I don’t really know.
Just a guess, but my experience with government tells me that they didn’t care until the fires started and they really didn’t care some more because after the first fires by in the early 2000s and huge outages they really didn’t do anything.
Yes, they are still responsible, but they still have to run a giant company and they still have to make a profit under the system that government has mandated.
Under the old regulation electric utilities would tell the government what kind of rates they needed to charge to run the company at a reasonable profit. This allowed to the utility to do all maintenance to necessary to provide safe reliable power. The government got to check their books to ensure that the company was not gouging the customer and permitted the rates.
Now with the new regs outside power producers are permitted access to the utility lines at unfair rates and are permitted to produce power that can cause issues with the transmission of power. The new rate system puts the old utilities at a disadvantage to the new power producers and makes it impossible to run the system in the old ways and make a profit.
Do you really think Newsome in his multi million dollar home in Citrus Heights gives a rip about the black outs because Dem controlled state gov’t in CA can’t get it done?
Newsome is too busy giving illegal aliens free and instate college tuition rates and free health care.