City Files Legal Brief to Advance Acquisition of PG&E Assets in San Francisco
San Francisco is progressing in its fight to achieve full public power for all residents and businesses by acquiring PG&E’s electric grid in the City.
San Francisco recently filed a legal brief outlining the City’s position for how state regulators should determine a fair price for PG&E’s electric grid that serves San Francisco. The City is asking the California Public Utilities Commission to provide an independent appraisal of PG&E’s electric assets in the City – a process known as a valuation proceeding – so that the City can buy that portion of PG&E’s grid and provide the benefits of full public power to its residents and businesses.
“This action and our recent legal victories bring San Francisco that much closer to achieving full public power,” said City Attorney David Chiu. “I look forward to continuing our successful partnership with the SFPUC to reach this goal in San Francisco.”
The brief filed with the California Public Utilities Commission lays out the City’s analysis around the rules governing how much PG&E’s grid is worth and how to establish compensation for PG&E.
“The commission must fix compensation for PG&E’s assets based on their fair market value,” The City’s lawyers wrote in the brief.
The filing is the latest step in San Francisco’s work to acquire PG&E’s grid in the City, a move that has broad support in San Francisco. PG&E has a long history of placing unjust and unreasonable demands on public projects in San Francisco, creating long delays and unfairly driving up costs in an attempt to pry customers away from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the local public power provider.
In fact, over the past four years alone, PG&E’s obstruction of public projects like schools, rec centers, and affordable housing has cost the City more than $28 million in additional equipment costs, delay costs, redesign costs, lost revenue when projects are forced to become PG&E customers, and higher energy costs due to PG&E’s higher rates. Recently, the San Francisco Standard reported that an SFMTA train system upgrade project was yet another victim of PG&E’s spiraling costs and years of delays.
And it’s not just in San Francisco.
Fresno city leaders recently voiced their frustration with PG&E over delays in providing power to new developments.
The Mayor of Rocklin also recently put his Placer County city’s support behind San Francisco’s efforts, telling state utility regulators that:
“PG&E’s refusal to participate in valuation discussions with the City and County of San Francisco mirrors struggles other municipalities have when attempting to have discussions with PG&E. This refusal to provide information to municipalities harms residents and prevents local governments from making informed decisions about the services they provide. Local governments are best situated to make decisions that impact their residents. This case before you will set a standard for PG&E to comply with local governments’ requests for information.”
“Rocklin and other municipalities have explored what it would take to shift from an investor-owned utility to a municipal-owned utility. Unfortunately, what should be a clear path that would fairly compensate PG&E and control their own power destiny is not clear at all. PG&E has used every tool to delay and stop government entities from making the switch.”
Read Rocklin Mayor Bill Halldin’s full letter to the CPUC here.
Public power is more affordable, more reliable, cleaner, and safer than PG&E. It’s time for San Francisco to control its energy future.
Learn more at “Our City. Our Power.”
