Our top story as you just heard in the newscast, San Diego electricity ratepayers will not be required to pay for the remaining costs related to the 2007 fires. The California public utilities commission said San Diego gas and electric may not tell customers for fire related costs. Amitha Sharma joints me now with more. There's been a deep concern. Why this is a big deal?I think because of the toll that the fires took. Homes are destroyed and two people killed. It's issue that boils down to accountability for a lot of people. The state found that the line started the fires because the company did not properly design, build and maintain their equipment.The decision to tonight SDG&E reimbursement was unanimous. What were the reasons?There were two judges that presided over a trial. Evidence was presented and they concluded -- this is in their words SDG&E did not manage, operate their facilities. The Commissioner brought back to the decision.I'm appreciative of the additional detail the judge has provided, which I think serve to further substantiate their original findings that SDG&E failed to meet their burden .Remind us how much money SDG&E was asking them to pay .They were asking for $379 million from customers, which would average to about a dollars 67 a month over six years.SDG&E was found responsible for that fire. What was their argument about why ratepayers should shoulder the leftover costs?They cited the legal argument of inverse condemnation and also said that the judges decision was full of factual and legal errors and they also said that the winds back in 2007 when the fire started were so severe and so unprecedented that it was unfair to ask the company to shoulder the burden. Commission president said that he shared some of those concerns.Despite these concerns that we have try to put ourselves in the shoes of somebody on the ground at the time of the fire, we have to defer to the conclusion because it is a fact in this proceeding.So as you told us, this decision was unanimous. Is a commission sending a mission to utilities with this decision?Yes, I think they are trying to send a message to the public into utilities. They had been accused of being in the pockets of utilities, the industry and they also wanted people to know and the utilities to know that they will be held accountable. One Commissioner said today that to not vote in favor of the recommendation by the judges would be telling the utilities that they don't have to act prudently.I've been speaking with Amitha Sharma. Thank you.Thank you.
California regulators rejected a request Thursday from a San Diego utility to force customers to shoulder $379 million in costs from deadly blazes ignited by power lines in 2007 — a decision seen as possibly precedent-setting for cases in which devastating wildfires tore through wine country this fall.
The California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously to uphold an August decision by two administrative law judges, who said San Diego Gas & Electric did not act reasonably in managing its equipment and could not pass along costs from the three fires to ratepayers. State law allows utilities to recover costs from customers only if they act in a "prudent" manner.
California Public Utilities Commissioner Carla Peterson praised the work of the judges before her vote.
"I am also appreciative of the additional detail the judges provided in the revisions to the proposed decision which I think serve to further substantiate the original findings that SDG&E failed to meet its burden to prove that it was a prudent manager in the lead-up to all three fires," Peterson said.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Southern California Edison had pushed regulators to rule in the utility's favor. They said the case highlighted a need to fairly distribute costs from wildfires, which are proving to be more destructive due to drought conditions and home construction in backcountry areas. But CPUC Commissioner Cliff Rechtschaffen rejected the argument.
"We can’t apply a standard that provides an incentive for a utility to act imprudently or unreasonably. That would send precisely the wrong signals to the utility," said Rechtschaffen. "We want to encourage and incentivize careful, prudent management."
RELATED: San Diego Business Owner Suing CPUC Over Its Handling Of SDG&E’s Request To Bill Ratepayers
Environmental and consumer groups and some elected officials also said ruling for the San Diego company could set a precedent for other utilities to pass along the costs of wildfires ignited by power lines and discourage them from properly maintaining their infrastructure.
In the San Diego case, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and utility commission investigators concluded that three blazes from 2007 were caused by San Diego Gas & Electric's electrified wires.
"There is no dispute that each of the fires were caused by SDG&E facilities and in each instance we find that SDG&E did not meet its burden to show that it acted as a prudent manager," Commissioner Laine Randolph said.
Lee Schavrien, San Diego Gas & Electric's senior vice president and chief regulatory officer, said the decision is not consistent with findings made by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which determined the utility "acted reasonably" and approved the portion of the wildfire cost request it had jurisdiction over.
"We find it difficult to understand how federal regulators understood the law and applied it appropriately, while the CPUC adopted a flawed interpretation," he said.
Schavrien said SDG&E "will vigorously pursue all available avenues to overturn this decision."
RELATED: SDG&E Lobbies Regulators To Reject Judges’ Decision On 2007 Wildfire Reimbursement
The blazes destroyed more than 1,300 homes, killed two people and injured 40 firefighters. The utility faced 2,500 lawsuits from people with fire damage and settled most of them for $2.4 billion.
The $379 million it wanted to charge ratepayers remained after court proceedings, settlements and insurance payouts.
"If the commission had sided with the utility companies, it could have set a dangerous precedent for the future of disaster cost recovery, or at the very least, created a perception of a precedent," Democratic state Sen. Jerry Hill said. "Today's decision concludes a decade long process to rightly assign the costs of the tragic fires to the company responsible for causing them."
Hill pointed out that Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has said if it is found liable in last month's devastating Northern California wildfires, which killed 44 people and destroyed 8,900 homes and other buildings, it also will seek regulators' permission to pass along the costs.
Hill and other legislators have said they will introduce a bill in January to prevent electrical utilities found responsible in wildfires from passing their uninsured liabilities along to customers.
SDG&E issued the following statement:
SDG&E strongly disagrees with today’s decision. The CPUC got it wrong. The 2007 wildfires were a natural disaster fueled by extreme conditions including the worst Santa Ana wind event this region has ever seen, combined with high heat, low humidity and hurricane-force winds as high as 92 mph.
Experts from Cal Fire and the County Office of Emergency Services described the weather as ‘unprecedented [in] magnitude,’ and ‘wind conditions being the worst they had ever seen in recent memory.’
This decision is not supported by the evidence and is not consistent with the determination made by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). FERC conducted its own inquiry and found SDG&E acted reasonably and approved the FERC-jurisdictional portion of the wildfire cost request. We find it difficult to understand how federal regulators understood the law and applied it appropriately, while the CPUC adopted a flawed interpretation.
The decision wrongly concludes that the applicability of inverse condemnation by California courts to privately owned public utilities is irrelevant. Under inverse condemnation, a utility is strictly liable, regardless of fault or foreseeability, if its facilities are involved in an ignition. Courts apply inverse condemnation to utilities on the grounds that utilities can spread the costs through rates, but this decision has failed to recognize or acknowledge the role inverse condemnation played in the incurrence of the costs and has failed to allow SDG&E to spread the costs as the courts envisioned.
We will vigorously pursue all available avenues to overturn this decision.
