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The 'botched power shut-offs' details "The California Public Utilities Commission’s independent consumer watchdog arm is recommending that Pacific Gas & Electr

The 'botched power shut-offs' details "The California Public Utilities Commission’s independent consumer watchdog arm is recommending that Pacific Gas & Electric be fined nearly $166 million for the company’s failure to properly warn customers of a series of intentional power outages last fall. At their height, the so-called public safety power shut-offs of October 2019 left nearly 1 million PG&E customers across 38 counties without electricity, some for as long as a week. ...the San Francisco-based company failed to notify tens of thousands of customers that blackouts were imminent, including hundreds who depended on steady electricity to power life-sustaining medical devices. Many people couldn’t access PG&E’s website for several days, as it was overwhelmed by visits from Northern and Central California residents scrambling for information". PG&E are between a rock and a hard place: they have huge problems with aged infrastructure that catastrophically fails during fall wind events, causing ignition of dry vegetation, some of which they are responsible for maintaining. After being previously fined for previous fire damage (the money was distributed to affected counties such as Sonoma) they are erring on the side of caution by shutting down when the wind becomes too strong during 'red flag' fire risk periods. Sonoma County isn't spending their windfall PG&E fine money on fire prevention though, they are spending it on buying hotels to house street people in permanent 'home' hotel rooms, augmenting Governor Newsom's 'Homekey' cash handouts. This is a core California infrastructure problem, and along with crumbling roads and bridges is symptomatic of the challenges California citizens have to deal with more and more.

