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’..
What kind of fees do they get for allowing loggers to thin the trees? How much comes in from allowing ranchers to graze livestock?