PG&E bankruptcy plan may spur battle

SAN FRANCISCO — California Gov. Gavin Newsom is stepping up pressure on Pacific Gas & Electric to fork over billions more in cash to pay thousands of people who lost homes in wildfires that drove the utility into bankruptcy.

What’s happening

The rising tensions were scheduled to be aired out in a bankruptcy court hearing Wednesday, but it was abruptly postponed on Tuesday to Nov. 19.

The delay could allow the sides to negotiate a compromise on PG&E’s blueprint for its financial revival.

If PG&E doesn’t make changes, Newsom is threatening to try to turn the utility into a customer-owned cooperative run by the state and local governments.

What the governor is saying

In an objection filed Saturday, Newsom’s lawyers accused PG&E and other parties of protecting their own financial interests instead of focusing on a fair resolution before July 2020 — a deadline California lawmakers have set for the utility to emerge from bankruptcy.

PG&E disputed Newsom’s characterization of its plan, asserting in a statement it “remains committed to working with the individual claimants to fairly and reasonably resolve their claims and will continue to work to do so.”

The fissure centers on a $11 billion settlement PG&E reached in September with most of the insurers covering victims of deadly wildfires that tore through Northern California during 2017 and 2018.

That deal envisions PG&E paying the insurers in cash, a provision that raises the risk there won’t be enough money left to pay uninsured and underinsured victims.

RICH PEDRONCELLI / ASSOCIATED PRESS California inmates stand guard near a wildfire in 2015. Gov. Gavin Newsom is pressing Pacific Gas & Electric to pay billions more to thousands whose homes burned in wildfires.