THESE
OPERATIONS DON’T PLUNDER BY THEMSELVES! THEY DEPEND ON THE POLS THEY PUMP THE
BRIBES INTO.
FEINSTEIN’S
BIGGEST BRIBESTER HAS ALWAYS BEEN PG&E.
Newsom Raked In Big Money From Public Utility He Is Now Chiding For Fires And Rolling Blackouts
Source: AP Photo/Rich
Pedroncelli
"We should not have to be here. Years and
years of greed, years and years of mismanagement, particularly with the largest
investor-owned utility in the State of California, PG&E. They simply did
not do their job. It took us decades to get here but we will get out of this
mess," Newsom said. "We will hold them to an account that they're
never been held [to] in the past. We will do everything in our power to restructure
PG&E so it is a completely different entity when they get out of bankruptcy
by June 30th of next year. We will hold them accountable for the business
interruption and costs associated with these blackouts and we will do the same
with the other two investor-owned utilities in Southern California."
I
have a message for PG&E:
Your years and years of greed.
Years and years of mismanagement.
Years and years of putting shareholders over people.
Are OVER.
Your years and years of greed.
Years and years of mismanagement.
Years and years of putting shareholders over people.
Are OVER.
Newsom,
however, took big campaign contributions from the public utility back in 2018.
According to an ABC
10 report from July, PG&E $208,400 towards his
gubernatorial campaign. They donated the maximum contribution limit of $58,400.
Another $150,000 was funneled through a group known as "Citizens
Supporting Gavin Newsom for Governor 2018."
To make matters even worse, the governor was attempting to broker a deal that
protected the public utility company from going completely broke after they
were found
responsible for starting the Camp Fire that burned in Paradise
last year. PG&E failed to maintain equipment. In fact, one day before the
Camp Fire began, the utility company sent
a letter to a resident saying they needed to access her
property to deal with sparking utility lines.
California has numerous fires ravaging the state.
The Kincade Fire, currently burning near Sonoma,
has forced more than 200,000 people to evacuate their homes. The edges of that
fire have now reached the burn scar left behind by the 2017 Tubbs Fire, KRON-TV reported.
The Getty Fire, near UCLA in Los Angeles, has
burned 745 acres along the 405 freeway, LAist reported.
The Easy Fire, which started earlier today, broke
out near the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley. According to KABC-TV,
1,491 acres have been impacted.
A handful of smaller fires are also burning
throughout the state.
"Democrat
Governor Gavin Newsom, for all his rhetoric about PG&E’s “greed” and
“mismanagement,” has made clear that the state is more interested in shoring up
the financial wealth of the utility companies than aiding working people
affected by the fires."
More fires ignite as wildfire season deepens in California
Five additional wildfires broke out in Southern California on
Wednesday as the state descends further into wildfire season, which has
dramatically intensified due to climate change and decades of corporate and
governmental negligence. At present, Cal Fire reports 11 active fires
statewide, with the largest remaining the Kincade Fire in Sonoma County, which
has burned over 76,000 acres and is only 60 percent contained.
Reports have surfaced indicating that a Pacific Gas &
Electric (PG&E) transmission line malfunctioned near the point of origin of
the Kincade Fire, potentially implicating the utility monopoly in yet another
in a long line of devastating wildfires. Similarly, four of the other active
fires in Southern California are believed to have been caused by malfunctioning
transmission lines or downed power lines, under the purview of Southern
California Edison (SCE), the main utility monopoly in the region.
The five new fires include the Hillside Fire in San Bernardino,
the 46 Fire and Hill Fire in Riverside, the Easy Fire in Ventura and the Copper
Fire in San Diego, which have burned a combined 2,700 acres as of this writing.
The Hill Fire has prompted mandatory evacuations and has already
destroyed six homes, while the 46 Fire has burned at least five buildings. Both
fires have been fueled by powerful Santa Ana winds, which are expected to
continue, as the National Weather Service said the dangerous “red flag”
conditions in Southern California would remain at least through Thursday
evening.
In Simi Valley, northwest of Los Angeles, flames from the Easy
Fire came close to damaging the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library as well as
nearby neighborhoods, and have forced roughly 30,000 people to evacuate their
homes. The fire broke out just before dawn Wednesday and was fueled by wind
gusts of up to 70 mph, with residents telling local media, “we only had seconds
to get out.”
