PG&E cuts thousands of workers ahead of winter wildfire maintenance
Source: Grist | By Blanca Begert
According to reports from the state’s Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety, PG&E is already far behind on work orders for line maintenance. “That’s a major safety concern,” said Mark Toney, executive director of TURN, a utility ratepayer advocacy group, adding, “I keep getting calls from hospitals and housing projects that can’t get connected to the grid.”
“They should be moved up the ladder of probation,” not have their restrictions removed, said Toney. “They keep causing fires and failing inspections.”
Toney and other rate payer advocates have criticized the initiative as a way for the utility to invest in capital projects that increase shareholder returns while neglecting the work that is really needed. “I am concerned that they are diverting money from basic operations, maintenance, and repairs and putting it into undergrounding and other capital projects that create profit,” said Toney. He added, “It’s hard to understand how they’re running out of cash with these double digit rate increases,” referring to the utility’s proposal to hike rates by about 20 percent in 2023, after a similar jump in 2022.
