Free Republic

New video evidence appears to show the devastating Eaton Fire, which destroyed most of Altadena and parts of northern Pasadena, may have originated with Southern California Edison (SCE) transmission towers in the San Gabriel Mountains. The Eaton Fire destroyed nearly 9,500 structures, displacing thousands of people, causing an estimated $10 billion in loses while severely damaging the local economy. Since the fire erupted on January 7, lawsuits have been filed against SCE in an attempt hold the company liable for allegedly failing to shut off the power grid despite heavy winds approaching 100mph. While SCE maintains it followed procedure, residents...

Maggie Robbins lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights. Because she has no air conditioning, dishwasher, washer or dryer, she uses little electricity. As a result, the net amount she pays Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to deliver electricity to her home could go up by about $20 a month in early 2026, when the big utility implements a new rate structure for some costs of distributing electricity to homes. Under the new scheme, PG&E’s residential customers will pay a fixed monthly charge based on income, but pay a bit less for each kilowatt-hour used. The...

Twenty-six energy companies with business before the state donated nearly $10million to Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Democratic Party over the past eight years — donations that often were made within days or weeks of winning favors. That’s the contention of “Brown’s Dirty Hands“ a report released Wednesday by the Santa Monica-based public interest group Consumer Watchdog. [snip]The report alleges that Brown and his operatives have used the California Democratic Party as “a political slush fund” to receive contributions from unpopular energy companies in amounts greater than permitted to his candidate committee. The group has logged its report as...

Should energy consumers pay extra taxes to fund government-mandated and subsidized renewable energy technologies? "Absolutely yes," says John Bryson, President Obama's nominee for Commerce Secretary. He made the remark at a meeting of the Commonwealth Club of California in 2009 and went on to extol the virtues of hidden rates in California, a state encumbered with some of the nation's highest electricity and unemployment rates. Bryson, retired CEO of the electric utility Southern California Edison (SCE) and its parent company Edison International, excused the practice, saying, "That's been a part of the regulatory environment for the investor-owned utilities for as...