Senator Wiener Responds To PG&E’s Absurd Estimate For San Francisco Buyout
PG&E demands taxpayers foot unprecedented billions to break up with the dysfunctional utility.
SACRAMENTO – PG&E submitted an unprecedented $22.5 billion estimate for San Francisco to buy out PG&E as part of the process of breaking up with the utility to form a publicly owned utility, as cities like Sacramento, Los Angeles, and Palo Alto have done.
PG&E’s negligence has caused one blackout per week in San Francisco since a major blackout knocked out power for 200,000 San Franciscans last December. The utility has raised prices 40% since 2022, and Californians pay the second highest electric rates in the nation as a result.
Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who authored Senate Bill 875 this year to help San Francisco break up with PG&E and in 2020 authored legislation to make PG&E fully publicly owned, issued the following statement in response:
“PG&E is once again trying to rip off San Franciscans with this ridiculous and made-up estimate. PG&E’s credibility with the public was already low, but this absurd estimate — which appears to demand taxpayers foot the bill for billions of dollars in made-up business expenses — managed to reach a new low.
“PG&E’s massively inflated valuation of separation costs and the company’s physical assets — claiming that a single city accounts for 23% of the value of the electric system for the entire state — are shocking enough. But PG&E doesn’t stop there. It also appears to be demanding an unprecedented $7.5 billion in made up ‘separation damages,’ to which it isn’t in any way entitled. San Franciscans will NOT pay billions so that PG&E executives can give themselves bonuses and pay dividends to shareholders.
“This is an obvious attempt to scare San Francisco away from breaking up with PG&E, but the impact of this absurd proposal will be exactly the opposite — lower electric bills and improved reliability. San Francisco must break up with PG&E, and we must demand a fair process to do so.”
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