ehnto 6y ago
> This is a core California infrastructure problem, and along with crumbling roads and bridges is symptomatic of the challenges California citizens have to deal with more and more. A core infrastructure problem at the whim of shareholders instead of citizens, it's not hard to see why their goals don't align with their purpose. The state should either come down hard with regulations mandating minimum power delivery and safety that takes these new issues into consideration. Or they should be made a public company. If they can't afford to run the grid infrastructure given new requirements then it's obvious a private company is not a safe caretaker of the states key infrastructure and the state will need to take up the costs so that California can remain a first world state. That's why you all pay taxes, to provide services not make profit.
- chaostheory 6y ago
  I feel a reason the state doesn’t want to take over is because of the liability. Would a good middle ground be having a cooperative take over instead? That way the state wouldn’t face liability and the new organization would have more goals aligned with customers. Another option is to have the state fund more incentives for solar
- lettergram 6y ago
  They’re shutting down in this manner because the government came down so hard on them it put them into bankruptcy already. California has a really strange set of thoughts here... strictly punishing power shutdowns (based on wind speeds, which are only semi-predictable) and strictly punishing not shutting down. They’re to bare the full cost of fires and deaths they cause. Unfortunate... they also regulate PG&E with the CPUC and other local governments to make it so they can’t do anything but maintain cables (not improve them). Not to mention they have an insanely high estimate to “underground” the cables and some crazy regulations basically pushing politicians and people in general simply to avoid putting cables underground - https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/General.aspx?id=4403 https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/General.aspx?id=4403 What does this lead to? Well either massive fires OR no power. PG&E is just an easy scape goat for an incompetent government with too much regulation.
  - daed 6y ago
    Simplifying things to PGE’s current plight I do agree with you. The larger problem is as the GP mentions the misaligned incentives. Here in Sacramento we have SMUD, which is a publicly owned utility. No shut offs here. I have a friend who’s an arborist for SMUD. Before that he was an arborist for PGE. For years at PGE he was trying to jump to SMUD. Why? Because they place a higher value on his services. PGE, being beholden to shareholders, treated him as 1099 and paid significantly less. PGE shuts off power in part because they don’t keep their lines clear. Because they didn’t employ enough people like my friend. And those they do employ don’t stay longer than they need to. Short-term shareholder incentives don’t align with long-term incentives of the public in this case. It’s a problem. Pointing out that California’s government has flaws doesn’t negate that point.
jjeaff 6y ago
You seem to imply that it's a bad thing they are spending the money trying to get "street people" off the street. How would you recommend they handle the homelessness crisis?
- pishpash 6y ago
  I read the comment and find no such implication.
- fastball 6y ago
  By kicking NIMBYism in the balls, mostly. Homelessness is either a housing shortage problem or a mental health problem. The former is fixed by increasing the supply of housing – that is the only real solution. The latter is fixed by providing better mental healthcare. Neither is fixed by sticking people in existing housing.
  - olivermarks 6y ago
    @fastball you missed out the opioid crisis, a major contributor to street dwellers and a rapidly growing problem in California, which has historically been a destination state for itinerants. Regarding housing I support quick to erect prefabs on existing California state and county land and infrastructure, triaging the three key groups - local indigents, the mentally ill and substance abuse cases in three separate locations. I don't support project Homekey/converting hotel rooms into 'homes' for the 'homeless' which is incredibly expensive and slow, as is building 'low cost' housing https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/homeless/article245547415.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/homeless/article245547415....
    - fastball 6y ago
      Addiction is a mental health problem.
      - effingwewt 6y ago
        Not even close. Many drugs, especially the hard ones are very physically addictive. This is a multi-faceted problem. Removing NIMBYism won't help those unable to afford a place to live. Mental health professionals can't simply 'solve' addiction with a few visits/more 'medicine' These are starting points but far from an end-all solution.
jessaustin 6y ago
...spending their windfall PG&E fine money on fire prevention... Do people in California still believe fires can be "prevented"? You live in an arid climate. The undergrowth will burn every year, or everything will burn every decade. There is no other option.
- bawolff 6y ago
  You can still manage the risk (e.g. controlled burns in critical areas, cut lines to prevent spread). The goal isn't neccesarily to stop everything from ever burning, just to stop everything from burning at the same time.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    I'd suggest the term "fire management" rather than "fire prevention".
- olivermarks 6y ago
  @jessaustin http://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-megafires-why-wont-anybody-listen http://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-m...
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  No, not every fire can be prevented, but one can: 1. Reduce known and common sources of ignition, reducing their frequency (PG&E should be involved in this) 2. Regularly do controlled burns so that huge fires are rarer 3. Improve standoff room so that when fires do happen, they do less damage to where the people actually are. (This is the town and property owner's responsibility) Number 3 is really important, because some of the worst hit areas in CA were built way too close to the interface between wilderness and urban areas. Living among the trees might be really nice, but when the fire comes there will be no stopping it at all.
  - AbrahamParangi 6y ago
    Reducing fire frequency increases fire severity. There’s no escape from that.
8f2ab37a-ed6c 6y ago
I wonder how much of this is a consequence of a political monopoly on CA. Would the situation be better if CA voters could elect another party to run the state than the one that's been in power for the last 30 years?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Would the situation be better if CA voters could elect another party to run the state than the one that's been in power for the last 30 years? In the past 30 years, California has had a Republican governor for a majority of the time (16 years); at least one Republican statewide constitutional officer excluding the Governor (or Lt. Governor, but they've never had that office in the period in question) for 20 years (California, unlike the federal government, has a divided rather than unitary executive), a Republican Assembly majority for two years, and Republican strength in at least one house of the legislature sufficient to stop a budget from being passed without their consent for 24 years, and enough strength in at least one house of the legislature to block any bill that increased any tax for 27 years. To the extent that California has a "political monopoly", its only been for the last couple years, not the last 30.
  - 8f2ab37a-ed6c 6y ago
    I stand corrected, thank you.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Sonoma County isn't spending their windfall PG&E fine money on fire prevention though Nor are they supposed to; its compensation for fire damage, not funding earmarked for prospective fire prevention work. Paying for fire damage doesn't transfer the responsibility for future work. > This is a core California infrastructure problem, and along with crumbling roads and bridges is symptomatic of the challenges California citizens have to deal with more and more. Well, yes, that it is a core infrastructure problem and leaving it to a private, in principal regulated (though it continues to fail to do its regulated duties and to conceal that with fraud) utility clearly isn't working, which is why PG&E's assets ought to have been expropriated by the State and its function made public.
- laurent92 6y ago
  Even if it is made public, the problem is still money, not decision-making. It will require a massive investment from the state. Why wouldn’t they just be allowed to double prices? The state won’t do better given the same money, they would raise money through taxation, which is still money.
  - cool_dude85 6y ago
    A publicly owned company might have to double prices, but that money would practically speaking have to go into infrastructure spending. If not, the governmental entity in charge cans the C-suite and brings new people in. If a private company like PG&E gets that extra money, maybe they spend it on infrastructure, maybe they give half of it back to investors as a dividend. Then they come back again and ask for more. You don't want any of those nasty fires, do you?
lultimouomo 6y ago
> Many people couldn’t access PG&E’s website for several days, as it was overwhelmed by visits from Northern and Central California residents scrambling for information While I'll grant that updating electrical distribution infrastructure is surely a lengthy and costly process, updating your website infrastructure so that it can serve enough read only viewers is not. This seems like basic incompetence to me.
- DarthGhandi 6y ago
  > updating your website infrastructure so that it can serve enough read only viewers is not. This seems like basic incompetence to me. This is modern webdev in a nutshell though. It's not "incompetence", it's industry standard.
  - lultimouomo 6y ago
    I would say that scaling is pretty much the only thing that modern webdev gets kind of right, in the outcome of not in the approach.
  - tremon 6y ago
    Why can't it be both?
appleflaxen 6y ago
it sounds like they need to declare bankruptcy; the state should use the opportunity to take the assets of the company for a public good which was clearly being plundered by stockholders - taking cash while letting critical infrastructure decay shouldn't necessarily be criminal, but it should mean you forfeit your ownership. edit: i see in comments that they are already in bankruptcy. sad, but it's their bed to sleep in. now the state should take their assets and assume control of the power grid.
- indymike 6y ago
  That bankruptcy was exactly the kind of deal you are advocating - one where the state of California would buy the company if it could make certain milestones on it's bankruptcy (one in June and one in September).
- andromeduck 6y ago
  Why would the state want assume control? They already have it.
dheera 6y ago
> This is a core California infrastructure problem, and along with crumbling roads and bridges To fix crumbling infrastructure we should be funding them more, not less -- although with heavy audits about how those funds are used. Fining them will only result in internal budget cuts on their end, which perpetuates a vicious cycle.

