Opinion: Why the state is stuck with utility giant
Not everyone is happy with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s sudden conversion to nuclear power advocate. Newsom has reversed his long opposition to keeping the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant open and now proposes to support the PG&E-owned facility with a $1.4 billion “forgivable” loan from California taxpayers.
In 2016, PG&E reached a complicated agreement with environmentalists and employee unions to close the plant’s reactors by 2025. The deal had the blessing of state utility regulators, then-Governor Jerry Brown and Newsom, lieutenant governor at the time. Newsom now wants the legislature to approve his last-minute plan to keep Diablo Canyon open past 2025, which would require legislative action before the session ends at the stroke of midnight on September 1.
This puts Pacific Gas & Electric in an excellent negotiating position with the state despite all its past troubles. In 2020, the company pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the 2018 Camp fire that destroyed the town of Paradise. Over $30 billion in liability from that fire and others led the company to file for bankruptcy protection in January 2019.
PG&E holds all the cards here as the owner of a nuclear power plant that currently provides more than 9% of the state’s electricity. The company has not yet applied for a new operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to keep the plant open beyond its scheduled closure date.
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