Judge lays it on the line for PG&E
Last week, William Alsup — Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California — announced that he was not going to extend probation for Pacific Gas and Electric.
That decision made many people unhappy, but as Alsup pointed out, the US Attorney’s Office did not ask for an extension of the probation, which expired January 25.
He did, however, lay out a blistering attack on the way PG&E has historically operated.
It is true that the reason the company was on probation was the San Bruno gas explosion Sept. 9, 2010. It seems everyone agrees that the company has improved its safety record as it relates to gas delivery.
However, the judge laid out PG&E’s record on wildfire since going on probation, and it wasn’t pretty, leaving the impression that all that needed to happen for an extension of the probation was a request.
“While on probation, PG&E has set at least 31 wildfires, burned nearly one and one-half million acres, burned 23,956 structures, and killed 113 Californians. PG&E has pled guilty to 84 manslaughter charges for its ignition of the 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County, is facing five felony and 28 misdemeanor counts arising out of the 2019 Kincade Fire in Sonoma County (that county’s largest wildfire ever), is facing pending involuntary manslaughter charges arising out of the 2020 Zogg Fire in Shasta County, and is facing a civil suit by five counties arising out of the 2021 Dixie Fire (and may face criminal charges as well). The Dixie Fire, the second-largest in California history, alone required 1,973 personnel to extinguish.
“So, in these five years, PG&E has gone on a crime spree and will emerge from probation as a continuing menace to California.”
After reading Judge Alsup’s decision, we feel there are two things the company can do to improve its ability to end wildfire in the state and regain some credibility.
The first has to do with its wildfire vegetation mitigation program, which the judge said has been a systemic cause of their problems for decades. And that is its policy to outsource to independent contractors the company’s statutory responsibility for finding and removing hazardous trees and maintaining vegetation clearances.
From the judge’s perspective, sure, it saves the company money on salary and benefits, but he suspected a more serious reason for it: a “strategic defense in wildfire litigation.”
He pointed out that the company repeatedly blames its outside contractors when one fails to mark hazardous trees for removal or a tree falls in a line to start a fire.
The company also claims that it has acted prudently by hiring professional arborists and relying on them. The company also, according to the judge, hasn’t had all the necessary records after a disaster and says it has to beg and plead from the contractors to the extent that records survived.
Then the judge hit on what is perhaps his solution for PG&E, under new CEO Patti Poppe, to seriously consider: “… PG&E could hire its employees and train them as arborists. It could hire and train as many as it needs. PG&E does not have to use the independent contractor model.”
He said the company was eventually required to hire 30 such people; that’s not enough. If the new CEO is serious about ending wildfires in the state, she should embark on a program to hire and train employees to be arborists. Sure it’s expensive, but would it be any more expensive than the massive payouts to fire victims from all over the state the past five years?
Is it any less expensive than the massive undergrounding of power lines throughout the state?
We encourage the company to get on such a program pronto before somebody in the state legislature decides to require it. Such a program could build some political capital and goodwill if they were to do it on their own.
The second thing the company could do is come clean on the Dixie Fire as It relates to what its troubleman saw the day of the fire.
It seems that he may have told two different stories, one the day of the fire and one in court, and that’s what troubles the judge — and us too.
“On the afternoon that the Dixie Fire started, the PG&E Troubleman radioed to his dispatcher that a tree had fallen on the power line and started a fire. He said it twice (Dkt nos. 1444-8, 1444-10).,” Alsup said. “He saw it firsthand. By the time of our evidentiary hearing nine weeks later, however, he refused to stand by his firsthand statements to the dispatcher that the tree had started the fire.”
Why did that story change in the nine intervening weeks? It’s an important question that the company has to answer, and quite frankly it’s one Poppe should be interested in getting. When you’re a company that lacks credibility with the public at large, the judge, and the legislature, you don’t get the benefit of the doubt.
Based on recent history, we don’t have any faith in the California Public Utilities Commission to do the job of holding the company accountable, as Alsup did. He did more in five years to push the company to a better safety standard than the PUC ever has — and that’s a tragedy all by itself.