To the editor: In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom handed AB 1054 to bail out Pacific Gasoline & Electrical from paying damages for the Camp hearth (“Wildfire victims decry state legislation defending utilities from price of disasters they trigger,” Jan. 16). In 2025, Newsom snuck language into SB 254 to bail out Southern California Edison for the Eaton hearth. Now, working Californians are paying billions of {dollars} to cowl the price of fires that these personal “public” utilities precipitated or might need precipitated.
The executives of SoCal Edison and PG&E care solely about maximizing income at each flip. We won’t survive local weather disasters if this method continues. That utilities are commodities bought on the personal market and never a human proper is precisely why we’re on this state of affairs within the first place.
Politicians like Newsom advocate for personal markets that depend on “competitors” to maintain prices low. However when these billion-dollar industries fail by means of their very own dangerous, exploitative practices, they obtain a bailout.
If Newsom truly believes in free market competitors as a gold commonplace for decreasing prices, then why is he bailing out PG&E and SoCal Edison? An organization that wants fixed stabilization and mandated influxes of money from customers is just not actually competing freely in any respect.
As local weather change progresses, disasters turn into extra probably for all of us. We want utilities; we don’t want utility corporations. If Californians need to survive a warming local weather, we should set up public utilities so that everybody can have their wants met, and we are able to shield ourselves and our planet from future disasters.
Eduardo “Lalo” Vargas, Alhambra
