Hacker News Reader

Comment by gimmeThaBeet | Hacker News Reader

That's definitely a dimension of what's happening, none of the utilities have ever been cool with the nebulous liability presented by inverse condemnation. I think if anyone were in their shoes, they wouldn't be either.

PG&E knows that they're way less liable for damage caused by service interruptions than they see they are for being responsible for wildfires. They're doing what California wants them to even if it's not the intent of the law.

That's mainly why I think seizing PG&E doesn't solve your problems in the short/medium term. If the state owned their lines tomorrow, they haven't seen the last wildfire. I just don't see a scenario in which the state is as eager to pick as high a number when determining liabilities.

View on HN

Unless I'm missing something this completely ignores the decades of mismanagement and paying huge bonuses/salaries instead of reinvesting in infrastructure. PG&E put themselves in this position should be held accountable.

That's not really my point, and all I can say about that is that executive compensation, dividends, expected revenue, those get presented in a utility's rate cases, I think California's general rate cases are every 3 years. The CPUC and the state was in the room every time PG&E laid out their plans for these decades of mismanagement.

I'll admit it's certainly plausible I'm being too pessimistic, I don't know what about people's experience makes them think a public entity is going to invest the proper amount of money in a utility in the last let's say 30 years. And when they ask what you diverted billions of dollars to, you have to get up and say "vegitation management"

My problem is that none of the risks have properly been priced, and no amount of pillory about huge bonuses is going to solve the problem, because that money was never going to be enough.

Electricity rates are supposed to compensate the risk of doing business. Claw back all the profit you want, the rates have likely been too low, and likely egregiously low to compensate for the risk that if there's a particularly bad wildfire, you get sued into the shadow realm.

Right, I'd be sympathetic to this liability argument if they weren't extracting profits and neglecting maintenance. Obviously the fire issue is bigger than a single utility, but their actions here leave them little public good will.

I would demonstrate my sympathy for their desire not to be a public utility anymore by confiscating their assets, firing their management, and turning their assets over to someone who does want to be a public utility.

What you describe is called communism.

PG&E is a company with owners and while you may not like it you can't just take other peoples' property.

There are appropriate venues to vent your frustration. There is judicial system where you can go and defend your own rights if you feel PG&E stepped on it. You can go and vote for somebody to step up and solve the problem. You can also make other people aware of the problem by using your right to free speech.

No. A public utility is permitted what would be anti-trust violations, and handed a monopoly, in exchange for acting in the public interest. When they abandon the public interest, they have violated their end of the bargain. The stockholders are responsible to prevent that; if they fail, they lose their investment.

The educational system has failed you if you never learned about this. Anticipating your next objection: no, public education is also not Communism.

Communism, by numerous well-attested examples, means exterminating millions of citizens for no offense but existing. I don't find anyone proposing that. Here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com