the California Public Utilities Commission has not been held accountable for what elected officials say was its role in the tragedy. State Sen. Jerry Hill, Assemblyman Kevin Mullin and San Bruno Mayor Jim Ruane are trying to change that.
News
It’s almost impossible these days to see the name Michael Peevey without the word “embattled” attached to it. Peevey stepped down last December after serving two six-year terms on the California Public Utilities Commission, almost all of them as PUC president. He has been subjected to withering public criticism up and down the state for fostering a too-cozy relationship between the PUC and the utility firms he was charged with regulating, most recently Pacific Gas & Electric. “Don’t shoot, I surrender,” Peevey wryly told the commission at its December meeting, a comment that drew laughs.
News
Michael R. Peevey, the beleaguered president of the California Public Utilities Commission who has served under three governors, said Thursday he is stepping down at the end of the year. The move follows turmoil at the powerful regulatory agency that includes state and federal investigations amid complaints that the PUC has been too cozy with Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
News
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. should pay an unprecedented $1.4 billion in fines and penalties stemming from the 2010 gas pipeline blast in San Bruno that killed eight people and destroyed three dozen homes, state regulators ruled. Penalties against PG&E stemming from the explosion now exceed $2 billion – the $1.4 billion announced Tuesday and $635 million from an earlier decision involving aging pipelines.
News
Four years after California voters in a bruising, $46 million ballot fight turned down a plan to limit the ability of local communities to set up their own utility districts and energy providers, the issue is back. This time, voters won’t be weighing in: It‘s in the form of a bill before lawmakers.
Fire safety has suddenly become far more politically fraught and expensive. Here, firefighters respond to 2017 Ponderosa Fire. Photo courtesy of Cal Fire. (Photo: CalFire, via CALmatters)
