State Sen. Scott Wiener is the latest to announce that he’s in favor of public power after the terrible weekend blackout. In a post on threads, he says he is going to introduce legislation to “let San Francisco break up with PG&E.”
He tried something similar in 2020, after one of the many PG&E-caused wildfires, but the bill never even got a committee hearing.
But San Francisco doesn’t need a bill by Sen. Wiener to “break up” with PG&E. All the city needs is the local political will to move on seizing the company’s distribution system through eminent domain. The law allowing that already exists. The federal law requiring it has existed for 100 years. It would cost the taxpayers nothing, and bring in hundreds of millions a year.
The city’s Public Utilities Commission supports this, and has asked the state PUC to evaluate what PG&E’s system is worth. That’s a nice idea: If the CPUC settles on a number, then the city can offer that number, and when the eminent domain case goes to court, as it will, the city will be in a good position to defend itself.
But Gov. Gavin Newsom’s CPUC has had more than a year to do that work, and has come to no conclusion. None of the commissioners has a background in public power; the closest is Matthew Baker, who 30 years ago worked for the Public Interest Research Group, which supports turning private utilities into public entities.
The CPUC has to worry about the statewide implications of San Francisco’s moves: taking away the most profitable part of PG&E’s system will have implications in other areas.
The state already has a system in place to deal with that. It won’t be simple to transition all of Northern California from private to public power, but it’s becoming increasingly inevitable—and San Francisco can take the first step and frankly, force the issue.
Waiting for the state Legislature or the CPUC is only going to delay this process, which is exactly what PG&E wants: Delay has saved its lucrative and illegal monopoly for a century. This blackout, PG&E clearly hopes, will go the way of bankruptcy and wildfires: After a while, the politicians and the public will move on to other issues.
Wiener’s bill will die in committee. The supes will hold a hearing, and nothing will come of it. The lights will stay on until the next time they don’t. This is how a powerful corporation avoids accountability, and it’s worked for so long that it’s easy to assume it will just keep working forever.
The city doesn’t need to put up with this any longer. Mayor Lurie and the supes could direct the city attorney today to file eminent domain proceedings to take over PG&E’s local grid. The price doesn’t really matter: Selling retail electricity is so lucrative that the city can issue revenue bonds for $2 billion, or $3 billion, or even more, and still clear hundreds of millions a year. The whole thing is going to wind up in court anyway; the sooner we start, the sooner we will have cheap, clean public power. The CPUC’s evaluation will become part of that court proceeding; if the commission keeps dragging its feet, a judge can order it to finish the work and submit it to the court.
That would also send a message, to the governor, to the CPUC, to PG&E, and to the state Legislature: San Francisco is sick of waiting around.
I would love to hear Wiener call for that.
