Butte Fire (2015)
From the Sonora Union-Democrat: “Cal Fire confirms PG&E caused Butte Fire.” Again we have the pattern of inadequte tree-trimming. Cal Fire’s incident investigator Gianni Muschetto report said the fire was sparked when a Gray Pine touched a PG&E power line. As I read it, PG&E “vegetation management” removed some trees near the line, exposing other trees, which it then did not maintain:
Failing to identify the potential hazard of leaving weaker, inherently unstable trees on the edge of the stand, without maintaining them, ultimately led to the failure of the gray pine, which contacted the power line conductor operated by PG&E, and ignited the Butte Fire, Muschetto’s report stated.
Wine Country Fires (2017)
And now we come to today’s fires, the Wine County Fires. Right before they started, we got this report from the San Jose Mercury-News: “PG&E profits nearly double after customers’ utility bills jumped”, with this little nugget:
PG&E slashed its spending on operations and maintenance during the second quarter to $1.55 billion, the utility reported. That was 15.9 percent below the company’s spending on maintenance and operations during the same period the year before. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/10/wine-country-fires-pacific-gas-electric-pge-rogue-utility.html
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9-23-16 SACRAMENTO — The state’s Fair Political Practices Commission has launched a formal probe into the California Democratic Party, sparked by allegations of corruption and a tangle of close ties involving the party,
“The Enforcement Division of the Fair Political Practices Commission will investigate the California Democratic Party for alleged violations,” the FPPC wrote in a letter, dated Friday, to Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica-based group that has published an extensive report titled “Brown’s Dirty Hands” that investigated what the group claims is a web of connections and influence involving Gov. Jerry Brown, state officials, Democratic operatives, government regulators and California’s biggest utilities….
Major power and energy companies provided $9.9 million in contributions to the governor’s political campaigns, ballot measures, the California Democratic Party and some of Brown’s pet projects such as the Oakland Military Institute and the Oakland School for the Arts, the consumer group’s report alleged.
Roughly $6 million of that amount came from contributions provided by San Francisco-based PG&E, Rosemead-based Southern California Edison and San Diego-based Sempra Energy, the group claimed. https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/09/23/probe-into-browns-ties-to-puc-pge-and-other-utilities-begins/
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7-12-18 the California Public Utilities Commission. If bills pass that insulate utilities from fire liabilities unless they are found to be negligent, the CPUC staff would presumably play a key role in making such determinations. These are the same regulators who have been credibly faulted by journalists and activists for years of essentially protecting utilities with their weak oversight — a criticism also offered by federal prosecutors in the San Bruno case.
And this is the same agency that sought to quash court-approved search warrants meant to get to the bottom of a shady back-room deal that initially led to Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric ratepayers being assigned 70 percent of the $4.7 billion cost of shutting down the broken
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12-1-17 The investigation concerns back-channel dealings between the PUC and utilities, most notably a 2013 discussion between the commission’s president at the time, Michael Peevey, and a Southern California Edison executive about the costs of closing the San Onofre nuclear power plant.
The two discussed the topic at a luxury hotel in Warsaw, Poland, without disclosing it at the time, as state rules require. The commission eventually approved a closure plan in which Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., which co-own the plant, would pay $1.4 billion while their customers would pay $3.3 billion.
“Why aren’t we seeing the charges filed?” Hill said Friday in an interview. “We have clearly seen evidence that would indicate a crime was committed.” Specifically, he cited the Warsaw meeting and previously released emails that he said showed quid pro quo arrangements between Peevey and PG&E executives.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/State-San-Bruno-officials-call-for-criminal-12398501.php
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