Posted on 10/27/2019 4:26:12 AM PDT by karpov
After again shutting power to hundreds of thousands this week, Californias utility PG&E disclosed Thursday that it had discovered a broken jumper cable by the ignition site of a wildfire blazing across Sonoma County. The company has warned of more blackouts this weekend and perhaps for the next decade as it refurbishes its aging grid.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is trying to deflect political blame. Its about dog-eat-dog capitalism meeting climate change. Its about corporate greed meeting climate change. Its about decades of mismanagement, Mr. Newsom declared. But Democrats for years have treated PG&E as their de facto political subsidiary. The wildfires and blackouts are the direct result of their mismanagement.
The state Public Utilities Commission is in charge of enforcing state safety laws and regulations, which can carry penalties of up to $50,000 per violation per day. Yet PG&E received no safety fines related to its power-grid management over the last several years. The commission has instead focused on enforcing the Legislatures climate mandates.
State law mandates that utilities obtain 33% of electric generation from renewables such as wind and solar by 2020 and 60% by 2030. Utilities must spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year to reduce the cost of green energy for low-income households. PG&E has prioritized political obeisance over safety.
In 2018 PG&E spent $509 million on electric discounts for low-income customers in addition to $125 million for no-cost weatherization and efficiency upgrades for disadvantaged communities. Utilities also receive allowances from the states cap-and-trade program$7.5 billion since 2012to pay for other ratepayer benefits that reduce emissions.
For instance, the Legislature in 2015 mandated that utilities spend $100 million annually on solar systems in low-income communities. This is on top of the $2.2 billion in customer rebates for rooftop solar installations, which utilities charged to ratepayers
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
It took them three decades of not timbering or clearing brush in the name of returning the forest to nature, PG and E cannot fix the real problem, forest mismanagement.
Democrats are a scourge.
Governor Craven Gruesome is trying to deflect the blame.
100% of the blame for the wildfires should be on the one party legislature as well as their lackeys with the Public Utility Commission.
Before 1800 there were 4.5 million acres burned every year. Now the entire state allows less than 1/10 of that, by law. The law applies to federal lands too. For example in Butte county (more than a million acres) they only allow 6,000 to burn during the burn season at one time. That means effectively only about 30,000 can be burned during the relatively short safe burn season (as short as one month before it becomes unsafe to burn)
The direct result of the "clean air" laws is a wildfire deficit and the 150,000 acre fire in Butte county last year that killed 80 people.
A jumper is when they pull the meter and jump the poles for an illegal hookup to the power
Climate change didn’t keep them from maintaining the grid.
Electing idiots did.
Hubby is correct. Again.
I dont. But I sent her a link that says CPUC estimates only 10% of wild fires are caused by power transmission lines, and Newsome signed 22 bills aimed at solving the PG&E bankruptcy/fire on Oct 8, 2019. One of the new laws allowed PG&E to unilaterally shut off her power.
One side of it was live, I imagine.
I suspected it was something more than stuff for your car!
Thanks for the info
Yes, he is! We may have the only marriage in America where the wife (me) willingly admits when the husband (mine!) is correct! Fortunately, he willingly admits when Im correct, as well. It blows complete strangers minds away when we give credit to the other in public. (Yes! This has actually happened to us by complete strangers!)
We think that is how marriage is supposed to be. In other words, we try to build each other up, rather than tear each other down. Im sure you werent wanting a dissertation on the subject, but because this seems to be a touchy issue for some people, I decided to address it.
Awesome!
Socialism = Stupidity!
The only problem is if some of the leftists in California get fed up with the nonsense, they’ll flee the state rather than try to fix it. So, as much as many would like to think the leftists in California would be punished, the reality is that punishment would spill over into the red states, even more than it has in recent years.
How does not having electricity solve anything? What if they light fires to cook and to stay warm?
Well, the rich in California are too busy trying to buy their kids into USC to even notice the fires, so I’m not too worried about them moving out. But, yep, the employers must be wondering both what the hell they still doing there and why in hell would they ever expand there. And with them going, so goes their Leftist workers.
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