Pacific Gas and Electric Company announced the departure of its chief executive Sunday as it remained besieged by a financial crisis related to California’s historic wildfires.
PG&E said the company had initiated a search to replace the top official, Geisha Williams, who had led the utility since 2017. It said John Simon, the company’s general counsel, would serve as interim chief executive during the search.
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PG&E, the state’s largest investor-owned utility, faces an estimated $30 billion exposure to liability for damages from the 2017 and 2018 wildfires that killed scores in Northern California. The sum would exceed its insurance and assets, raising concern in the state capital about the utility’s future.
The billions in potential costs have prompted a series of downgrades in PG&E’s ratings, including decisions last week by Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings to downgrade the utility’s bonds to junk.
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Fire investigators determined that PG&E’s equipment was responsible for at least 18 of 21 major fires in 2017 as well as fires in 2018. Some of the fires have been attributed to power lines’ coming into contact with trees, which critics have said is a result of the utility’s failure to trim the trees.
Rats — Sinking Ship — PG&E
I’m not sure if it’s an attempt to get the hell out of dodge, of if they decided that the woman made a good scapegoat, but t PG&E’s CEO Geisha Williams has left the building:
Last time around, with the support of then-governor Jerry Brown, the state legislature bailed them out.
I think that the political climate regarding the much-reviled utility are different now, and the new governor, Gavin Newsom, is far less of a corporate stooge than Jerry Brown is.
On the theory that a crisis is frequently also an opportunity, I would strongly suggest that someone looks a making significant portions of PG&E state owned.