5 ms·

I think that's a bit of color on that, since those homes weren't worth $0 until PG&E caused a fire that burnt them down by neglecting required maintenance.

tehlike 2y ago
In a way it's subsidizing people in the country side.
- tristor 2y ago
  No, it's making people whole for real monetary and property damages caused by PG&E's negligence. It's the settlement of a lawsuit, because PG&E was negligent and caused damage. Whether those people rebuild in Paradise, CA or move somewhere else with the money they received from the settlement is an entirely different proposition. This is not "subsidizing people in the country side". PG&E fucked up and now they have to pay. PG&E is choosing to pass the cost to its customers rather than eating into its profits, which is a decision that California allowed them to make. EDIT: You and the GP I originally replied to seem to be making the argument that after PG&E burned all these people's homes down they should have been allowed to just tell them to get bent so your utility bill wouldn't go up in the city? What happens when it's /your/ home that gets burnt down? "Sorry bucko, but your house is worth $0 as it's just now a smoldering ruin. No soup for you. - Thanks PG&E"
  - tehlike 2y ago
    I am actually not saying PGE shouldn't have to pay etc. But this dynamic is part of being a country. In some ways, it's similar to the insurance industry where we get a pool of very healthy or young and sick or old people. What PGE did was terrible, but also there's a lot to blame on CA directly too.
  - cogman10 2y ago
    I'm not saying PG&E shouldn't pay out, they were directly responsible. But I will say that Paradise was in a bad state prior to the fire, simply nobody knew how bad. While a wildfire like that wasn't guaranteed, they were just one bad lightning strike away from the same disaster. Funding FEMA, forest management services, and wildfire fighters something that isn't always prioritized and it should be.
    - tehlike 2y ago
      +1
    - akira2501 2y ago
      > simply nobody knew how bad It was a 100 year old C hook that caused the fire. Which failed in high winds. Which drove the fire. It was PG&E's responsibility to know "how bad" this was. They literally lost track of their own transmission lines.
      - ericd 2y ago
        If it wasn’t that, wouldn’t it have been a lightning strike, or something else? Fundamentally, the problem is that the houses were in an area that has become incredibly flammable. It’s not all PG&E’s fault.
        akira2501 2y ago
        Those have been known to start smaller fires before. Management strategies for them and recognition of the conditions that give rise to them were implemented. This fire burned worse than before because of poor maintenance on and around the line and because they did not shut it off quickly enough to prevent additional damage. The line was in a remote location and access to it was severely degraded. Fundamentally the problem can be solved with management and engineering. It's entirely PG&E's fault. This was adjudicated and settled.
  - alwa 2y ago
    Why is that a ratepayer’s prerogative rather than the home insurer’s?
    - lizzas 2y ago
      Tort Law (plus see tristors answer as to it being passed on and not coming from profits)
- akira2501 2y ago
  You've apparently never had power run out to a new property that's not had it before. You pay for that. The poles, the lines, the installation. The power company doesn't just run power to you because you ask. They subsidize themselves. Then PG&E takes the money, leaves 100 year old equipment in place, which inevitably breaks, and burns down an entire forest along with their homes. You genuinely think these people are being "subsidized" by all this? That it's their fault the PG&E top brass didn't earn a bonus that year?
