ianal, but this honestly seems odd to me. I'm assuming in this case all the issues are with transmission, which is afaik mostly regulated by FERC and CAISO in

ianal, but this honestly seems odd to me. I'm assuming in this case all the issues are with transmission, which is afaik mostly regulated by FERC and CAISO in this case, but California's weird for these sort of things so who knows. Mostly you go through FERC, sort out what transmission work you want to do, do the work and get rate recovery from your customers. That's sort of the system I've been familiar with. But this sort of uncompensated liability just doesn't track very well. It sounds nice in a 'stick it to the man' sort of way, but doesn't fit with how transmission regulation works in the US. If this were a government operated utility, there's no question ratepayers would be the ultimate people dealing with potential liabilities of affected parties. California's stance is that the liability is consistent between a government and non-government utility, so why isn't the recovery mechanism? It sounds bad, but imo the proper answer is that PG&E should be able to seek recovery for equipment attributable losses not caused by negligence. Whatever form that takes, bonds, rate increases, that's sort of a secondary issue. However, I would probably not trust whatever bill Quirk has put forth, Captain Conflict of Interest doesn't sound very trustworthy.