PG&E could be vulnerable for $400 million fine in new California PUC probe

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Pacific Gas & Electric on April 18 faced its first key deadline in a punitive state probe examining whether its record-keeping practices contributed to the San Bruno natural gas disaster and other pipeline hazards.

This broader record-keeping inquiry will consider whether the utility's missing or otherwise hard-to-locate records violated the law and hurt the safety of its vast network of gas pipelines.

If PG&E is found guilty, it could potentially be fined $400 million or more, according to a report on April 15 by Bernstein Research, which does detailed financial analysis of utilities.

"The fact that they knew so little about their gas transmission lines strikes many of us as a risk," said Paul Clanon, executive director of the California Public Utilities Commission, which launched the record-keeping investigation in February. Noting that the probe will likely take months to conclude, he added, "it will be a very litigated process. The potential fines could be very significant. PG&E will certainly put up a fight."

California state legislator blasts CPUC for 'culture of complacency'

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - Assemblyman Jerry Hill on Jan. 13 called on the California Public Utility Commission to do a better regulatory job and hold PG&E more accountable following the recent exposure of the utility's faulty record-keeping practices in the aftermath of the deadly Sept. 9 gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno.

At the beginning of the CPUC meeting in San Francisco, Hill, D-San Mateo, blasted the commission's three board members for what he called their "culture of complacency" in regulating Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s pipeline practices, which have come under intense scrutiny since the fire.

"It has become very clear that gas line inspections are not adequate. It took outside reports to shed light on the problem,"

Hill said in a two-minute statement before the commission. "I don't have confidence that this commission will do its job."

Hill's concerns were related to recent findings in the National Transportation Safety Board's ongoing investigation into the Crestmoor disaster that PG&E didn't know that Line 132, the section of pipeline that exploded, had a number of longitudinal welded seams in it - contrary to what the utility had previously reported.

California PUC faults PG&E in 2008 Rancho Cordova pipeline blast

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - State investigators have concluded that Pacific Gas & Electric Co. should have discovered a faulty repair job that led to a fatal gas-pipeline explosion near Sacramento two years ago, a finding that could result in fines against the utility.
The explosion on Christmas Eve 2008 outside a home in Rancho Cordova
(Sacramento County) killed a 72-year-old neighborhood resident.
Federal investigators later found that PG&E had installed substandard pipe in a 2006 repair job outside the home, and that it had sent out an untrained worker in response to a reported gas smell shortly before the explosion.
The worker failed to find the leak that later caused the explosion, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
On Nov. 19, the state Public Utilities Commission filed administrative charges against PG&E alleging that the utility discovered in October 2006 that substandard pipe had been used in a nearby repair in Sacramento.