End PG&E’S Monopoly
By Supervisor Connie Chan
Dixie. Kincade. Paradise. Camp. More than 1.5 million acres burned, and towns decimated. One hundred thirteen Californians killed.
As activists have put it, if Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) were an individual and not a corporation, they would be behind bars for the preventable deaths and devastation they have caused. PG&E’s negligence has continued to contribute to our worsening climate crisis and cause devastating wildfires. If we think San Francisco need not to worry about PG&E’s negligence, then we would be wrong.
Because, while San Francisco’s community choice aggregation (CCA) program, CleanPowerSF, has helped our City move away from relying on the monopoly PG&E holds, we still rely on the company’s aging distribution and transmission lines to deliver our power.
In 2018, San Francisco offered to purchase PG&E’s equipment, but the company declined. According to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, nearly 70 city projects were delayed due to PG&E creating obstacles to connect affordable housing, parks and emergency services to power. The project delays cost the City more than $10 million annually.
In addition to creating questionable delays, PG&E is responsible for many of the recent state wildfires, which have a lasting impact on our air quality and health. No one will forget the day the sky turned orange in the City from a wildfire many miles away. Our state leadership can and must do better to prevent future wildfires.
Despite the fires PG&E sparked in 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety quietly approved PG&E’s safety certificate this past January. Activists who were scheduled to meet with the governor the following day regarding the certificate were caught completely unaware.
The lack of transparency in approving these certificates is unacceptable. That’s why I introduced a resolution in April for Climate Month, urging Gov. Newsom and the new state department to not issue PG&E their safety certificate for next year. If counties around San Francisco are not safe, none of us are safe.
Last month, PG&E had to separately submit its wildfire mitigation plan. An approved plan is required for the company to receive a safety certificate and to continue operating. However, the plan was rejected by the CPUC and required PG&E to spend the next several weeks adjusting their proposed plan. While advocates wait and hope for a serious plan that will mean PG&E invests in fixing their infrastructure, my office is organizing a hearing on the safety certificate, to hear from environmental justice advocates on why we need to break free from PG&E.
The safety certificate allows PG&E to utilize ratepayer dollars to pay for damages – damages caused from the same wildfires they started. Instead of using their profits to invest in upgrading their equipment to prevent fires, they are allowed to take even more of our money to pay for their mistakes. In 2020, former State Sen. Jerry Hill authored a state bill that created Golden State Energy, which was created as a backstop in the event PG&E fails to emerge from bankruptcy or fails to operate its gas and electricity services in a safe and reliable manner. Golden State Energy is a non-profit, meaning the company would not have an interest in maximizing profit for its shareholders.
We need to move to an energy democracy where ratepayers are not beholden to a private company that has its shareholders’ needs in mind, not the general public. This is why I call on Gov. Newsom to hold PG&E accountable for its commitment to maintain its equipment, harden its wires to avoid sparking fires, and maintain adequate clearance of vegetation, especially as the state is facing an early fire season this year. Let’s end the PG&E monopoly and build a climate-resilient, renewable energy future.
Connie Chan represents District 1 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She can be reached at 415-554-7410 or chanstaff@sfgov.org.
Categories: City Hall
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 
Thank you, Supervisor Chan, for drawing attention to how the Governor and the State of California Pubic Utilities Commission are not holding PG&E accountable for the vast destruction and lives lost that the corporation has caused. We seem to find a Notice of Rate Increase every other month in our PG&E bills. Meanwhile, if we recall correctly, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law in, we believe, 2020 that protects PG&E from all liability for fires it causes for all years after 2020. I couldn’t believe it when I read it in the newspaper. PG&E should be taken over by the State of California, and operated for the public’s benefit and not for PGE shareholders’ profit and top executives’ obscenely high salaries. All transmission lines should be put underground. No upper echelon executives should receive any salary or compensation until all victims of the Paradise Fire and all other fires caused by PGE have been compensated and their homes rebuilt.
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The city can’t run muni, hire enough cops, deal with homeless/drug addiction, but want to be in charge of utilities? No thanks- nice try Connie. Sounds good on paper. Utilities need approvals to spend on Caapital expenditures which the commission rarely approves because of a potential impact on higher consumer rates.
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Yes, absolutely. Thank you Connie!
And don’t forget that San Bruno was consumed by a preventable gas pipe explosion with many lives lost. City after city incinerated!
It is reprehensible that PG&E won’t sell the power grid within SF. Instead they hold it hostage for other bad deals.
We need publicly owned power! And we have it here in SF, except for the grid that PG&E won’t sell, as our hydro station at Hetch Hetchy would supply the entire city. Public Power would be Far cheaper, far safer, and far more reliable. Look only at the other municipalities that have their own power, and at how well the run!
My power bill just a few years back was $30. (I have steam heat, not electric). Now it’s over $100 and rising. This has got to stop!
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