12) Cal Fire-Butte County Chief Darren Read said investigators have identified a “possible second origin” for #1 most destructive CA fire....At 7:04 a.m. Nov. 8 a fire dispatcher rerouted a couple of fire crews to a “possible second fire” on Rim Road, just east of Concow Reservoir. Satellite images indicate that Rim Road crisscrosses underneath several PG&E high-tension lines in that vicinity. There are no obvious radio discussions indicating what may have sparked that second fire, in a review of archived radio chatter. Minutes later a firefighter described the initial blaze as having grown to about 300 acres with a rapid rate of spread and heading toward Concow Reservoir. https://www.chicoer.com/2018/11/16/was-possible-second-camp-fire-ignition-caught-on-firewatch-camera/
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11) 11-15-18 
Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, was the only Democrat in the state Senate to vote against SB 901 (Gov. Brown’s bailout in autumn 2018 of PG&E). While his colleagues have backed the position that PG&E is too big to fail, he believes the Legislature should explore whether PG&E is “too big to succeed.” https://www.postbulletin.com/opinion/other_views/editorial-california-must-hold-pg-e-accountable-for-wildfires/article_93846ac2-e7e9-5846-89bc-3c39665bddde.html
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10) 11-6-18 PG&E, facing responsibility for billions of dollars in 2017 wildfire damages, will renew a push next year to change California’s stringent legal standard of holding power companies liable for losses from fires caused by their equipment. https://www.petaluma360.com/news/8919424-181/pge-wants-break-from-obligation
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9) Investigators have already linked PG&E lines to some of the other October fires, including the Atlas fire that killed 6 people and destroyed 400 homes, and the Redwood Valley fire that killed nine and destroyed 500 structures.
…a court filing from PG&E last year indicated the equipment was owned by an unidentified private party, not the utility. Moreover, the filing claimed, it did not appear that PG&E equipment in that area had burned.
Attorney Jim Frantz, whose firm the Frantz Law Group represents more than 1,100 claims tied to the October fire siege, including hundreds from the Tubbs fire, disputed the utility’s conclusion. “I know that fire like the back of my hand,” Frantz said. “We believe it’s complete and utter BS when they talk about a private wire causing that fire.”
Cal Fire declined to comment on the assertion. Almost immediately after the October fire siege began, focus turned toward PG&E equipment as a potential culprit. Attorney Steven Campora filed a lawsuit on behalf of two Napa County residents who lost their home in the Atlas fire. In it he claims the utility has a “longstanding corporate culture of favoring profits over public safety” that leads to large-scale disasters like the October fire siege and resulted in the San Bruno gas pipe explosion in 2010.
“They put in power lines — they don’t insulate them. They don’t put them underground. They put in wood poles instead of metal ones to save money in the beginning,” Campora said….
In more than a dozen of last year’s wine country fires, investigators found that PG&E equipment either started the fires or contributed to their spread after the equipment came into contact with trees or brush. In three fires Cal Fire determined PG&E violated public resources codes regarding vegetation clearance around their equipment. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-fire-mystery-santa-rosa-20180912-story.html
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8) 7-5-18 The trouble is that close examination of last year’s fires has not produced a portrait of an innocent company that did everything right and faces billions of dollars in potential damages anyway. State fire officials have found not only that PG&E’s equipment caused all 16 of the fires they have finished investigating but also that in most of those cases the utility might have broken the law. The state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has referred 11 of the fires to prosecutors for criminal investigation.
Whether it’s due to climate change, sprawl, negligence or all of the above and more, the growing threat of wildfires certainly warrants legislative attention. But lawmakers should, as a coalition of insurers put it this week, “resist pressure to bail out at-fault utilities.”
The California State Association of Counties was right to point out that “liability laws provide a strong incentive for utilities to ... protect the ratepayers and residents.” With last fall’s deadliest fire still under investigation and this year’s fire season starting all too early, it’s no wonder not everyone is joining Sacramento’s rush to rescue PG&E. https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-After-fires-an-unseemly-rush-to-13052395.php
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7) 6-18-18 The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board has vigorously opposed efforts to make ratepayers pay for mistakes made by California’s three giant investor-owned utilities. Giving electricity providers an incentive to cut corners on safety is an awful idea. This is why it was a relief to see the California Public Utilities Commission decide in November to reject San Diego Gas & Electric’s bid to have its customers pay the $379 million in uncovered costs left from three 2007 deadly wildfires in San Diego County that were sparked by the utility’s power lines.
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6) 10-24-17 California regulators auditing Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s work in the field cited the company for late repairs and maintenance jobs far more frequently than any other electric utility in the state, according to documents made public in the wake of this month’s deadly Wine Country fires. https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/PG-E-cited-for-late-maintenance-work-more-often-12303697.php
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5) 5-26-17 Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has agreed to pay $86.5 million over 164 allegedly improper backdoor communications it had with state regulators over a five year period that critics seized on as proof of an overly cozy relationship. Under the deal, PG&E ratepayers get $73.5 million in bill credits and other offsets between now and 2019. https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/PGE-to-Pay-865-Million-for-Backdoor-Lobbying-of-Regulators--417383523.html
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4) 4-18-2016 PG&E wants to take customers away from San Francisco’s power agency – or force the city to spend as much as $600 million building new electric power lines.
City Attorney Dennis Herrera has filed suit to block PG&E’s efforts in a case that revives a scandal more than 100 years old. Under the federal Raker Act, passed in 1913, San Francisco is required to operate a municipal power system selling cheap electricity to residential and commercial customers; PG&E isn’t supposed to do business in this town.
But the company has thwarted every effort to enforce the law, despite a US Supreme Court ruling, court injunctions, the intervention of the Department of the Interior and private lawsuits. You can read the whole history of this, which I wrote for the Bay Guardian, here. https://48hills.org/2016/04/pge-tries-cheat-san-francisco/
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3) 1-13-2012 Pacific Gas and Electric Co. diverted more than $100 million in gas safety and operations money collected from customers over a 15-year period and spent it for other purposes, including profit for stockholders and bonuses for executives, according to a pair of state-ordered reports released Thursday.
An independent audit and a staff report issued by the California Public Utilities Commission depicted a poorly led company well-heeled in its gas operations and more concerned with profit than safety….The documents link a deficient PG&E safety culture - with its "focus on financial performance" - to the pipeline explosion in San Bruno on Sept. 9, 2010, that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes.
The "low priority" the company gave to pipeline safety during the three years leading up to the San Bruno blast was "well outside industry practice - even during times of corporate austerity programs," said the audit by Overland Consulting of Leawood, Kan….
By cutting back on pipeline-replacement projects and maintenance, laying off workers, using cheaper but less effective inspection techniques and trimming other pipeline costs, PG&E saved upward of 6 percent of the money designated for pipeline safety, maintenance and operations programs, the Overland audit said. Meanwhile, on the revenue side, transmission pipeline operations were "very profitable" for PG&E since March 1998, the audit said. Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, whose district includes San Bruno, called the company's diversion of customers' money "criminal behavior.” https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/PG-E-diverted-safety-money-for-profit-bonuses-2500175.php
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2) 12-14-2011
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1) 4-26-2010 The report, maintained by the U.S. Senate, shows that PG&E was by far the largest spender on lobbying efforts at state and national levels during first quarter 2010, dropping $25.8 million, nearly all of it went to supporting Proposition 16. The initiative, on the June ballot, would require two-thirds of local residents to approve the creation of new electricity districts. https://calcoastnews.com/2010/04/pge-biggest-spender-on-lobbying-in-california/
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