California’s three large investor-owned utilities are renewing efforts to allow them to make ratepayers cover the costs of wildfires that authorities blame on utilities’ mistakes or poor maintenance.

Pacific Gas & Electric officials made this clear last week when they announced they expected to have at least $2.5 billion in liabilities from the wildfires that scarred the wine country of Northern California last October. That sum is only for 12 relatively small blazes that the state blames on PG&E’s failure to maintain equipment and clear brush near power lines. Authorities are still looking at what caused the biggest blaze – the Tubbs fire – which torched more than 3,000 homes in Sonoma County and is blamed in the deaths of 22 people.

PG&E CEO-President Geisha Williams used a conference call with analysts to make the case for state legislation to protect electricity utilities from bankruptcy in an era in which huge wildfires – blamed on hotter, drier weather – are more common than ever. PG&E only has an estimated $840 million in insurance coverage to deal with the 200 and counting lawsuits from the wine country conflagrations.

Williams said “flawed” state laws made utilities responsible for fire risks that were beyond their control. But in a decision-making process that began last summer – before the wine country blazes – and ended after they were finally put out, the California Public Utilities Commission rejected a similar argument put forward by San Diego Gas & Electric. In August, CPUC staff recommended that commissioners reject an SDG&E request to pass along to ratepayers $379 million in unrecovered costs from 2007 wildfires that ravaged San Diego County. After three months of wavering, the CPUC board voted unanimously in late November to deny the request.

Williams said negative media coverage of the October fires complicated utilities’ efforts to get help from the California Legislature. But some utility watchdogs are still wary of state lawmakers, whom they see as sending out mixed signals on wildfire liabilities.

On the one hand, the state Senate voted 39-0 in May and an Assembly committee voted 15-0 last week for Senate Bill 819. It would ban the CPUC from allowing utilities to pass along to ratepayers the costs of fines or penalties as well as the cost of damages that were “caused” by a utility’s infrastructure. Only costs the CPUC deems “just and reasonable” can be shifted from shareholders to ratepayers under the legislation. PG&E and Southern California Edison expressed “concerns” about the bill without formally opposing it, according to a legislative analysis.

Benign bill pushing responsibility – or stealth bailout?

But another bill that had similarly lopsided support in the Senate is drawing a very mixed response. Senate Bill 1088 passed the Senate 34-2 in late May and survived an Assembly committee vote last week with eight lawmakers in support, two in opposition and five declining to vote.

It would require utilities “to submit a safety, reliability and resiliency plan to the California Public Utilities Commission every two years.” It would also require the state Office of Emergency Services “to adopt standards for reducing risks from a major event and requires the office to update the standards at least once every two years.”

Supporters – including PG&E, SDG&E, labor unions and some counties hit hard by last year’s blazes – depict the measure as a benign attempt to make sure utilities are prepared to handle their responsibilities.

But critics see the language requiring the state to regularly “update” how it evaluates risks posed by the biggest blazes as potentially giving legal ammunition to the utilities – specifically, to their arguments that emerging, more dangerous conditions should change what costs can be shifted on a “fair and reasonable” basis to ratepayers.

Formal opponents of SB1088 include groups which have standing to challenge utilities’ proposed rate hikes (The Utility Reform Network and the Office of Ratepayer Advocates); business interests (the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, the Western States Petroleum Association and farm groups); and green activists (most notably the California Environmental Justice Alliance).

Pacific Gas & Electric and its shareholders could face a huge financial blow from this month’s massive wildfires in the wine country of Northern California – unless they can get the state Public Utilities Commission to overturn a recent precedent-setting ruling made by its staff involving disastrous wildfires in 2007 in San Diego County. The PUC apparently is taking the request seriously, putting off a decision on whether to uphold the ruling.

The Bay Area News Group reported on Oct. 10 that Sonoma County fire dispatchers received many calls about downed PG&E power lines and exploding electrical transformers the night of Oct. 8, when fast-spreading fires began that eventually killed 42 people, incinerated nearly 9,000 structures and burned more than 245,000 acres. Cal Fire and the PUC are investigating whether PG&E is partly or entirely responsible for the inferno because it failed to trim trees near power lines, as is required by state law.

Now the Bay Area News Group is reporting that PG&E officials are pleading with the PUC to be able to shift the cost of such disasters to ratepayers even if a utility is to blame. PG&E faces billions of dollars in claims from this month’s fires but says it only has $800 million in insurance.

A PG&E official told PUC staffers that the state’s three giant investor-owned utilities – PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric – have been put in an “untenable situation” because of growing wildfire risks and a tough insurance market.

PUC judges said SDG&E couldn’t escape $379 million in wildfire costs

But two months ago, two PUC administrative law judges – S. Pat Tsen and Sasha Goldberg – rejected a request for $379 million in relief from SDG&E in a case with parallels to PG&E’s situation. The ruling dealt with three 2007 fires in San Diego County that killed two people, destroyed 1,300-plus homes and charred more than 206,000 acres.

Based on evidence gathered by Cal Fire and PUC investigators, the judges concluded that SDG&E was responsible for the fires because of failure to do adequate tree trimming near a power line and because of slow responses to equipment malfunctions. The judges also rejected claims that excessive winds that couldn’t have been expected were responsible – a claim PG&E is making about this month’s fires despite evidence to the contrary.

Because of these circumstances, the judges said it would be improper to ask SDG&E ratepayers to cover the $379 million in costs that the utility had to pay after settling billions of dollars in claims and getting reimbursed by its insurers.

Suggesting it might have some sympathy for both PG&E and SDG&E, the PUC on Thursday again put off a vote on whether to ratify the administrative law judges’ decision.

PG&E’s call to let it shift disaster costs to ratepayers was immediately slammed by consumer groups – and not just because they saw this as the utility trying to duck responsibility for this month’s massive fire. They warned it would lead the state’s three large utilities to cut back on wildfire safety efforts, knowing they wouldn’t be held responsible for their lax efforts.

Fears that PG&E already does an inadequate job were bolstered Tuesday by the San Francisco Chronicle’s report that over a recent five-year span, PG&E missed the deadlines to complete more than 3,500 work orders in Sonoma County, many of which were safety-related.

With roots dating back to 1852, PG&E is an iconic California company that has endured its share of hard times, including going into Chapter 11 bankruptcy from 2001-2004 because of huge losses during the 2000-2001 state energy crisis.

But 2017 is shaping up as the 112-year-old utility’s most fraught year ever. On Jan. 26, a federal judge found PG&E guilty of five felonies for its failings in preventing a 2010 explosion of its gas line in San Bruno, a suburb of San Francisco, and a sixth felony for obstructing the National Transportation Safety Board’s official inquiry into the disaster. Judge Thelton Henderson leveled the maximum fine possible of $3 million.

Eight people were killed and 38 homes were destroyed in the San Bruno explosion and fire, which led to a record $1.6 billion PUC fine in 2015.