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Budget - Business - California - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Energy - Ethics - Government - Liberals - Los Angeles - Natural Gas - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

PG&E Wants Higher Rates Even While Collecting Millions for Improvements Never Made?

January 28, 2012 by 3 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Since the several disastrous accidents that claimed the lives of too many Californians, Pacific Gas & Electric has been fighting criticism over its dismal safety record. In response, the energy provider cried poor and said it needed billions for upgrades and repairs and wanted ratepayers to pay even more for its services. But a new report says that PG&E collected millions from ratepayers for repairs and improvements that it never actually made.

Early last year PG&E got a large rate increase, but by August the energy provider was at it again asking for an additional $2.2 billion for upgrades, repairs, and improving its explosion-prone delivery system, a cost to be born on the backs of the ratepayers.

This January, though, the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) reported that PG&E has already collected half a billion dollars that was supposed to go to these repairs and upgrades yet the repairs were never made.
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PG&E Wants Higher Rates Even While Collecting Millions for Improvements Never Made?”

Business - California - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Electric - Energy - Ethics - Liberals - Los Angeles - Natural Gas - Regulation - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

PG&E’s Catastrophic Failure of Public Trust By Company and Government Both

October 12, 2011 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Another in a long line of explosions and other catastrophic safety failures occurred at the end of September when a natural gas pipeline built and owned by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) ruptured in Roseville, California. This is just of a piece of the failure of PG&E to ensure public safety, a failure that the so-called government watchdog agency set up to watch the utility, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), has seemingly done little to mitigate.

Now, not only has PG&E failed to safeguard the public, but the company is insisting that ratepayers foot the bill for repairs and new safety programs to the tune of some $2.2 billion. Government watchdog CPUC seems wholly content to stand aside while they do it.

Michael R. Peevey, President of the CPUC, has been at the helm of the regulatory commission during many of the worst failures of public safety. Yet, even as he’s claimed he intends to make major changes in the agency, Governor Jerry Brown has not sacked Peevey whose term ends in 2014. The question is, why?

Peevey has been a disaster. Peevey has reigned over some of the most disastrous failures which have caused the deaths of nearly a dozen Californians, his softened stance seems to have allowed PG&E to act with impunity and arrogance, all to no good effect for ratepayers pocketbooks and their very safety.
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PG&E’s Catastrophic Failure of Public Trust By Company and Government Both”

Budget - Democracy - Economy/Finances - Energy - Environment - Government - Liberals - Solar - Warner Todd Huston

The ‘Solar Decathalon’ That Needed a Gas Generator for Cloudy Days

September 27, 2011 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

What happens when the sun refuses to shine on a PR event for solar power…

Yeah, look to the right under the sign. Yep, that’s a gas generator powering the “solar” sign.

Brett Jacobson was alerted to this hilarious example of the unviable nature of solar power as a reliable source of energy.

It was too deliciously funny to ignore.
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The ‘Solar Decathalon’ That Needed a Gas Generator for Cloudy Days”