State Sen. Jerry Hill tells KQED that he is looking into legislation that would break up the state’s investor-owned utilities or make them public following reports that Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison equipment may have been connected to the Camp and Woolsey fires burning at either end of the state.
“I’m very concerned about what we’ve learned so far regarding the fires of this year,” Hill said, referring to reports filed by PG&E and Edison to state regulators about incidents at their facilities that occurred around the same time that these deadly and destructive fires began.
On Thursday, PG&E told the California Public Utilities Commission that there was an outage on its 115-kilovolt Caribou-Palermo line at 6:15 a.m. Thursday. Cal Fire says the blaze started at 6:29 a.m.
It’s not clear from the report whether the damage occurred before or after the fire began, and a company spokesman did not address that question. But the location identified in the report appears to be very close to the spot where firefighters first encountered the blaze. …
The folks who run the utilities routinely view the public as fish in a barrel, so they can give a better return to investors. AND THEN WHEN THE FIRES BURN HALF THE STATE DOWN THESE SAME FOLKS DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO CHARGE THE RATE PAYING PUBLIC FOR THE DAMAGES. Its enough to make you CPUC.
The problem is not the utilities, it is the roadblocks erected by gov’t bureaucrats, and their friends in the environmental movement – supported by robed morons on the bench, that prevents the utility companies from utilizing proper forestry management in the areas of their transmission lines. How much more of CA must burn down so that we can save some rat or leafy clover?
But, if you think that CA’s state government can bring you electricity in a more efficient, and safe, manner; you’re crazier than Moonbeam & Co.
‘make them public’ you mean make them government…because that is what they will become.