Editorial: Indict PG&E

Kamala Harris is in a perfect position as the San Francisco D.A. to file charges against PG&E for violating state law

EDITORIAL When Carole Migden, then a state senator, introduced the bill that allowed cities to form electricity co-ops through community choice aggregation in 2002, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. was at the table. Migden didn't kick PG&E out or deny the private utility its chance to have input on the bill — for better or for worse, according to all participants, PG&E was part of the process that led to the bill's passage. And in the end, the company actually supported the measure.

But now that cities and counties are trying to implement it, PG&E has shifted position and is spending millions on a statewide initiative that would, for all intents and purposes, destroy CCA. The initiative would mandate a two-thirds vote in every community before any public power effort, including CCA, could take effect. That's an almost impossible threshold — particularly when PG&E will be opposing every single proposal and using its almost unlimited resources to do so.

In fact, the company's CEO, Peter Darbee, has said, publicly in a conference call with financial and stock analysts, that the goal of the initiative is to cut off any future public power campaigns at the knees.

The hypocrisy is, of course, epic — and as State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), Sen. Mark Leno (D-SF), and six other senators pointed out in a Dec. 22 letter to Darbee — it undermines PG&E’s credibility in Sacramento. The harshly-worded letter urges the company to back off and withdraw the initiative.

But there's more than bad behavior going on here, and the Steinberg letter hints at it. The Migden legislation bars private utilities from making any effort to interfere with community aggregation efforts. And funding a ballot measure that has as its acknowledged intent the destruction of future CCA efforts is about as clear a case of interference as we could imagine.

And the last time we checked, intentionally violating a state law was a crime.

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera has filed a petition with the California Public Utilities Commission asking for tighter rules against PG&E interference with CCA measures. Sup. Ross Mirkarimi is working with other local jurisdictions to mount a political campaign against the measure.

Those are good steps — and now that just about everyone agrees the initiative has enough signatures and could qualify for the June ballot, Herrera needs to ramp up his efforts and prepare for a lawsuit.

But the legal efforts shouldn't stop there. If PG&E is violating state law by interfering with CCA efforts, Attorney General (and candidate for governor) Jerry Brown should open an immediate investigation, with the goal of filing criminal charges against both the company and its top executives. Brown has a very checkered history with PG&E — he opposed the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in the 1970s, but since then has failed to support public power or take on PG&E on any high-profile cases. If he wants to be taken seriously as a gubernatorial candidate, he can't duck this one.

And whatever Brown does, San Francisco district attorney Kamala Harris — the top prosecutor in the town where PG&E has its headquarters, a town with a federal public power mandate, where PG&E has operated illegally for almost a century — ought to be investigating too. Harris wants to move up in the political world — she's campaigning for Brown's job. And we haven't heard a word from her about the PG&E initiative.

That needs to change. Harris is in a perfect position as the San Francisco D.A. to file charges against PG&E for violating state law. At the very least, she should ask the criminal grand jury to investigate whether Darbee and his company have conspired to violate a law they knew about and once claimed to support.