no, not really accurate.. more outrage than details.
fifty years+ ago, PG&E operated an engineering marvel, built and managed by engineers with a mission and expanding economy post-WWII. Decisions were made with reliability in mind, great feats of large scale building were accomplished and made stable.
Then, things changed inside PG&E regarding upper management and their goals. Engineers retired or elbowed out by business-oriented Cxx level. The lure of continuous income coupled with a de-facto alignment with ultra-conservative political forces, castling up against the tides of 1970s-80s politics. Supervision by regulators was compromised repeatedly. Insider politics entered at all levels but not "the politicians" it was multi-stakeholder command and control making alliances and payoffs over time.
All of this was moving along as a juggernaut when de-regulation entered. Instead of a democratic market for competing providers, in came Enron. As genuine panic spread due to the first ever blackouts, legal actions were taken that drew back the curtain from the insider deals. PG&E management had found loopholes to use company money to buy out of state assets for profit. Cost-cutting ruled over safety (tree trimming, long haul line insulators).
After emergency maneuvers to regain the grid and Enron was rendered harmless, then some of the rant above applies, yes. Recent events (death and destruction) are out of the control of any faction or individual. New rate increases are evidence of Big State politics tied with Homeland Security and budget creep and a thousand other factors. With all that said, yes this is a political problem by definition, agree.
source: attorney on the Enron case for California; book Scorched Worth by Joel Engel; public news
fifty years+ ago, PG&E operated an engineering marvel, built and managed by engineers with a mission and expanding economy post-WWII. Decisions were made with reliability in mind, great feats of large scale building were accomplished and made stable.
Then, things changed inside PG&E regarding upper management and their goals. Engineers retired or elbowed out by business-oriented Cxx level. The lure of continuous income coupled with a de-facto alignment with ultra-conservative political forces, castling up against the tides of 1970s-80s politics. Supervision by regulators was compromised repeatedly. Insider politics entered at all levels but not "the politicians" it was multi-stakeholder command and control making alliances and payoffs over time.
All of this was moving along as a juggernaut when de-regulation entered. Instead of a democratic market for competing providers, in came Enron. As genuine panic spread due to the first ever blackouts, legal actions were taken that drew back the curtain from the insider deals. PG&E management had found loopholes to use company money to buy out of state assets for profit. Cost-cutting ruled over safety (tree trimming, long haul line insulators).
After emergency maneuvers to regain the grid and Enron was rendered harmless, then some of the rant above applies, yes. Recent events (death and destruction) are out of the control of any faction or individual. New rate increases are evidence of Big State politics tied with Homeland Security and budget creep and a thousand other factors. With all that said, yes this is a political problem by definition, agree.
source: attorney on the Enron case for California; book Scorched Worth by Joel Engel; public news