ehnto 6y ago

> This is a core California infrastructure problem, and along with crumbling roads and bridges is symptomatic of the challenges California citizens have to deal with more and more. A core infrastructure problem at the whim of shareholders instead of citizens, it's not hard to see why their goals don't align with their purpose. The state should either come down hard with regulations mandating minimum power delivery and safety that takes these new issues into consideration. Or they should be made a public company. If they can't afford to run the grid infrastructure given new requirements then it's obvious a private company is not a safe caretaker of the states key infrastructure and the state will need to take up the costs so that California can remain a first world state. That's why you all pay taxes, to provide services not make profit.

chaostheory 6y ago
I feel a reason the state doesn’t want to take over is because of the liability. Would a good middle ground be having a cooperative take over instead? That way the state wouldn’t face liability and the new organization would have more goals aligned with customers. Another option is to have the state fund more incentives for solar
lettergram 6y ago
They’re shutting down in this manner because the government came down so hard on them it put them into bankruptcy already. California has a really strange set of thoughts here... strictly punishing power shutdowns (based on wind speeds, which are only semi-predictable) and strictly punishing not shutting down. They’re to bare the full cost of fires and deaths they cause. Unfortunate... they also regulate PG&E with the CPUC and other local governments to make it so they can’t do anything but maintain cables (not improve them). Not to mention they have an insanely high estimate to “underground” the cables and some crazy regulations basically pushing politicians and people in general simply to avoid putting cables underground - https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/General.aspx?id=4403 https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/General.aspx?id=4403 What does this lead to? Well either massive fires OR no power. PG&E is just an easy scape goat for an incompetent government with too much regulation.
- daed 6y ago
  Simplifying things to PGE’s current plight I do agree with you. The larger problem is as the GP mentions the misaligned incentives. Here in Sacramento we have SMUD, which is a publicly owned utility. No shut offs here. I have a friend who’s an arborist for SMUD. Before that he was an arborist for PGE. For years at PGE he was trying to jump to SMUD. Why? Because they place a higher value on his services. PGE, being beholden to shareholders, treated him as 1099 and paid significantly less. PGE shuts off power in part because they don’t keep their lines clear. Because they didn’t employ enough people like my friend. And those they do employ don’t stay longer than they need to. Short-term shareholder incentives don’t align with long-term incentives of the public in this case. It’s a problem. Pointing out that California’s government has flaws doesn’t negate that point.

jjeaff 6y ago

You seem to imply that it's a bad thing they are spending the money trying to get "street people" off the street. How would you recommend they handle the homelessness crisis?

pishpash 6y ago
I read the comment and find no such implication.
fastball 6y ago
By kicking NIMBYism in the balls, mostly. Homelessness is either a housing shortage problem or a mental health problem. The former is fixed by increasing the supply of housing – that is the only real solution. The latter is fixed by providing better mental healthcare. Neither is fixed by sticking people in existing housing.
- olivermarks 6y ago
  @fastball you missed out the opioid crisis, a major contributor to street dwellers and a rapidly growing problem in California, which has historically been a destination state for itinerants. Regarding housing I support quick to erect prefabs on existing California state and county land and infrastructure, triaging the three key groups - local indigents, the mentally ill and substance abuse cases in three separate locations. I don't support project Homekey/converting hotel rooms into 'homes' for the 'homeless' which is incredibly expensive and slow, as is building 'low cost' housing https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/homeless/article245547415.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/homeless/article245547415....
  - fastball 6y ago
    Addiction is a mental health problem.
    - effingwewt 6y ago
      Not even close. Many drugs, especially the hard ones are very physically addictive. This is a multi-faceted problem. Removing NIMBYism won't help those unable to afford a place to live. Mental health professionals can't simply 'solve' addiction with a few visits/more 'medicine' These are starting points but far from an end-all solution.

jessaustin 6y ago

...spending their windfall PG&E fine money on fire prevention... Do people in California still believe fires can be "prevented"? You live in an arid climate. The undergrowth will burn every year, or everything will burn every decade. There is no other option.