  - tehlike 2y ago
    Subsidizing in an insurance sense. It's a high risk area, insurance should have covered it. If it was too high risk, insurance shouldn't have covered it, or charge much more etc.
    - akira2501 2y ago
      Insurance premiums are different for different people and are decided by underwriters based on expected risk. What subsidy are they receiving on those premiums? They were previously paying a special property tax to cover the additional fire services required for the area. This is not a particularly high income area. Meanwhile everyone in Sacramento can buy federally subsidized flood insurance. The federal government also built the levees surrounding the county. The entire downtown core had to be jacked up several feet due to persistent flooding. Should everyone in Sacramento move too? Should we end the insurance subsidy?
doctorpangloss 2y ago
Did PG&E cause the fire? They are legally obligated to serve those customers. It would be safer if they simply didn’t do that no? Wait till you read the facts behind this $41m bailout for 20 homes in one of the richest burbs of LA: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-10-29/feds-to-spend-42-million-buying-landslide-damaged-homes-in-rancho-palos-verdes https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-10-29/feds-to-... You could argue that nobody should be living in a place guaranteed to be destroyed, whether by landslides or wildfires, but the government tried that in Palos Verdes and got sued, lost, and now is bailing out those homeowners to get out of services obligations all the same. Suffice it to say, you have bought into a very well marketed point of view. There was a lot of ceremony to enact procedural blame on PG&E, but it obscures all the far simpler solutions, that are far more just. People in San Francisco are paying higher rates, no? So PG&E may have been responsible for something somewhere, but the liability is being borne functionally by taxpayers, via a compulsory payment for energy, to balance the books on assholes living in places at risk of wildfires with overinflated asset values. Ultimately, the government here has decided that you should get government-guaranteed-risk-free market rate returns on owner occupied real estate.
- tristor 2y ago
  > Did PG&E cause the fire? Yes. As I recall it, the fire was caused by downed lines that were energized during a dry spell, and the reason the lines were downed was due to negligence around maintaining the C-Hooks holding their high voltage transmission lines. PG&E knew that they needed to be replaced every so often, had a policy that dictated when they needed to be replaced, and then ignored that policy which ultimately allowed a C-Hook to fail and the energized line to start the fire. In fact, PG&E had commissioned a study as far back as 1987 to look into this issue and confirmed that these hooks had a limited lifespan. They had clear knowledge of the issue. They had a responsibility to maintain the system to prevent the issue. They set policies around how that maintenance should be conducted. Then they willfully ignored their own policies, which lead to the issue they were responsible to prevent. That's textbook negligence. So, yes, PG&E /did/ cause the fire. They were negligent in doing so. They are liable for the damages.
  - 2y ago