Meanwhile, firefighters have made “significant progress” on the
Kincade Fire in Northern California, according to Cal Fire representative
Jonathan Cox. At present, roughly 5,000 residents remain under evacuation
orders, while at its peak the fire forced an estimated 200,000 people to
evacuate the surrounding region.
The fire has destroyed 141 homes, while more than 90,000
structures remain threatened. Further, at least 53,000 homes and businesses
across Northern California remain impacted by PG&E power shutoffs, after
the company cut electricity to millions in a desperate attempt to prevent new
fires.
The impact of global warming on wildfires has been increasingly
verified through scientific research. A recent study published in the
journal Earth’s Future found
that, “Since the early 1970s, California’s annual wildfire extent increased
fivefold, punctuated by extremely large and in and ”
The researchers concluded, “This trend was mainly due to an
eightfold increase in summertime forest-fire area and was very likely driven by
drying of fuels promoted by human-induced warming.”
The study notes that the moisture deficit—the difference between
the amount of water currently in the atmosphere and the amount of water it can
hold—has not caught up over the past decade as average temperatures have risen
over 2 degrees Fahrenheit. This lower relative humidity causes vegetation to
dry out faster, creating fuel for fires.
The conclusion of the study pointed to a spiraling feedback loop
in which the severity and regularity of fires increases as a result of
accelerating global warming, in turn producing further greenhouse gas
emissions, thus worsening global warming and creating more fires.
Indeed, 14 of the 20 worst fires in Californian history have
happened since 2007, with the state having 78 more annual “fire days” than it
did half a century ago. While 2018 was the worst year in terms of destruction
and lives lost, each year is now set to surpass the previous records. A state
commissioned report found that the average burn area in California will
increase 77 percent by the end of the century.
Cal Fire,
the main state agency tasked with fighting fires, has spent $4.7 billion in the
last ten years alone. The agency’s funds are usually depleted a few months into
the new year, leaving very little resources to clear out overgrown forests and
help residents prepare for future fires.
As a result of the insufficient funding of Cal Fire, the state
increasingly exploits prison labor to battle fires. California has some 3,100
inmates in the Conservation Camp program to help authorities with emergencies,
of whom 2,150 are allowed to fight fires. They are paid a minuscule $2.90 to
$5.12 a day, plus an additional $1 an hour while fighting fires, turning one of
society’s most important occupations into virtual slave labor.
Despite the deadly conditions in these prisoners’ firefighting
battalions, those employed are unable to become firefighters or emergency
responders once they leave prison, due to their criminal records.
Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom, for all his rhetoric about
PG&E’s “greed” and “mismanagement,” has made clear that the state is more
interested in shoring up the financial wealth of the utility companies than
aiding working people affected by the fires.
So far the state has created a $21 billion compensation fund to
pay for future claims against the utility companies, which will be paid for
with equal contributions from the companies and their customers, including the
victims of fires caused by their faulty equipment.
Newsom has also mandated the three largest utilities to invest a
total of $5 billion to upgrade and fireproof their equipment. In an interview
with Capital Public Radio, Newsom was asked if the state had “the power to
force PG&E to pay customers for their losses that were the result of the
blackout?”
Newsom’s answer was that the state would
try to make PG&E “do the right thing” but
ultimately, it was an “open question” and the
company “may not be legally required” to do
anything.
The cost of wildfires on state finances has taken a heavy toll,
as the state has surpassed its annual firefighting budget in seven of the last
ten years. In 2018 alone, the state spent nearly $1 billion on firefighting,
far exceeding the budget of $450 million.
The financial cost shouldered by homeowners is staggering as
well, with $10 billion in insured losses each year over the past two fire
seasons. The lingering air pollution causes local air districts to issue
warnings to wear masks and avoid outdoor exercise. Thousands of residents have
gone to the emergency room for respiratory illnesses, which can continue for
months and cause long-term damage to the most vulnerable segments of the
population.
PG&E "can tell you what to do and
you have to pay them money"
Growing outrage over PG&E role in
California fire disaster
Fires continued throughout California Tuesday, with hundreds of
thousands evacuated and many more without power. Calmer winds prevented the
most significant fires—the 75,000-acre Kincade fire north of San Francisco and
the smaller, but more urban, Getty fire in Los Angeles—from growing
substantially. At the time of this writing, officials warn that an intense rise
in winds Tuesday night and Wednesday could reverse this—leading to a resurgence
of the over fifteen fires currently burning, and potentially causing new ones.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is one of the
regional utility monopolies that dominate the state and extract billions of
dollars each year in profits. Along with Southern California Edison and San
Diego Gas & Electric, PG&E has been shutting off electricity to entire
regions of the state affecting some 3 million people.
