Speier: 'PG&E Fines Should Only Be Used to Improve Safety'

Congresswoman Jackie Speier on Tuesday urged state regulators to take more care when dealing with monetary decisions related to two current probes looking into PG&E following the San Bruno pipeline explosion.

Speier, D-Hillsborough, sent two letters (see attached) to the California Public Utilities Commission—one to CPUC President Michael Peevey and the other to executive director Paul Clanon—urging the commission to take more responsibility in making sure PG&E's possible fines for the disaster get spent appropriately and that PG&E shareholders bear the entire cost for the company's $2.2 billion proposal to upgrade its pipeline system.

In January, the CPUC that will decide whether PG&E will get fined for the deadly pipeline explosion in the Crestmoor neighborhood, which left eight people dead and 38 homes destroyed.

Peevey is heading up that probe.

Last week, the CPUC wrapped up its to modernize its gas transmission system. The issue at hand is whether shareholders or ratepayers should burden most of the cost. PG&E has insisted that customers pay for 90 percent of the costs because the upgrades would address new pipeline changes that aren't associated with the flaws discovered after the San Bruno explosion.

The letter sent to Peevey requested that “any monetary consequences imposed by the CPUC on PG&E because of the tragic San Bruno pipeline accident be used to improve the safety of the natural gas system and not be siphoned off to plug the budget shortfalls in the state’s General Fund,” Speier said.

In the letter to Clanon, Speier said that misleading information from the company—in particular Kirk Johnson, PG&E's vice president of gas transmissions—following the explosion has her convinced that customers shouldn't have to pay for any of PG&E's mistakes.

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