A utility didn’t stop at blowing up a Calfornia neighborhood, it also demanded the Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) get a favorable judge for that 2010 San Bruno natural gas pipe explosion. The CPUC president’s chief of staff just last year wrote slides praising his Legacy as Best Practices. Does that legacy include suborning justice? He’s still there, although she was fired, and three PG&E executives “ended their employment”. How many other PG&E and other utility executives and CPUC and other state regulators follow those same Best Practices?

Ellen Knickmeyer, Associated Press, 15 September 2014, PG&E Officials Removed for Improper Communications,

Four senior officials with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and the state commission regulating it were removed or resigned over emails released Monday showing the utility and state regulators appeared to negotiate which judge would be assigned to hear one of the utility’s rate cases.

The emails show the commission ultimately assigned to the case a judge for whom PG&E had expressed a preference, rather than another judge who PG&E said “has a history of being very hard on us.”

Also Monday, California Public Utilities Commission president Michael Peevey, who was included in part of the January email exchange, removed himself from involvement in that rate case and in another, bigger case pending before the utility commission involving PG&E, California’s largest utility.

The developments deepen the growing controversy surrounding the state utilities commission’s oversight of the utility in the aftermath of a 2010 explosion of a PG&E natural-gas pipeline that killed eight people in the San Francisco suburb of San Bruno.

In July, earlier emails released at the request of San Bruno city officials showed Peevey and his staffers consulting with the utility on matters including how big PG&E’s fine should be in the blast. The commission’s decision on that fine is pending.

On Monday, PG&E released a January email exchange featuring Brian Cherry, PG&E’s vice president for regulatory relations, asking repeatedly for Peevey’s chief of staff, Carol A. Brown, to change the administrative law judge who was assigned to hear an unrelated rate case involving PG&E.

Amusingly, Brian Cherry’s page in PG&E’s “Our Team” now gets “404 not found”. His LinkedIn profile still lists him as “Vice President – Rates and Regulation at Pacific Gas and Electric Company San Francisco Bay Area”. The AP story says he and “two other senior officials ended their employment with the utility as a result of the emails released Monday.”

The story says CPUC fired Carol A. Brown, and indeed she no longer seems to be listed there. However, I found this gem: A Best Practices Leadership Forum for Small Utilities, by Carol A. Brown, Chief of Staff to President Michael R. Peevey, April 2013:

It doesn’t just say she worked for CPUC President Peevy; it’s entirely about President Peevy and his Legacy, including this slide:

So President Peevy’s Legacy includes

• President Peevey served as the vice-chair of the National Association Regulatory Utilities Commissioners Subcommittee on Utility Marketplace Access to promote diverse procurement at the national level.

The next slide is about

President Peevey’s White Paper on Supplier Diversity

and includes:

• GO 156 — Transformation from Social Justice to Business Imperative

Business Imperative: like procuring a judge friendly to the utility? It sure ain’t social justice!

With Carol A. Brown gone, who will update those Best Practices slides to explicitly include suborning justice and getting your chief of staff and three PG&E executives fired?

The AP story includes:

The Utilities Reform Network, a consumer group pushing for action against PG&E in the wake of the 2010 blast in San Bruno, called on Peevey to resign, saying the emails showed “PG&E was calling the shots in Peevey’s office.”

Previously TURN called on Peevy to recuse himself, which he has done. That was apparently before the emails were revealed. TURN also suggested the judge’s proposed $1.4 billion penalties was a good start, but more of it should come from shareholders than from ratepayers, and more of it should go to pipeline safety. And if that was the utility-friendly judge, maybe all of that would already have happened with a less friendly judge.

I wonder if that kind of collusion between a regulated utility and its regulator could be a problem in Georgia, where 4 of 5 incumbent GA PSC Commissioners accept massive utility campaign contributions?

Hey, I’ve got an idea: let’s just not build any more of those explosive fracked methane pipelines that bring Georgia nothing but hazards!

-jsq

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