***REGISTER TODAY TO JOIN JUNE 16TH BRIEFING***
SAN FRANCISCO – Pacific Gas & Electric, the monopoly California utility with a long and sordid history of wasteful spending, fleecing ratepayers, hindering clean energy equity and rampant negligence that has destroyed homes and lives, is in desperate need of reform.
That’s the urgent plea leading clean energy advocates, including former California Public Utilities Commission President Loretta Lynch and Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook, will make during a June 16, 2022, media briefing at 10 a.m. PST.
They will highlight an exclusive, in-depth four-part investigative series by EWG’s top energy policy advisor, Grant Smith, that details PG&E’s decades of haphazard energy planning and spending, and the dangerous – even deadly – consequences of regulators allowing business to continue as normal. PG&E’s business model is to blame, and the experts will provide a roadmap for positive change.
At a time of soaring energy bills, fights over clean energy and budget uncertainties, the briefing will ignite debate. The goal is to fundamentally change PG&E with a plan that could help lower energy bills, promote clean energy and fight the climate crisis.
Briefing information, speaker biographies and EWG report embargo details follow.
Speaker biographies for the briefing
Loretta Lynch, former CPUC president from 2000 to 2002 and commissioner until 2005. Lynch was an early critic of California’s energy deregulation polices, which led to the Enron scandal. At the CPUC and after, she’s been a vocal advocate of protecting ratepayers and fighting corruption at the state’s monopoly utilities.
Bill Powers, P.E., nationally recognized leader in the fields of energy and environmental engineering, air emissions control and regional energy planning. He is the principal of Powers Engineering, a consulting firm.
Grant Smith, senior energy policy advisor for EWG, who began his career in consumer advocacy and environmental protection in the early 1980s at the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana. He has also worked for the Civil Society Institute, in Massachusetts, and is an invaluable resource for the media.
Ken Cook, president and co-founder of EWG and a resident of the Bay Area. Cook is a frequent critic of the investor-owned electric utility model. Through EWG, he is actively working to block plans by PG&E in California, and Duke Energy in North Carolina, that would quash the states’ popular rooftop solar programs.
Background information on EWG’s PG&E report
During the briefing, Smith will discuss his four-part report on PG&E, “Power and Profit: How PG&E Fails California Ratepayers and What To Do About It.”
The in-depth analysis breaks down how the utility has gouged its captive customers, stymied clean energy investments and profited off millions of hard-working Californians while its captured regulators at the CPUC have failed to force PG&E to change. It is comprehensive and forward-looking, offering an achievable plan for reform.
The sections of EWG’s report are:
- PG&E’s history of flawed energy investments
- How PG&E uses its monopoly control to boost profits on the backs of ratepayers
- PG&E’s history of reaping billions in rate and taxpayer bailouts to recoup the costs of misguided power planning and wildfire destruction
- An equitable clean energy plan to overhaul PG&E’s business model
WHEN: June 16, 2022, @ 10:00am PST
Register in advance at the link below for this briefing:
https://abondevent.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_e8yAaZRnRTuE4V46KGjWPg
Note: EWG can provide reporters with the four-part analysis today under a strict embargo that lifts after the media briefing. Please contact Alex Formuzis or Iris Myers to get access to the report.
Alex Formuzis – [email protected], 202.617.1740
Iris Myers – [email protected], 202.667.6982
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The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.
