OPINION BY BZ

Let there be no mistake. BZ has had a house in the Sierra Nevada Mountains since 1993. I’m at about the 4,000-foot level just below Blue Canyon. It’s a gorgeous and scenic area with great local people. I moved there because, as a law enforcement officer, I wanted to get away from the insanity and chaos of my job. I’ll work in an urban rat cage because I’m paid; I just didn’t want to live in an urban rat cage any more.

I’m also a PG&E customer — Pacific Gas & Electric.

Of course, this being California, I have loads of choices for my utility companies, right? Uh, no. I have one. PG&E. I get my power from PG&E or I rely solely on solar or a generator. Solar is out because my house is obscured by trees. And, for example, a Generac generator is out because they’re very expensive. So I have neither.

Let’s just say that PG&E has a monopoly on my power and leave it at that. However, I’m not alone. A great deal of PG&E customers don’t have a choice of power companies either. PG&E is, well, pretty much “it” in certain areas of California. I’m suspecting that’s by design. But what do I know?

That’s why what happened is important and why more people need to listen up and wake up. Things in California aren’t going to get any better. They’re only going to get worse, if for no other reason than those who “lead” California are unmitigated Leftists who have no concept of so-called unforeseen consequences (which in California are always foreseeable if one’s eyes are actually open) and who live in their own bubbly, insular and purple-skied environments.

So what did happen to PG&E customers? From USAToday.com:

PG&E keeps nearly 60,000 Northern California customers in the dark to reduce wildfire risk

by Ashley May & Kristin Lam

A utility company purposefully shut off electricity to nearly 60,000 Northern California customers Sunday night, aiming to reduce wildfire risks from power lines during extreme winds. 

Pacific Gas and Electric planned to restore power to 70 percent of affected customers in the North Bay and Sierra Foothills late Monday night. As crews inspect lines for safety by helicopter, vehicles and on foot, the remainder will have power sometime Tuesday.

While it was the first time the company shut off power for public safety, PG&E announced its criteria and procedures for such an event in June, said spokesperson Paul Doherty. After wildfires devastated Northern California’s wine country last October, he added, PG&E developed its community wildfire safety program division to make power grids and communities more resilient.  

Translated: we got our arses sued off. So we’re compensating for our shareholders.

Didn’t hear about the suits, did you? Here are a few insights.

Cal Fire: PG&E equipment caused 12 Northern California fires during October firestorm

by Julie Johnson, Robert Digitale and JD Morris

Cal Fire investigators said Friday that equipment owned and operated by PG&E ignited 12 wildfires that raged in hot, dry weather and high winds across Northern California in October, charring hundreds of square miles in Sonoma County and beyond, destroying thousands of structures and killing 18 people.

The utility was in violation of state code on eight of those fires, failing to clear brush around its lines and properly maintain its power equipment, according to state fire investigators.

Cal Fire found violations in the Norrbom, Partrick, Pythian, Adobe and Pocket fires that burned in Sonoma and Napa counties; the Atlas fire in Napa County; the Sulphur fire in Lake County; and the Blue fire in Humboldt County. The agency forwarded its reports to district attorneys in those jurisdictions for review.

From NPR.org:

PG&E Power Lines Blamed For Northern California Wildfires

by Richard Gonzales

Downed power lines owned by utility giant Pacific Gas and Electric are being blamed for a dozen Northern California wildfires last fall. The findings by state officials could have a significant financial impact on PG&E.

The report by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection links electric power and distribution lines with 12 fires that killed 18 people. The trouble started when trees and branches came into contact with power lines and wind gusts of up to 70 mph pushed wildfires faster than firefighters could respond.

Here is the report’s summary of two of the deadliest fires that claimed 15 lives:

“The Redwood Fire, in Mendocino County, started the evening of Oct. 8 and burned a total of 36,523 acres, destroying 543 structures. There were nine civilian fatalities and no injuries to firefighters. CAL FIRE has determined the fire started in two locations and was caused by tree or parts of trees falling onto PG&E power lines. …

“The Atlas Fire, in Napa County, started the evening of Oct. 8 and burned a total of 51,624 acres, destroying 783 structures. There were six civilian fatalities. CAL FIRE investigators determined the fire started in two locations. At one location, it was determined a large limb broke from a tree and came into contact with a PG&E power line. At the second location, investigators determined a tree fell into the same line.”

State law says utility companies can be held liable for the costs of firefighting, even when they haven’t violated safety rules.

PG&E is facing more than 50 lawsuits filed by fire victims arguing that the utility is responsible for fires that scorched the wine country counties of Napa and Sonoma last year.

An earlier investigation found that PG&E’s failure to clear or trim trees near power lines caused three wildfires in Butte and Nevada counties in the fall.

PG&E, of course, wasn’t taking that liability crap laying down. They pressed for changes in the law. From Reuters.com:

California lawmakers pass bill on PG&E wildfire liability

by Jim Christie

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California’s legislature passed a bill late on Friday that could help the utility Pacific Gas and Electric Corporation (PG&E) avoid potentially crippling liabilities for wildfires that ravaged northern parts of the San Francisco Bay Area last year.

The bill, passed 29 to 4 in the Senate and 45 to 10 in the Assembly, requires approval by Democrat Governor Jerry Brown.