bawolff 6y ago
You can still manage the risk (e.g. controlled burns in critical areas, cut lines to prevent spread). The goal isn't neccesarily to stop everything from ever burning, just to stop everything from burning at the same time.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  I'd suggest the term "fire management" rather than "fire prevention".
olivermarks 6y ago
@jessaustin http://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-megafires-why-wont-anybody-listen http://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-m...
ashtonkem 6y ago
No, not every fire can be prevented, but one can: 1. Reduce known and common sources of ignition, reducing their frequency (PG&E should be involved in this) 2. Regularly do controlled burns so that huge fires are rarer 3. Improve standoff room so that when fires do happen, they do less damage to where the people actually are. (This is the town and property owner's responsibility) Number 3 is really important, because some of the worst hit areas in CA were built way too close to the interface between wilderness and urban areas. Living among the trees might be really nice, but when the fire comes there will be no stopping it at all.
- AbrahamParangi 6y ago
  Reducing fire frequency increases fire severity. There’s no escape from that.

8f2ab37a-ed6c 6y ago

I wonder how much of this is a consequence of a political monopoly on CA. Would the situation be better if CA voters could elect another party to run the state than the one that's been in power for the last 30 years?

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Would the situation be better if CA voters could elect another party to run the state than the one that's been in power for the last 30 years? In the past 30 years, California has had a Republican governor for a majority of the time (16 years); at least one Republican statewide constitutional officer excluding the Governor (or Lt. Governor, but they've never had that office in the period in question) for 20 years (California, unlike the federal government, has a divided rather than unitary executive), a Republican Assembly majority for two years, and Republican strength in at least one house of the legislature sufficient to stop a budget from being passed without their consent for 24 years, and enough strength in at least one house of the legislature to block any bill that increased any tax for 27 years. To the extent that California has a "political monopoly", its only been for the last couple years, not the last 30.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 6y ago
  I stand corrected, thank you.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Sonoma County isn't spending their windfall PG&E fine money on fire prevention though Nor are they supposed to; its compensation for fire damage, not funding earmarked for prospective fire prevention work. Paying for fire damage doesn't transfer the responsibility for future work. > This is a core California infrastructure problem, and along with crumbling roads and bridges is symptomatic of the challenges California citizens have to deal with more and more. Well, yes, that it is a core infrastructure problem and leaving it to a private, in principal regulated (though it continues to fail to do its regulated duties and to conceal that with fraud) utility clearly isn't working, which is why PG&E's assets ought to have been expropriated by the State and its function made public.

laurent92 6y ago
Even if it is made public, the problem is still money, not decision-making. It will require a massive investment from the state. Why wouldn’t they just be allowed to double prices? The state won’t do better given the same money, they would raise money through taxation, which is still money.
- cool_dude85 6y ago
  A publicly owned company might have to double prices, but that money would practically speaking have to go into infrastructure spending. If not, the governmental entity in charge cans the C-suite and brings new people in. If a private company like PG&E gets that extra money, maybe they spend it on infrastructure, maybe they give half of it back to investors as a dividend. Then they come back again and ask for more. You don't want any of those nasty fires, do you?

lultimouomo 6y ago

> Many people couldn’t access PG&E’s website for several days, as it was overwhelmed by visits from Northern and Central California residents scrambling for information While I'll grant that updating electrical distribution infrastructure is surely a lengthy and costly process, updating your website infrastructure so that it can serve enough read only viewers is not. This seems like basic incompetence to me.

DarthGhandi 6y ago
> updating your website infrastructure so that it can serve enough read only viewers is not. This seems like basic incompetence to me. This is modern webdev in a nutshell though. It's not "incompetence", it's industry standard.
- lultimouomo 6y ago
  I would say that scaling is pretty much the only thing that modern webdev gets kind of right, in the outcome of not in the approach.
- tremon 6y ago
  Why can't it be both?

appleflaxen 6y ago

it sounds like they need to declare bankruptcy; the state should use the opportunity to take the assets of the company for a public good which was clearly being plundered by stockholders - taking cash while letting critical infrastructure decay shouldn't necessarily be criminal, but it should mean you forfeit your ownership. edit: i see in comments that they are already in bankruptcy. sad, but it's their bed to sleep in. now the state should take their assets and assume control of the power grid.

indymike 6y ago
That bankruptcy was exactly the kind of deal you are advocating - one where the state of California would buy the company if it could make certain milestones on it's bankruptcy (one in June and one in September).
andromeduck 6y ago
Why would the state want assume control? They already have it.

dheera 6y ago

> This is a core California infrastructure problem, and along with crumbling roads and bridges To fix crumbling infrastructure we should be funding them more, not less -- although with heavy audits about how those funds are used. Fining them will only result in internal budget cuts on their end, which perpetuates a vicious cycle.