….and on the Left Coast
Former California governor Brown entered into an illegal agreement with Quebec in 2013, which is currently under investigation by the DOJ.
Meantime, former guv Jerry Brown and the current guv Newsom are both blaming PG&E for the current wildfires which are sending residents fleeing.
PG&E has failed on line and equipment maintenance, which has contributed to the fires and the lack of underbrush control has fed them.
Aside from the squabbling and blame-gaming over fire season, the Quebec-CA agreement is a violation of the US Constitution, which should come down on TPTB in LaLaLand like an old building.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work"
And as soon as President Trump’s DoJ comes down on them I wonder how quickly they’ll screech again for Impeachment of him while we hear Commissar Zika Poodle bray that THAT will be the end of his Presidency?
Here in Florida they clear a wide path under the high tension lines.
In California the greens won’t allow them to cut such a huge swath through the forest.
Our electric company does a pretty good job of maintenance and preparation.
They replaced all the wooden poles with concrete after the last hurricane.
They have emergency plans with neighboring states to send lineman teams immediately after the storm.
The state mandated all gas stations have back up generators so gas can be pumped in the aftermath.
Another issue is that “deregulation” is in name only. The utilities are still required to go begging the CA PUC for the money they need for function and capital budgets via their rate case hearings.
State PUC says no, shit doesn’t get maintained properly or upgraded.
Couple that with the fact utilities in general are a much older workforce, and getting younger workers to become linemen, relay techs, Commissioning Engineers, etc., is getting harder, and you begin to see the issue.
But Sacramento, in their usual modus operandi of myopic shortsightedness, just shifts the blame to the most convenient target, and the sheeple lap it up.
They’re intentionally blaming PG&E. Making them the scapegoat in all this makes it easier for the state to come in and be the savior and just take over all the state’s electric companies. In lefty land, the government can fix all the world’s problems.
I’m surprised Newsom has the time to comment on these cases since he’s putting so much effort into pardoning convicted violent felons to prevent their deportation.
PG&E is bankrupt. Their stock has tanked on the market. They can’t afford “anything”.
And now, with high winds approaching, they’re going to intentionally shut off power to 2.5 million customers to avoid being blamed for another fire. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/10/26/california-faces-biggest-blackout-ever-as-2-5-million-pge-customers-may-have-no-power-for-days/
Strange world… very strange.
PG&E, SoCal Edison, and SDG&E all make significant “campaign” contributions to the democrats who run the shitshow in Sacramento. Despite claims of accountability, their top dogs are never held liable. Any fines they get are simply passed on to the customer via exhorbitantly jacked-up electric bills, from which Newsom et al take a cut off the top. It’s a nice little scam as far as they’re concerned. Meanwhile the consumer not only gets fucked on their monthly bill but also has to deal with the consequences of “safety” power outages that can go on for days.
Don’t get me started on the (lack of) infrastructure.
No offense meant, TOW, but the more I read about California’s inept and badly-out of step governance, the more I’m happy I live where I do now, far to the east of it.
One problem is that ‘they’ (the (D)unces who voted for that socialist system) are moving East.
Other states (including Arizona, Colorado, and Texas) are getting the spores from that fungus and they are trying to duplicate the rot in those states.
So now you’re comparing people who live in California to a fungus?
One of the things those of us who served in the military often learned is that individuals are usually best judged by what they do, how much you can depend on them, and not by where they’re from. But you wouldn’t know that.
If we’re going to play The Game of Stereotypes, here’s one: how many little boys have you diddled while being a Scout Master?
And before you trot out the excuse that you only meant the “(the (D)unces who voted for that socialist system),” this isn’t the first time you’ve made off-topic snarky comments about California including those that toss everyone in the state into the same bucket.
For what it’s worth, I’ve spent a few years living in Texas. My late mother’s people are from West Texas. So when you smugly claim “Californication” or a “fungus,” all that does is paint you as just another all-hat no-cattle Lone Star loudmouth who makes the rest of Texas look bad.
I’d say just the snowflake moonbat liberals, look at what they’ve done to the likes of Oregon, Washington and Colorado since they’ve infested those States!
That too. And don’t get me started on the CA munis like LADWP, SMUD, etc.
First they don’t allow the utility clear easements, then blame the utiliy when said non-cleared vegetation catches fire against the power lines. How many billion was PG&E fined? I am surprised yhey don’t shut the whole state down for a week.. or amonth.
PG&E donated $208,000 to Gavin Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign during the last election. It might be mentioned that former governor Gray Davis was recalled from office over similar issues of power cut-offs, although those were brought about by the Texas-based company Enron who was gaming prices on the energy grid. Once people start connecting the dots, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Newsom faces the same fate as Davis. Newsom and California AG Xavier Becerra can posture and preen all they want to about fighting the President, but voters in the state have shown they’ll wake up when their neighbors start dying due to power cuts. California has had wildfire problems going back many years. A lot of the fires have been in the southern part of the state and are the result of Santa Ana winds. PG&E does not provide service in that area. What’s somewhat new has been the increase in large fires in Northern California where PG&E does provide service. The fire season doesn’t last all year long. It usually starts in late summer until the first rain, which is typically in November. With a drought, the season is longer. What a lot of people outside the state don’t understand is that for every major California fire reported on national news media, there are hundreds of smaller fires caused by downed power lines that go largely unreported. There was one a couple of miles down the road from me two weeks ago that scorched 600 acres of hill and rangeland. The power was off for almost 18 hours. Suggesting that California electric companies follow Florida’s maintenance example is something of a non-starter. Aging power lines coming into California now routinely cross terrain where elevation changes can be measured in thousands of feet. The highest elevation in Florida is 300 feet. The increased use of power coming into California from out of state is also part of the problem. Why the California is buying power from other states, and not building its own power plants locally, is mostly because of a state mandated carbon-neutral environmental policy. Apparently the wizards… Read more »
Virtue signaling: Apparently the wizards in Sacramento find no irony in pushing off power-plant emissions onto other states.
If they weren’t so dumb, it might be funny, but what they do harms other people.
The power company bigwigs know how to buy politicians, that’s how they get away with shit. California brays about having wind power yet they shut the juice off when it gets windy!
Liberalism is truly a mental disorder.
All that solar house stuff? It feeds the grid, so when they shut off the mains, the solar also cuts out to your house “for safety”.
Yup.
Note that the mains to the cities will -not- be shut off. Some folks is more equal than others.
Anyone else seeing a very uncomfortable parallel between present-day California and the decline and fall of US industry in Atlas Shrugged?
Anyone else remembering how we mocked the DPRK because of those orbital photos of North and South Korea at night, where the DPRK is blacked out, and the ROK is brightly lit? The Norks were not glowing from wildfires in their blackouts.
The sane folks remaining in California better move soon to regain control of their government, or things are going to get very ugly very soon. It is impossible to maintain a modern technological society without a reliable power grid.
California -is- collapsing. Not “might”. Not “may”, not “could”.
-Is-
They might already be below the needed number of sane folks to reverse the process. Recent one-party-state changes to their electoral process may well guarantee no return to sanity. 2020 will be instructive. They will ensure the juice is mostly on through the election, to avoid the obvious political ad material for sanity. Major media may downplay the 2020 annual fire season to “help” (Orange Man Bad!). But after that election, back to the 18th Century.
Adding to the potential excitement, a handful of nutcases could badly disrupt what is left of the California grid. I am wondering how many of the current “induced by power line” fires are actually intentionally set.
How long before the blackouts reach the cities? Soon.