The state’s largest energy companies demonstrate clout | editorial

In the span of 14 days last fall, PG&E, with a little help from its utility colleagues, defeated a bill that would ensure control over its wildfire mitigation spending and then received a $944 million rate increase from the State Public Utilities Commission “reimbursed” him for the cost of storm damage and his work to reduce the likelihood of further fires.

That’s right, no one really knows exactly what PG&E or the other big monopoly utilities are doing to prevent more fires like the one that nearly bankrupted them three years ago. But PG&E still receives nearly $1 billion from its customers for everything it does, or nearly $6 a month from all of its more than 5.6 million customers, both residential and commercial.

There are also further increases to come. The latest PG&E surge comes on top of three previous ones this year. The other major power generation companies haven’t received as many increases recently, but now a precedent has been set.

Meanwhile, by law, no utility can receive a dime from the PUC without solid evidence of how it will be spent, what the split will be between profits and funding needed operations.

The Legislature’s repeal of the accountability law known as SB 1003 on the last day of its regular session in 2024 ensures that PG&E and its cousins ​​will come back for more “reimbursements” for expenses they failed to itemize, at least until something like SB 1003 is eventually passed.

This is another example of the power of Sacramento’s electric companies, whose lobbyists continue to push back on any attempt to curb the utilities’ influence. Other examples in recent years include the creation of the $13 billion Wildfire Mitigation Fund, which is intended to reimburse companies for damages they are entitled to after fires they cause, and PG&E’s escape from impending bankruptcy after several billion-dollar losses Fires it caused in the last seven years.

The Utility Reform Network, a group that has sometimes succeeded in curbing utility rate hikes, said: “Voters have a right to be upset that elected officials are putting PG&E shareholders’ record-breaking profits over millions of residents, who are struggling to pay their record profits.” Electricity bills are breaking. This is unacceptable.”

Meanwhile, PG&E continues to try to justify selling a stake in its power generation business to global investment firm KKR. This is part of the company’s plan to transfer its non-nuclear power generation functions to a new subsidiary called Pacific Generation. This new company – just PG&E, operating under a different name – is said to have a better credit rating than the parent company, which could save consumers $100 million over the next 20 years – or about a trivial 6 cents per month per customer.

If the PUC greenlights this change, PG&E would face even more bureaucracy between customers and its energy sources, from dams to windmills to solar farms and old-fashioned power plants. This could make it possible to conceal when fires occur and consumer groups try to assess responsibility for them.

If PG&E gets away with this kind of shenanigans, you can be sure other utilities will follow.

It’s just another example of how they and the PUC tout even the smallest cost reduction to their customers, but then regularly hit them with multiple rate increases that amount to far more.

This pattern will not end until there is some accountability for the utilities and PUC that have acted with impunity in recent months while their customers were distracted by the presidential election, campus unrest and international conflict.

Thomas D. Elias is a freelance political writer whose columns appear in newspapers throughout California. Email him at [email protected].