(Editor’s Note: The following report compiled by CalMatters’ Senior editor Dan Morain covered yesterday’s hearing on PG&E power blackouts held by the California senate.)
“We don’t want Californians to think they’re living in Puerto Rico because they are not.”— 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.
- 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 warned that 800,000 people could lose their power Wednesday and Thursday as wind-driven fire weather is expected to return.
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: “I looked at what happened on Oct. 9 as a big ‘screw you’ to your customers, to the Legislature, to the governor.”
- Sen. Mike McGuire, a Democrat who represents fire-ravaged Sonoma County: “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.
- Sen. John Moorlach, a skeptical Republican from Costa Mesa: “Where did you spend that $30 billion?”