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In a recently filed challenge to orders of the California Public Utilities Commission, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) has demanded the freedom to say and do what it wants to keep customers away from community choice aggregation options in the PG&E service area.
PG&E is currently the major promoter of its proposed constitutional amendment Proposition 16. Under Proposition 16, municipalities would be required to obtain a two-thirds majority of local voters to spend public funds on competing with investor owned utility companies (IOUs), where the investor is typically a major holding company.
Locally, Sempra Energy is the corporate holding company and sole shareholder of San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E).
In its demand for re-hearing of CPUC's Resolution E-4250, PG&E protested that it was unfair for CPUC to regulate IOU advertising and other communications to power customers when no such CPUC regulation exists over local governments. “Resolution E-4250 is one in a series of CPUC decisions that, over time, have continued to clarify and in some cases establish new provisions governing when, where and how PG&E and other utilities communicate with their customers about community choice aggregation (CCA) programs. The Commission has extended these decisions not just to the content of PG&E’s communications with its customers, but also to PG&E’s activities and it has done so regardless of whether these activities are paid for by shareholders. At the same time the CPUC imposes these requirements on utilities, it does nothing to regulate comparable conduct by local governments engaged in CCA programs.”
So far, PG&E has failed to mention that municipalities are heavily regulated in the California Codes or by individual city charters, specifically under the California Government Code that prohibits the sort of backroom meetings exposed in the *Turko Files* on SDG&E executives' private dinners with CPUC regulators. According to Michael Turko in his KUSI report, “This has stink all over it.”
Currently PG&E is spending well over $28 million to promote Proposition 16 as a means of preventing local governments from offering CCA options to service area ratepayers. A recent San Diego Union-Tribune business section analysis pointed out the substantial savings to customers who switched from IOU-supplied power to municipal CCA participation in the Sacramento area.
This blogger is opposed to Proposition 16 as it erodes the authority of the San Diego City Council and the voting residents of the city to control the terms and conditions of San Diego's electricity franchise agreement with SDG&E. The recent sustained bombardment of PG&E-paid pro-Proposition 16 advertising fails to mention current San Diego franchise rights of voters to amend or even terminate the agreement with SDG&E on a simple majority vote, and I see no reasonable cause for San Diego voters to give up those rights in exchange for PG&E's ploy seeking constitutional control at the expense of California municipalities and their voters.
Despite PG&E's filed plea for fairness, no PG&E customer has yet come forward to verify that PG&E obtained two-thirds approval of its own customers before spending tens of millions to promote Proposition 16.
In a recently filed challenge to orders of the California Public Utilities Commission, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) has demanded the freedom to say and do what it wants to keep customers away from community choice aggregation options in the PG&E service area.
PG&E is currently the major promoter of its proposed constitutional amendment Proposition 16. Under Proposition 16, municipalities would be required to obtain a two-thirds majority of local voters to spend public funds on competing with investor owned utility companies (IOUs), where the investor is typically a major holding company.
Locally, Sempra Energy is the corporate holding company and sole shareholder of San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E).
In its demand for re-hearing of CPUC's Resolution E-4250, PG&E protested that it was unfair for CPUC to regulate IOU advertising and other communications to power customers when no such CPUC regulation exists over local governments. “Resolution E-4250 is one in a series of CPUC decisions that, over time, have continued to clarify and in some cases establish new provisions governing when, where and how PG&E and other utilities communicate with their customers about community choice aggregation (CCA) programs. The Commission has extended these decisions not just to the content of PG&E’s communications with its customers, but also to PG&E’s activities and it has done so regardless of whether these activities are paid for by shareholders. At the same time the CPUC imposes these requirements on utilities, it does nothing to regulate comparable conduct by local governments engaged in CCA programs.”
So far, PG&E has failed to mention that municipalities are heavily regulated in the California Codes or by individual city charters, specifically under the California Government Code that prohibits the sort of backroom meetings exposed in the *Turko Files* on SDG&E executives' private dinners with CPUC regulators. According to Michael Turko in his KUSI report, “This has stink all over it.”
Currently PG&E is spending well over $28 million to promote Proposition 16 as a means of preventing local governments from offering CCA options to service area ratepayers. A recent San Diego Union-Tribune business section analysis pointed out the substantial savings to customers who switched from IOU-supplied power to municipal CCA participation in the Sacramento area.
This blogger is opposed to Proposition 16 as it erodes the authority of the San Diego City Council and the voting residents of the city to control the terms and conditions of San Diego's electricity franchise agreement with SDG&E. The recent sustained bombardment of PG&E-paid pro-Proposition 16 advertising fails to mention current San Diego franchise rights of voters to amend or even terminate the agreement with SDG&E on a simple majority vote, and I see no reasonable cause for San Diego voters to give up those rights in exchange for PG&E's ploy seeking constitutional control at the expense of California municipalities and their voters.
Despite PG&E's filed plea for fairness, no PG&E customer has yet come forward to verify that PG&E obtained two-thirds approval of its own customers before spending tens of millions to promote Proposition 16.