The World
Socialist Website spoke to students and workers across the
state who are outraged by how regular these devastating fires have become.
Steve, a teacher from Santa Cruz , described how his
hometown had become a “ghost town,” There is “no work for most of us, no
traffic lights, no water, just darkness.” He asked, “Why do we have to pay for
the mistakes and lack of foresight on the part of PG&E? PG&E is a private
utility company and can tell you what to do and you have to pay them money.
There are no infrastructure modifications being done and considered.”
Jazmin, a graduate student at UC Berkeley, who is an expert on
PG&E negligence and was previously interviewed by
the WSWS, said, “At this time most of my family in the North Bay has been
displaced as homes are threatened by the fast-moving flames.” Preoccupied with
helping her family, she said, “I am not in a place to make an intellectual
argument as to why the electrical monopoly isn’t suited for handling our power
sources... I also think one isn’t needed. Just look at where we are and all of
the devastation their mismanagement has brought.”
Masha, a hotel worker from Mill Valley, told the WSWS, “Being
without power for a short period of time isn’t really the hard part. It’s more
the fact that you don’t know how long it will be. They say 24 to 48 hours but
then they need to check all the lines and that can take another 12 to 24 hours
apparently. They had a hard time checking the lines in time for the shut off
that started on Saturday because of the smoke, so that shut off was more like
65 hours. I know they tell you to prepare for several days and most people were
prepared physically but it’s more what it does with you mentally when you don’t
know when your life will be back to normal. It also didn’t help that their
website is never updated. I got all my updates from the local sheriff
department and even they had a hard time getting accurate and timely
information.”
“Personally, it’s scary,” she continued “our little one was
scared in the pitch black and it was hard to keep him warm at night. The hotel
I work at lost revenue for 3 full days that had been almost sold out. Not to
mention all the restaurants and super markets that had to toss all their
perishable foods.”
James, a retired teacher living in Berkeley, described how the power
cuts affected his family. “Our power went out on Saturday evening and was
restored on Monday at 4 PM. PG&E has warned that power will probably be cut
on Tuesday and not be restored for several days. Unlike nearly 200,000 people
further north, we did not have to evacuate, but the cut-off was disruptive. We
lost computer connections, internet, and e-mail, all of which hampered work.
News was harder to get. Loss of refrigeration meant all frozen food melted and
much other food in the refrigerator is questionable. The microwave oven,
washing machine, coffee maker, etc. did not work. Planning meals was suddenly a
lot more difficult than usual.”
He continued, “The unpredictability of when the next outage
comes and how long it will last, is disconcerting. If it is prolonged, we will
probably move in with relatives in unaffected areas, but there are no
guarantees. Compared to people who lost their homes or had to evacuate, we have
been much better off, but if, as PG&E is saying, this pattern of hard-to-predict
cut-offs will be the ‘new normal’ for the next ten years, thoughts of how to
deal with what is a systemic crisis are inescapable.”
Jamie, a writer from Alameda, expressed hostility to Democratic
Governor Gavin Newsom’s response. “He’s like a used Porsche salesman!” Jamie
connected the fire crisis to the broader social crisis. “The state is a mess.
There are so many people living in boxes. Tents, shanties, cars and RV’s. It’s
just amazingly sad. Feels like end times.”
The WSWS met Gemma, a Swiss immigrant at one of the refugee
centers in Los Angeles. Speaking about the power cuts she said, “at first I
thought ‘that’s smart,’ but really, that’s not smart! If you have to suddenly
leave because of a fire and your fridge is down your internet and your phone is
down, or not charged, you can’t bring food with you, you can’t contact people.
I think it should have been handled differently.
“In Europe they put all the cables underground. Maybe some
aren’t but the majority are underground... I think if they modernized,
seriously did something about it, it would have to be at the state level, not
just one company. That would change something I think."
The three main regional monopolies have been responsible for
over 2,000 wildfires in California since the state began requiring them to
report incidents in 2014. PG&E alone is responsible for over 1,500 fires,
including 16 major fires in 2017. Eleven of those sixteen were determined to
involve PG&E negligence.
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