As the San Bruno community struggles to recover from the deadly PG&E pipeline blast and fire, many are asking why the California utility spent tens of millions of dollars on politics before they repaired pipelines that their own surveys said were crumbling beneath their customers' feet.
I drove to San Bruno yesterday with my baby daughter (our 9/11 service activity was to donate clothes to the fire victims). We visited with first responders, volunteers, and community residents putting their lives back together. The spirit in San Bruno was cooperation and concern - people are still looking for loved ones and survivors are in shock. There was also a growing concern for the next one: just as earthquake victims wonder about aftershocks, the PG&E blast victims wonder what other pipelines lie crumbling beneath their feet.
This is a terrible tragedy -- and it didn't have to happen. Even before the deadly PG&E pipeline blast ripped through the San Bruno community, killing at least 6 people, destroying dozens of homes, and rendering hundreds homeless, the utility knew that they had a potential problem because their own survey listed the San Francisco peninsula pipelines as "high risk" (PDF).
As the investigations begin, the prevailing question is why? Why did the pipeline burst? Why didn't the utility spend ratepayer money on fixing the high risk problem? Why did management decide to spend ratepayer dollars on political campaigns instead of pipeline repairs? Why set these deadly priorities? If the two decisions were not related -- why weren't they? And what will we do to make it right?
Here's what we know so far: residents reported smelling odors in the San Bruno community in the days before the blast. They called PG&E but nothing was detected. No one took the customer complaints up the chain of command to the bosses who had a report listing the San Francisco peninsula pipelines as "high risk." After the deadly blast, there was some denial by PG&E that the pipeline was even theirs; then denial that the pipeline was the one in the survey, but federal investigators (who released PG&E's survey) said the pipeline was PG&E's.
We know the utility had the money -- our money -- to fix the pipelines because public filings show that just last spring, PG&E chose to spend $45 million in ratepayer dollars in a failed bid to block public power. These are funds that could have been used to repair what the utility's own survey said was a high risk pipeline on the SF peninsula. So why make the decision for politics not pipelines? If the spending decisions were not related, why not? At the very least, PG&E should have a moratorium on political spending until they compensate the San Bruno victims and fix the pipelines.
Who knows what crumbling infrastructure lies beneath our sleeping children? Actually, many people do -- they pay surveyors to take a look. We actually know that our crumbling pipelines, roads, and bridges are ticking time bombs. That is why President Obama and Congressional Democrats have pushed to fund jobs that repair our roads, runways, and railways -- we can't have first rate American communities with third world American infrastructure.
Will we take this occasion to invest in rebuilding and to insist on ratepayer say on utility pay? Or will we continue with the status quo until the next explosion?
The San Bruno tragedy is a clarion call to rebuild America and insist on ratepayer say on utility pay. I think most taxpayers would reject deadly priorities that put politics over pipelines and choose repairs to the ground literally crumbling beneath our feet, and most ratepayers would choose crumbling infrastructure repairs over political campaigns. Wouldn't you?
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Same reason Nurses Union spends dollars on politics, same reason Teachers unions spends on politics, same reason Auto Workers union spends on politics, same reason, public employee union spends on politics, same reason......same reason....same reason....same reason.....
No, they are not the same reason.
My question is, since apparently there WAS politics involved, 'was it sabotage'? Did someone go and deliberately cause a problem? Was there foul play? Or just the foul smell of a neglected pipeline? Something stinks, at any rate.
Answer: Campaign 'contributions' have a much higher ROI (Return On Investment).
I have a very difficult time visualizing a corporation altruistically offering their service/product at the lowest possible price to a captive audience who can't go elsewhere for the same product.
I get my power from SMUD - wrested from the clutches of PG&E in 1946, 23 years and many court battles after residents in Sacramento county voted to establish the public (SOCIALIST!) utility.
The rates here are about 30% less than what PG&E would charge. It also seems much more reliable than some places I've lived where the cost of electric is double or triple the cost from SMUD.
I'd be a right foole to want PG$E to sell me electricity. That's why they 'invested' heavily in Proposition 16 (which would have required a 2/3ds supermajority of voters to vote for a municipality to throw off the PG$E yoke and form their own public municipal utility district.)
Clean, affordable, democratically-owned power production within our built environment is the only hope for our economic and environmental future, so while I agree that PG&E is totally evil, it is ridiculous to complain about them without simultaneously supporting the ONLY thing that will eventually make them small fry grid-load-balancers instead of dominant monopolies.
Feed in tariffs for democratically-owned renewables are critical but Big Energy will not give up without a fight. We ALL need to push for this at the state and federal level so we will no longer be at the mercy of Big Energy mercenaries like BP, Chevron, Sempra PG&E and LADWP...
Hopefully Real America will stop them before they kill again.
why does AEP get to keep all it's profits and then run to regulatory agencies crying that they need rate hikes to pay for upgrades? Upgrades that aren't done BTW.
Isn't the cost of repairs, upgrades, etc. supposed to be paid from profits made? Since when did it become a part of business that you get to keep all the profits and let repairs slide?