Posted on 05/26/2018 5:29:44 PM PDT by reaganaut1
After the deaths of more than 40 people and the destruction of thousands of homes in California’s terrible wildfires last year, the ultimate financial reckoning remains far off.
Not long ago, the state’s insurance department put compensation claims at nearly $12 billion. Will utilities and their shareholders pay, or ratepayers, or taxpayers?
Should utilities bear the brunt of the claims, as consumer advocates propose, it could have serious negative repercussions for the long-term health of the California utility industry. If ratepayers or taxpayers foot the bill, many residents of the Golden State will feel the pinch in their pocketbooks. According to California law, who’s at fault has little to do with it.
At the heart of this battle is the state’s “inverse condemnation” rule, under which utilities can be required to compensate owners for property damaged by utility equipment. Here’s the rub: The companies could be on the hook, even if negligence—such as failing to cut back vegetation or improper equipment maintenance—can’t be proved. Claimants need only prove causation. For example, high winds could knock down a power line, which starts a fire.
Normally, a utility would try to recover the costs from the rate base, but there is a legitimate fear on the part of investors that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) might not allow that. On Nov. 30, the CPUC denied a $379 million cost recovery request from San Diego Gas & Electric, owned by Sempra Energy(ticker: SRE), related to the 2007 Southern California wildfires. It found that SDG&E “was not prudent…[and] did not reasonably operate its facilities linked to the wildfires.” That suggests PG&E (PCG) and other utilities involved might not be able to recover costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at barrons.com ...
not to worry about it costing the utilities anything, the political hacks (widely perceived as super-corrupt) will almost certainly just pass the costs thru (buried in the details) to the consumers anyway
it can cost the utility nothing even if its ‘fined a lot’
and it saves the elected political hacks in Sacramento from having to “bail out the utilities” or spend tax funds directly on this
everyone wins except the utility rate payers, who are, of course, also the citizens of California. they get to pay all costs including all graft and kickbacks along the way
imho of course.
Well, Hell, the State just needs to take over the utilities. Problem solved!!
Agree. But for some reason the people working for the company are never held to account, either. They just go on working and the execs go on collecting their million dollar salaries.
Fine every environmentalist for screwing up the state. Proper management of the forests etc would have resulted in a lot less fires. Run goats in the underbrush, harvest some trees etc.
No.
Just whack the earning taxpayers with another 10¢ on each dollar, net. They would just piss it away on food, shelter and clothing, anyhow...
Actually they should consider suing NOAA, NASA, USAF, and other agencies of the US Gov’t. for their “Geo-Engineering/Climate Engineering/Weather Modification” activities being pursued in accordance with Agenda 21, 2030, and NWO goals. Remember the protocols: Drought, fire, flood, famine, disease, pestilence, death and finally the NWO.
what about the people who started the fires?
Could the end goal be to end privately owned utility companies?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_California#Climate
The climate of SC is largely semi-arid.
It's a natural burn and regenerate system.
If you want to live on the outskirts of cities, that's fine. Just understand you'll experience droughts, natural burns, and the occasional heavy rains that will cause mud slides.
Build a home with fires in mind.
You can watch the houses on youtube that went up in flames because they had vinyl porches, vinyl siding, vinyl gutters, vinyl fences.
Get rid of tinder plants around the house.
There are many things you can do to minimize fire risk in such areas.
Most people don't build accordingly.
“Agree. But for some reason the people working for the company are never held to account, either. They just go on working and the execs go on collecting their million dollar salaries.”
I don’t know about individuals “being held to account,” but a couple of years ago, PG&E took on a project to pull liners into the entire natural gas distribution system in Carmel, CA. We own a second home there, and I can tell you that the company’s approach to the residents was uncooperative to say the least. (We showed up one day and found them relocating the gas meter from under the kitchen windows toward the rear of the house to a spot at the head of a stairway that provides fire egress, because their “new rules” dictate that a gas meter cannot be under a window that can be opened. We told them that they had to come up with an alternative, and they finally decided to put the meter back where it was originally, and run a vent line for the regulator away from the area. Funny thing is, they never installed the vent line!) To cap it all off, they screwed up and managed to completely blow up a home not far from ours. Naturally, lawsuits resulted. As a consequence, PG&E has essentially “repaved the entire town!” Instead of their usual “thief in the night” cover the trench and get out of town quickly, they were actually made to repair their trenchwork and then repave each and every street that they dug up with curb to curb new paving.
Southern California’s Four Seasons:
Fire
Flood
Mudslide
Drought
In reno, we can literally sometimes not even see the sky because of ca fires. They dump more co2 per fire into the atmosphere, than the entire state of nevada puts out in a whole year including human caused.
A few years back it became law that PG and E was responsible to take care of their lines. It was their responsibility to insure that trees were not entangled with power lines. PG and E hemmed and hawed and poked at the problem and the result are scores dead and entire neighborhoods gone-—why? Strong winds caused lines to arc...power lines that were in trees that was their responsibility to keep clear.
I am not falling for this canard by PG and E.
Plan accordingly.
“It would be idiotic to bankrupt the utilities and cause millions of people to lose power,”
I don’t see a problem here. If the utilities go belly up, then the state can just take over the utilities. With quality California government management, the utilities will be in excellent financial health about the same time the train to nowhere will produce a profit.
What could go wrong?
It is more likely they’re just going after the few companies seen as having pots of money with the side benefit of thinking they’re sticking it to “the man” and “people profiting off the environment”.
Investors should absolutely be exposed to the negative actions of the utilities. No way should investors reap increased profits at the cost of the rate payers when the company performs poorly.
I was simply gonna say.....there goes my PG&E bill....again.
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