Posted on 11/18/2018 1:46:25 PM PST by NoLibZone
Capping a wild day on Wall Street in which Pacific Gas and Electric Co. stock crashed and soared as investors weighed the prospect of government aid, California’s top utility regulator said Thursday his agency can help the utility avoid financial catastrophe because of the state’s raging wildfires.
Michael Picker, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, said his agency does not want PG&E and the state’s other investor-owned utilities to file for bankruptcy. In a move he conceded was unusual, he briefed investors and analysts on his views before issuing a public statement Thursday, a decision that may have contributed to the stock’s after-hours surge.
The commission, Picker said, will soon begin to implement a provision in a new state law through which utilities can pass wildfire costs along to their customers.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfchronicle.com ...
The Utilities have major sway in California which could have been leveraged into improved forest management.
Instead the people will pay dearly and nothing will change.
No doubt an agency will be created or expanded to determine these new costs
This is why bad practices continue.
The bill (SB 901) is fairly large (more in there than just the PG&E bailout)...there is “Cap & Trade” funny money in there ($200 million/year for 5 years) for forest management. (Provided the whole Cap & Trade” thing doesn’t fall apart).
Also in the bill....union perks....if a utility goes under the new company can’t lay anyone off for 6 months.
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB901
Did the California Regulator confess that PG&E is not responsible for the horrendous condition California’s forests are in?
Did he mention that California Regulators fine people for attempting to harvest all the dead wood lying on the forest floor? That if you pick up the dead wood for fire wood or to cut into lumber with an Alaskan mill you are facing huge fines and prison?
PG&E is bailing out the Democrats, not the other way around.
Does anyone doubt that the state of California will try to seize PG&E?
Power to the People(s Republic of California)!
More likely this public utility commissioner was just outlining a possible outcome favorable to investors in order to calm the markets and keep them from jumping ship.
With the death toll rising and a thousand people still missing, I'll wager the liability for these fires will be too great to pass along. Investors in both the equity and credit markets should prepare to for bankruptcy in 2019.
Crony capitalism. Not that PG&E started out that way, but the rules have been so extensively rewritten in California, this is the only way they can stay in business.
Normal economics do not apply. PG&E, like many of the utilities, was forced to go far outside the California state borders to obtain a flow of power that they were not permitted to generate within the state.
California has the means and resources right within their own state to be a net EXPORTER of electrical power and natural gas, both of which are PG&E’s stock in trade, but fussy and largely restrictive environmental objections have stymied the normal functions of capital expansion, and now the state of California is paying the price, all the while going for ever more impractical schemes, further diverting from any sensible economic revival.
Taxpayers will pay - they always do.
Is it possible Iran, NK or even ISIS hacked PG&E circuits and did some overloading or something resulting in sparks and fires?? Just askin’..
200 mil a yr for “forest management”? I’m sure it will be spent wisely. Probably all go to some attorney to fight with the environmentalists.
hmmm why? does California pension board own a lot of their stock....
All increased costs are passed along to the end consumer. No company will absorb those costs.
When some dipshit pol pushes for a $15 minimum wage for people with little skill; they are raising the cost of everything on all people. The end result is no one benefits because the raise is offset by raised costs and those on a fixed income get screwed.
It should hurt to be that stupid. It really should.
And people lose jobs because the owner has to make up the difference and lays off staff.
What kind of fees do they get for allowing loggers to thin the trees? How much comes in from allowing ranchers to graze livestock?
No stop this crap.
And the millions of dollars power plants in California have to pay for carbon credits gets passed on. No way it wouldn’t be. But California gets all that money, and consumers pay.
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