California Regulator: Utility Too Big to be Safe

Repeated natural-gas accidents – including a 2010 pipeline explosion that killed eight people – suggest that California’s largest power utility could be too big to operate safely, the state’s top utility regulator says.

California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Picker said in mid-April he would ask the commission’s staff to study “the culture of safety” and the structure of Pacific Gas & Electric Co., which has its gas and electricity operations under a single corporate board and chief executive.

He also wants staffers to review the possibility of the state claiming bonuses given to executives of PG&E, one of the country’s largest power utilities with 9.7 million gas and electric customers.

PG&E officials said that the utility has redoubled safety training, changed top executives and carried out extensive safety improvements to its natural-gas system.

Picker’s statement cited what he said were rising numbers of state safety citations against PG&E’s natural gas operations and said it appeared the utility, with $1.6 billion in earnings in 2014, was able to shrug off financial penalties.

Another state official said the staff would study whether the commission could split the company’s gas and electric operations, if it chose to do so.

The National Transportation Safety Board faulted repeated safety failures by PG&E, as well as lax regulation by the commission, in the blast. The fiery explosion from a broken pipeline engulfed a neighborhood on Sept. 9, 2010, killing eight people and destroying more than three dozen homes.