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PG&E may face $1-million fine over improper contact with PUC

Commissioner Carla J. Peterman, photographed at the Metropolitan Water District board room in May 2014, has proposed a $1.05-million fine over PG&E's improper contact with the California Public Utilities Commission.
Commissioner Carla J. Peterman, photographed at the Metropolitan Water District board room in May 2014, has proposed a $1.05-million fine over PG&E’s improper contact with the California Public Utilities Commission.
(Cheryl A. Guerrero / Los Angeles Times)
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San Francisco utility Pacific Gas & Electric may face a $1-million fine for a series of improper and unreported communications with state regulators.

The fine is among a series of penalties proposed Thursday by an administrative law judge for the California Public Utilities Commission and a PUC commissioner after an investigation ordered by the commission in mid-September. The PUC acted after PG&E released a batch of emails and other documents showing numerous contacts between the utility and the commission.

State law requires utilities with business before the PUC to file notices every time they contact the commission, so that other parties in the case are made aware of what is being discussed outside a formal legal proceeding.

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Many of the previously undisclosed communications were related to the selection of administrative law judges on a natural gas rate case, PG&E said last month. After the disclosures, the company announced that it had fired three executives.

PG&E more recently released even more emails to PUC officials that it acknowledged were improper. The company also confirmed that federal prosecutors told them that the emails were the subject of an investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco. The state attorney general’s office also is reportedly investigating.

PG&E spokesman Keith Stephens said his company is “committed to following the rules.”

The proposed $1.05-million fine was recommended Thursday by PUC Commissioner Carla J. Peterman. Her alternative decision also would prohibit PG&E officials from making any personal contacts with PUC commissioners or top staff for at least one year, except at public meetings.

The proposal — along with a similar one by a PUC judge that contains no fine — is scheduled for a Nov. 20 commission debate and vote.

PUC President Michael Peevey last month removed himself from proceedings over a 2010 natural gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people, injured 66 and leveled much of a residential neighborhood in the San Francisco Bay Area city of San Bruno. Peevey also indicated that he would not seek a new term as commission president when his term ends in December.

This week another PUC commissioner, Michael Florio, took himself off the San Bruno case.

The PUC is considering levying a proposed $1.4-billion fine against PG&E. A federal grand jury, meanwhile, handed down a criminal indictment charging the company with negligence and obstruction of justice in connection with the San Bruno pipeline blast.

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A leading critic of PG&E and the PUC, state Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo), said he found it “troubling” that the PUC is directing all the blame at the company and not at itself.

“It takes two to communicate,” Hill said. In some cases, he said, PUC staff “created the environment” that fostered the unreported emails and conversations.

San Bruno City Manager Connie Jackson dismissed the proposed fine as “a slap on the wrist.”

marc.lifsher@latimes.com

Twitter: @MarcLifsher

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