Pacific Gas & Electric's household customers will be hit with an average rate increase of 8% to help the once-bankrupt utility pay for improvements designed to reduce the risks that its outdated equipment will ignite deadly wildfires. The higher prices, approved Thursday, take effect March 1 and are expected to...
Utility’s Boss to Testify About Power Shutoffs in California
SACRAMENTO — The CEO of the nation’s largest utility is expected to face angry California lawmakers on Monday over the company’s decision to turn off power for millions of people to prevent its outdated equipment from starting wildfires. Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. CEO Bill Johnson is scheduled to testify...
Law Gives Child Sex Assault Victims More Time to File Suits
SACRAMENTO — California is giving childhood victims of sexual abuse more time to decide whether to file lawsuits, joining several states in expanding the statute of limitations for victims over warnings from school districts that the new rules could bankrupt them. The law signed Sunday by Gov. Gavin Newsom gives...
Walters: Another Dicey Utility Overhaul
Californians should always be skeptical when their politicians overhaul the state’s electrical utility system while promising more efficient, less polluting, and reasonably priced service. Californians get their juice from a mélange of “investor-owned” and municipally operated utilities. Inevitably, micromanagement of such a complex system via legislation and regulatory agencies becomes...
Health Care Price Transparency: Fool's Gold or Money in Your Pocket?
Health care news is full of stories about monumental surprise hospital bills, sky-high drug prices and patients going bankrupt. The government’s approach to addressing this, via an executive order that President Trump signed June 24, is to make hospitals disclose prices, including negotiated rates with insurers, so that patients supposedly can...
What Happens if PG&E Goes Bankrupt?
Investigators are massing. Lawsuits are mounting. The death toll in Butte County's historic Camp Fire stands at 88, so far. Another year, another megafire, another calamity in which faulty Pacific Gas and Electric equipment is a prime suspect. And once again, Californians face a familiar question: What’s going to happen...