Pacific Gas and Electric just got fined $1.6 billion dollars for their culpability in the 2010 gas explosion that killed eight and destroyed dozens of homes in
San Bruno, California.
The penalty comes as the state's top regulator, Commission President Michael Picker, called for a larger review that suggests the energy behemoth could be broken up.
"I'm asking the question. We'll have to answer it," Picker told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The penalty breaks down like this:
The $1.6 billion is the largest against a utility in California history, Picker said. It's $200 million higher than one recommended by administrative law judges last year for the state's largest power utility.
The fine requires PG&E shareholders to pay $850 million toward gas transmission safety improvements. It also orders PG&E to pay a $300 million fine that goes into the state's general fund.
It mandates the utility pay $400 million in bill credits, and it directs approximately $50 million toward other remedies.
While historic, it has been a revealing journey getting here. There was the inappropriate relationship between the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and
PG&E that lead to calls for the ouster of top regulation officials:
The city of San Bruno on Monday demanded the ouster of the president of the state Public Utilities Commission and sought sanctions against PG&E for what the city claims is illegal and improper contacts between the utility and the agency that oversees it. [...]
The basis for San Bruno's demands are about 40 emails between PUC officials and PG&E executives about regulatory proceedings that the PUC released to the city on Friday to settle a lawsuit, including one in which a top PUC official gave public relations advice to PG&E and another in which a PG&E executive signed off a note to a PUC official with "Love you. Thanks."
There was continuing scandal showing many of the same PUC officials trying to find judges that
might be more lenient on PG&E:
At an extraordinary gathering that filled the commission's auditorium in San Francisco to overflowing, attorneys, administrative law judges and other staffers voiced their frustration with officials who promised to help PG&E get the administrative law judge it wanted to hear a rate case that could cost customers more than $1 billion.
Many of the employees directed their anger at commission President Michael Peevey, who headed the agency when the PG&E pipeline explosion in San Bruno killed eight people and leveled 38 homes in 2010. To the applause of other employees, one staffer called Peevey "something like an untouchable mob boss" able to "float above any scandal."
This recent penalty is a step forward. Hopefully, the talk of Commission President Michael Picker is
more than just talk.