PG&E wins again

Editor,

Pacific Gas and Electric wins again. Our lawmakers sold us out. They had two strong bills: firefighting fund and PG&E liability. Each deserved equal amounts of time spent on discussion and fact-finding. They lumped both together and pushed one bill through in haste to beat a deadline. Did they care or even know about how PG&E is spending millions of dollars on executive salaries, lobbyists and television ads while suspending shareholder dividends? That money could have gone to maintenance, upgrades and firefighting. Now we are at the mercy of the California Public Utilities Commission, an agency known for their coziness with the utilities. They have long favored utilities over ratepayers. There are at least four rate hike requests on the table. With no accountability for how those funds are spent, how much will end up in executive pockets and other favors? Ratepayers lose again. Remember this at election time.