PG&E should pay for gas upgrade, agency says
PG&E wants customers to pay almost 90 percent of the cost, adding nearly $2 to a typical customer's monthly bill by 2014. The Division of Ratepayer Advocates [an independent division of the California Public Utilities Commission] said changes to the plan could lower the price tag to $621 million, and contended that shareholders should foot the entire bill.Heads should roll if PG&E ends up succeeding at passing off any of the cost to its customers. Their management chose profits over minimal safety standards and now expect us to foot the bill? I can't imagine any California resident not being outraged. Meanwhile, PG&E is playing Russian roulette with our lives, as we sit on miles of pipeline that could erupt at any moment.
Speaking of pipelines...
PG&E finds more gas lines that weren't checked
PG&E said in December that it had undertaken a systemwide review after workers found gaps in its maps of distribution lines in Pittsburg, Brentwood, Concord, Danville, Byron and Discovery Bay, which meant that entire neighborhoods were never checked for leaks. Federal law requires distribution lines to be inspected once every five years.(When was the last time that those lines were checked, if ever?)
Let's end on a positive note:
Lawmaker blasts PUC president over PG&E inquiry
"I ask that you step aside to ensure the credibility of the proceedings in the PG&E case," Assemblyman Jerry Hill told President Michael Peevey during the public comment portion of a commission hearing in San Francisco.Did I say "positive"? I meant "infuriating."
"By refusing to do so," Hill said, "you would be sustaining a culture of complacency that you have pledged to end."
After the meeting, Peevey said he would not recuse himself from the matter, and said he had no more conflicts of interest than people on the commission's staff.