PG&E fined for deadly wildfire
If Pacific Gas and Electric Co. were a person and not a felonious multibilliondollar company, it would be sentenced to state prison for 90 years because of the 84 people its power line killed in Butte County, a judge said Thursday.
But PG&E is not going to prison, nor are any of its current or former executives.
Instead, the company will pay about $3.5 million in fines — the statutory maximum — for causing the Camp Fire, which nearly leveled the town of Paradise and the surrounding communities of Concow and Magalia more than 1½ years ago. About 14,000 homes were destroyed and 50,000 people were displaced by the 2018 fire.
The sentencing from Butte County Superior Court Judge Michael Deems concludes the criminal case that arose from
California’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire and follows PG&E’s Tuesday guilty plea on 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter and one felony count of unlawfully causing a fire. PG&E is now one of the most criminally convicted companies in U.S. history.
PG&E’s sentencing had extra significance because it came one day after the company turned another legal corner with the court approval of its $57.65 billion bankruptcy restructuring plan. The bankruptcy case, a historically complex endeavor, began in late January 2019 because of the Camp Fire and other blazes the company caused.
In a written decision, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali said that if he did not confirm the plan, it would leave the company and parent PG&E Corp. in the same spot they have been for the last 17 months. He felt a sense of urgency to approve the plan, which will create an estimated $13.5 billion trust to pay wildfire victims.
“Leaving tens of thousands of fire survivors, contract parties, lenders, general creditors ... and countless others with no other options on the horizon is not an acceptable alternative,” Montali said.
PG&E will emerge from bankruptcy largely intact, though it is making some major changes such as splitting its operations into regional divisions, overhauling its board of directors and instating a new CEO. State regulators who approved the plan last month have also created a new safety enforcement process through which
PG&E could lose its operating license if it continues to destroy communities and kill people.
To secure approval of its bankruptcy restructuring, PG&E reached more than $25 billion in settlements with various parties, including attorneys for fire victims, the owners of insurance claims against the company and local governments. Also, the Legislature passed a law last year that creates a form of corporate wildfire insurance for PG&E and other utilities — a measure that could protect the company from quickly slipping into bankruptcy again.
“This was a remarkably complex symphony to choreograph, and it’s really remarkable that they were able to do it as quickly as they were,” said Jared Ellias, a UC Hastings law professor who closely monitored the PG&E bankruptcy case.
The favorable outcome of PG&E’s bankruptcy plan has deeply disappointed critics who pressed for greater changes at the corporate level. But Ellias said the bankruptcy at its core was about settling the claims of wildfire victims, not “reinventing PG&E from the ground up.”
Thursday’s hearing in Chico was the first true glimpse of closure that many of those victims have had since the Camp Fire ignited. In court,
District Attorney Mike Ramsey displayed the brittle iron hook that had broken on a PG&E transmission tower the morning of Nov. 8, 2018, sparking the historic conflagration and showering terror and sorrow on thousands of people.
“This is what killed those folks,” Ramsey said. “It was this hook that took the lives, the hopes, the dreams, the health, the sanity, the wealth, the happiness of a community. But etched into the very soul of this community is a concern: What will happen next? Will this happen again?”
By holding PG&E accountable, Ramsey said, he hopes the answer to that question would be no.
Incoming interim PG&E Corp. CEO Bill Smith — who is replacing CEO Bill Johnson when his tenure ends later this month — said that he would never forget the pain experienced by the 84 victims’ families. (An 85th death, a suicide, was proved to be indirectly related to the Camp Fire.) Impact statements for more than 50 victims had been shared over the previous two days.
“On behalf of everyone at PG&E, I’m truly sorry for the loss of life,” Smith said. “I recognize that no apology, no plea, no sentencing can undo that damage. No passage of time can lessen the anguish that we heard expressed in this courtroom. Actions speak louder than words. We have taken action and we will continue to take action to combat the growing threat of wildfires.”
But Smith’s words were little comfort for some families, who found them to be chillingly similar to sentiments expressed by a previous PG&E CEO after the 2010 San Bruno explosion. Tammie Hillis, the daughter of victim TK Huff, 71, who died in his Concow garden, called PG&E the “ultimate monster.”
“The complacency, year after year,” Hillis said in a statement. “PG&E is a disgusting example of greed, and I hope they all burn in hell. This will never end for the families who have lost their loved ones, and no amount of money will ever be enough.”
As Deems, the Butte County judge, imposed the sentence, he recalled a sentiment from U.S. District Judge William Alsup — who is overseeing PG&E’s probation arising from the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion. Last month, Alsup had said that “if there was ever a corporation that deserved to go to prison, it’s PG&E.”
Alsup took notice of the criminal case on Wednesday, when he ordered PG&E to tell him if it disputes any facts in a report from Butte County prosecutors. PG&E must respond by July 1.