SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom's (D-California) proposal Monday morning to have PG&E compensate customers with a $100 statement credit for its unprecedented shutoff last week landed with a thud at the company's headquarters.
In a written response the same afternoon, PG&E CEO Bill Johnson didn't acknowledge the governor's specific demand for a $100 credit to home accounts and $250 for businesses.
This adds to the mixed messages last week from the governor and the monopoly about whether people who lost power should expect to be compensated.
PG&E has said all along that it won't pay for losses like spoiled food and lost business revenue caused by deliberate power shutoffs. The CEO didn't deviate in his reply to Newsom.
"While we recognize this was a hardship for millions of people throughout Northern and Central California, we made that decision to keep customers and communities safe," Johnson wrote. "That was the right decision."
Gov. Newsom embraced the idea that PG&E should compensate customers for their losses in a press conference during the shutoffs last Thursday, laying the blame at the feet of PG&E for what he called decades of "greed" and "mismanagement."
The governor also implied that PG&E might be willing to pay, telling ABC10 that "[PG&E] said something differently to us."
Newsom has dialed up his criticism of PG&E during the shutoff, despite the fact that the company donated $208,400 to help elect him
Johnson has been ordered to attend an emergency meeting of the state public utilities commission on Friday.
PG&E is a state-sanctioned monopoly which controls all sale of electric power in an area the size of Oklahoma, home to 16 million Californians.
The company itself is a convicted felon currently serving a five-year sentence of probation for felonies connected to the San Bruno gas explosion, including one count of obstructing the federal investigation into the disaster.
Since that case, which involved eight deaths, the company has been named as the cause of wildfires that killed 107 people in 2017 and 2018.
Surprise inspections ordered by the federal judge supervising PG&E's probation turned up hundreds of problems with the company's new programs to inspect and fix safety issues with power lines and trees.
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