tehlike 2y ago

In a way it's subsidizing people in the country side.

tristor 2y ago
No, it's making people whole for real monetary and property damages caused by PG&E's negligence. It's the settlement of a lawsuit, because PG&E was negligent and caused damage. Whether those people rebuild in Paradise, CA or move somewhere else with the money they received from the settlement is an entirely different proposition. This is not "subsidizing people in the country side". PG&E fucked up and now they have to pay. PG&E is choosing to pass the cost to its customers rather than eating into its profits, which is a decision that California allowed them to make. EDIT: You and the GP I originally replied to seem to be making the argument that after PG&E burned all these people's homes down they should have been allowed to just tell them to get bent so your utility bill wouldn't go up in the city? What happens when it's /your/ home that gets burnt down? "Sorry bucko, but your house is worth $0 as it's just now a smoldering ruin. No soup for you. - Thanks PG&E"
- tehlike 2y ago
  I am actually not saying PGE shouldn't have to pay etc. But this dynamic is part of being a country. In some ways, it's similar to the insurance industry where we get a pool of very healthy or young and sick or old people. What PGE did was terrible, but also there's a lot to blame on CA directly too.
- cogman10 2y ago
  I'm not saying PG&E shouldn't pay out, they were directly responsible. But I will say that Paradise was in a bad state prior to the fire, simply nobody knew how bad. While a wildfire like that wasn't guaranteed, they were just one bad lightning strike away from the same disaster. Funding FEMA, forest management services, and wildfire fighters something that isn't always prioritized and it should be.
  - tehlike 2y ago
    +1
  - akira2501 2y ago
    > simply nobody knew how bad It was a 100 year old C hook that caused the fire. Which failed in high winds. Which drove the fire. It was PG&E's responsibility to know "how bad" this was. They literally lost track of their own transmission lines.
    - ericd 2y ago
      If it wasn’t that, wouldn’t it have been a lightning strike, or something else? Fundamentally, the problem is that the houses were in an area that has become incredibly flammable. It’s not all PG&E’s fault.
      - akira2501 2y ago
        Those have been known to start smaller fires before. Management strategies for them and recognition of the conditions that give rise to them were implemented. This fire burned worse than before because of poor maintenance on and around the line and because they did not shut it off quickly enough to prevent additional damage. The line was in a remote location and access to it was severely degraded. Fundamentally the problem can be solved with management and engineering. It's entirely PG&E's fault. This was adjudicated and settled.
- alwa 2y ago
  Why is that a ratepayer’s prerogative rather than the home insurer’s?
  - lizzas 2y ago
    Tort Law (plus see tristors answer as to it being passed on and not coming from profits)
akira2501 2y ago
You've apparently never had power run out to a new property that's not had it before. You pay for that. The poles, the lines, the installation. The power company doesn't just run power to you because you ask. They subsidize themselves. Then PG&E takes the money, leaves 100 year old equipment in place, which inevitably breaks, and burns down an entire forest along with their homes. You genuinely think these people are being "subsidized" by all this? That it's their fault the PG&E top brass didn't earn a bonus that year?
- tehlike 2y ago
  Subsidizing in an insurance sense. It's a high risk area, insurance should have covered it. If it was too high risk, insurance shouldn't have covered it, or charge much more etc.
  - akira2501 2y ago
    Insurance premiums are different for different people and are decided by underwriters based on expected risk. What subsidy are they receiving on those premiums? They were previously paying a special property tax to cover the additional fire services required for the area. This is not a particularly high income area. Meanwhile everyone in Sacramento can buy federally subsidized flood insurance. The federal government also built the levees surrounding the county. The entire downtown core had to be jacked up several feet due to persistent flooding. Should everyone in Sacramento move too? Should we end the insurance subsidy?

doctorpangloss 2y ago

Did PG&E cause the fire? They are legally obligated to serve those customers. It would be safer if they simply didn’t do that no? Wait till you read the facts behind this $41m bailout for 20 homes in one of the richest burbs of LA: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-10-29/feds-to-spend-42-million-buying-landslide-damaged-homes-in-rancho-palos-verdes https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-10-29/feds-to-... You could argue that nobody should be living in a place guaranteed to be destroyed, whether by landslides or wildfires, but the government tried that in Palos Verdes and got sued, lost, and now is bailing out those homeowners to get out of services obligations all the same. Suffice it to say, you have bought into a very well marketed point of view. There was a lot of ceremony to enact procedural blame on PG&E, but it obscures all the far simpler solutions, that are far more just. People in San Francisco are paying higher rates, no? So PG&E may have been responsible for something somewhere, but the liability is being borne functionally by taxpayers, via a compulsory payment for energy, to balance the books on assholes living in places at risk of wildfires with overinflated asset values. Ultimately, the government here has decided that you should get government-guaranteed-risk-free market rate returns on owner occupied real estate.

tristor 2y ago
> Did PG&E cause the fire? Yes. As I recall it, the fire was caused by downed lines that were energized during a dry spell, and the reason the lines were downed was due to negligence around maintaining the C-Hooks holding their high voltage transmission lines. PG&E knew that they needed to be replaced every so often, had a policy that dictated when they needed to be replaced, and then ignored that policy which ultimately allowed a C-Hook to fail and the energized line to start the fire. In fact, PG&E had commissioned a study as far back as 1987 to look into this issue and confirmed that these hooks had a limited lifespan. They had clear knowledge of the issue. They had a responsibility to maintain the system to prevent the issue. They set policies around how that maintenance should be conducted. Then they willfully ignored their own policies, which lead to the issue they were responsible to prevent. That's textbook negligence. So, yes, PG&E /did/ cause the fire. They were negligent in doing so. They are liable for the damages.
- 2y ago