Doesn't California already have some of the highest electricity costs in the country? Is there really not enough money coming in for SCE, PG&E etc to do necessary maintenance? That's shocking.

EDIT: Looking further, PG&E's net profit every year for the past few years seems to have been extremely large, so I don't know that I buy it...

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peezd 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

We have a similar situation here in Colorado, with our single provider continually raising rates (with one of the reasons being better mitigation; from what I can tell that means just running ads constantly talking about how great they are), while also saying they can't do mitigation other than just cutting the power off when it is windy.

Meanwhile they maintain margins that most any public company would be incredibly jealous about.

Sure it's not black and white but the positioning is tiresome.

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gustavus 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I think in this case the OPs point is that even with the money the electric company can't do the necessary maintenance because it violates environmental laws about cutting down trees or disturbing the habitat of the Blue Titted Elbonian Mud Grouse.

Then you just can't. I'm sure the utility companies are heart broken they have to not spend on maintenance and can instead pocket the extra cash but it doesn't change the levithianian regulatory mess California has erected around doing anything in the name of protecting the environment, compromise and competing concern be darned.

	▲	mistrial9 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> can't do the necessary maintenance because it violates environmental laws about cutting down trees In California, Pacific Gas and Electric is documented to make a business choice of relying on contractors to do the vast majority of tree removal and trimming after a certain change in the executive leadership. Subsequently, extensive documentation shows a chain of pressure to cut costs on tree trimming and extract better terms from the sub-contractors using harsh negotiation and policy. Later, after catastrophic wildfires time and again in the last ten years, an avalanche of low-paid, low-skill tree cutting has occurred. In many cases the zeal to cut old trees seems to have some extra energy, between the abused sub-contractors, harsh labor oversight, insulated management and back-room executive management meetings. The framing that it is environmental protections that are the impediment to power line maintenance is as worn thin as a floor carpet at a twenty dollar motel near Sacramento IMHO