PG&E FIRES PUC DIRECTOR!
This is big, a clear sign of how Mayor Gavin Newsom is going to operate in his next four years: Susan Leal, the head of the Public Utilities Commission, is going to be fired because she's moving too fast toward public power.
Now keep in mind: Susan Leal is not by any means a radical public-power activist. We've been pushing her on this issue for years, and she is, at best, moving slowly, cautiously, incrementally to implement Community Choice Aggregation and to look at options to create a city-run utility.
But even these cautious, slow moves were too much for Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and, according to what I've heard at City Hall, PG&E was directly behind this move. THe message that Newsom and PG&E are sending out: Nobody should dare, ever, to take even little itsy-bitsy baby steps toward public power.
Note the comment by the head of Leal's commission:
"The commission has never taken a vote on public power," commission President Ryan Brooks said Wednesday. "It's something she wants, but I don't think the commission wants it. ... I don't think it's the right time for it. It's not a policy direction she has from the commission or from me."
Leal, no fool, forced Newsom to give her a contract when she took the job, and the city will now have to spend $500,000 to buy her out. That's a lot of money -- but Newsom is apparently willing to spend it as the price of protecting PG&E.
It's going to be a long four years.
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Comments (6)
The Commissioners' hostility towards public power is tantamount to treason under the civil service code. Obviously, you cannot fulfill your duty as the principle decision-maker for a public utility if you do not believe in it. Ryan Brooks' remarks are those of a true nonbeliever and corporate collaborator rather than an objective, business leader who must make sound, economic decisions based on the facts. Surely, the SFPUC should be constantly and aggressively hunting down the most economic and environmentally sound opportunities to serve its citizen/clients. For Brooks to make such a blanket policy statement that is so devoid of anything factual or constructive should be grounds for dismissal. But maybe I am missing something.
These latest words of wisdom from Brooks, remind me that I have always felt that the SFPUC Commissioners were morticians not public servants. (In Commission meetings, when they are presented with a business opportunity, image the Commissioners as morticians preparing a corpse and you will see things much more clearly.) The implications for the management and staff given this culture of negativity and depravity is really too depressing to comtemplate. We really owe it to OURSELVES to appoint people who are qualifed and believe in the agency they work in. Is this too much to expect?
Public power has been working successfully for many, many years, even in California during the Energy Crisis. It is a grand and honorable enterprise. Given the opportunities that such a legacy presents San Franciscans with, it makes no sense to continue to waste and abuse what remains of Hetch Hetchy Water and Power.
Posted by Mark Loy | December 6, 2007 03:57 PM
Bruce - Perhaps Newsome feels that Leal is not doing a good job in overseeing the rebuild of Hetch Hetchy and the subsequent sewer project, both with NO transperancy and costing rate payers BILLIONS in increases. The world dosen't all revolve around your compulsive anti-PG&E asshole. Best Jack Davis
Posted by Jack Davis | December 6, 2007 07:47 PM
Oh Mr. Davis:
If this had been about the Hetch Hetchy rebuild, that's what we would have reported. There may be issues with that, but Newsom has shown no signs of caring.
You know how this works and so do we: In this case, the word came down from PG&E and Newsom followed it.
Posted by tim redmond | December 6, 2007 08:45 PM
It's no surprise that PG&E and their friends in the fossil fuel sector (Sempra and Chevron) are dead set against public power and renewable energy - they stand to lose all their market share if such proposals go forward. If 50% of a city puts solar panels on their roofs, then to maintain their profit margins PG&E will have to double their rates for electricity, leading to more people buying solar panels.
Not only that, PG&E has many ties to the fossil fuel sector via shareholder ownership. Natural gas, petroleum, and coal-fired electricity generation are very profitable for their shareholder's overlapping business interests. PG&E gives lip service to energy conservation and renewables - but do they really want to see people paying less for electricity every month?
Compare that to Sacramento's MUD - during the Enron-Reliant-Duke et al energy manipulation schemes, SMUD rates didn't shoot up - and SMUD also has a large solar program in place. If you want clean cheap renewable electricity, public utilities are the way to go - PG&E will never do it.
Posted by ike solem | December 6, 2007 11:02 PM
I guess that Ichabod is finally using his enormous political capital to do something boldly substantive. And this is it.
Posted by expatriate | December 7, 2007 07:50 AM
Like Bush, perhaps Newsom is concerned that Leal is not sufficiently a Bushie, er, a Newsomie, and that she was accumulating an unaccountable political coterie over at the PUC...
That, and the indications that the PUC commission has declared its antipathy to public power and Leal had not been frozen to CCA.
Newsom now gets to play Clinton, being pro public power as promised but appointing and retaining a PUC that votes CCA/PP down; what one hand giveth the other taketh away.
Posted by marc | December 10, 2007 09:40 AM