Some fires in the north of the Bay area were caused by trees toppling into or making contact with PG&E power lines, a report released by state officials in June said. Analysts estimate PG&E, the state’s biggest utility, could face several billions of dollars in liability as a result.

Democrat State Senator Bill Dodd said the bill was needed to spare customers from big increases in energy costs. “Without it, ratepayers will be left holding the bag and communities will needlessly suffer,” he said.

You see what’s going on here, yes? PG&E is saying that you must let them off the hook or “your rates will rise.” Threats, anyone, table for 16 million ratepayers?

But here’s the scalding truth that PG&E doesn’t want you to know, from CapRadio.org:

California’s Wildfire Liability Law Won’t Change This Year, Dealing Setback To Utilities Like PG&E

by Ben Adler

Pacific Gas and Electric has spent millions of dollars in hopes of saving billions as it battles to change California’s wildfire liability law.

But PG&E and other investor-owned utilities in California appear to have lost the battle, at least for this year. The Legislature adjourns on August 31.

“I think it’s safe to say that ‘inverse condemnation’ is off the table,” Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa) told CapRadio Friday evening, referring to the state’s current liability law that the utilities have been fighting so hard to change. Dodd co-chairs the joint Senate-Assembly conference committee tasked with crafting wildfire preparedness and liability legislation.

Read this:

Inverse condemnation is based on the tenet that, because utilities are allowed to build and place equipment wherever they see fit — even if they need to seize property from a private landowner for public use through eminent domain — they must also take responsibility for damages.

If a utility is found to have been negligent, its shareholders must foot the bill. Otherwise, it can pass the costs on to its ratepayers.

Gov. Jerry Brown released a proposal last month that sided with the utilities. He wants to require a court to weigh in as to whether a utility’s actions were reasonable and to “to balance the public benefit of the electrical infrastructure with the harm caused to private property.”

It would also require the court to take into account a utility’s “proportionate fault” in causing a fire. Currently, because utilities must pay even if not at fault, they bear the entire liability burden whenever its equipment was involved in a fire’s cause.

PG&E said even that proposal — labeled by opponents as a “utility bailout” — did not go far enough.

Now you know why PG&E has reacted thusly. It is not yet protected, so it must make its customers suffer in the uncovered interim. Literally suffer.

This is a new and novel approach, utilized by PG&E, in order to make customers “pay” for their lawsuits — literally and figuratively. Their tactic appeals to Leftists because they’re convinced to their very souls that (once called Global Warming) “climate change” is killing the planet.

Note to Leftists: the climate always changes. And weather always cycles.

Score one for PG&E. Their tactic benefits them because, well, if PG&E had to feel some pain, the customers who instigated those lawsuits should have to feel their own pain as well.

After all, let’s realize the obvious: the bulk of PG&E customers constitute a captive audience. It’s not like they can unplug from PG&E. They can’t. Not if they like electricity.

It’s a win/win for PG&E. They shut down your power during “questionable times.” By doing this they may avoid some lawsuits. So in the name of “climate change” and “doing the right thing for the planet” PG&E gets to potentially avoid lawsuits — which is primary — and customer cash still gets sent to them. In the meantime your medical devices crash, you can’t cook meals, you lose all the food in your refrigerators or freezers, you lose your water supply, your communications, your electric way of life and — oh yeah — your means of transportation if you have an electric car. Everything these days depends upon a constant flow of electricity. Everything.

And trust me. This is going to be the new “normal” from now on in California. Once various utilities see this working — those utilities who may be in a like wildfire situation, no matter where they may be — the plan will be implemented. Southern California Edison already thinks it’s a stellar idea whose time has come.

This is how stupid California has become. It wants all electric vehicles by 2040. Gas vehicles would be banned by then.

Cal ISO in Folsom, California — the Independent Systems Operator having control of electricity in all of California — already can’t handle the load on certain hot days now. What makes anyone think the load will lessen? The electrical load will only increase at a rapid rate because of the illegals flooding into California in order to partake of its largesse. Infrastructure is taxed. That includes electricity. That includes PG&E.

Of course, in order to reach the lofty goal of all electric cars by 2040, California has now committed to building at least one new electric generation station per five years until then. Correct?

Hardly. California has already decreed that’s its last nuclear plant will close in 2025.

Pacific Gas and Electric’s (PG&E) decision to shutter its 2,200 MW Diablo Canyon nuclear facility by 2024 or 2025 leaves a gaping hole in capacity that needs to be filled. The utility proposed a $1.3 billion energy efficiency investment as part of a 2016 agreement with renewable energy advocates over shuttering the plant.

Of course, California has a massive host of alternative power plant construction plans lined up and shovel-ready. Right?

As an aside: Democrat Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants the US to abandon fossil fuels entirely. Apparently she’s never heard of this thing called plastic. Amongst others.

Make no mistake. This is most definitely a proverbial “cautionary tale,” ladies and gentlemen. Let California be a continuing example of what not to do in this and many other situations. Learn from the stupidity, excess and vast-Leftist influence of those who control California.

In the meantime, the stupidity and the fleecing marches on.

PG&E, you’re just one example.

Screw the customer.

Enhance you.

I get it.

BZ