Pacific Gas & Electric, the nation’s largest utility, has agreed to pay more than $55 million to avoid criminal prosecution for two major wildfires sparked by its aging Northern Californi…
SAN FRANCISCO — Pacific Gas & Electric, the nation’s largest utility, has agreed to pay more than $55 million to avoid criminal prosecution for two major wildfires sparked by its aging Northern California power lines and submit to five years of oversight in an attempt to prevent more deadly blazes.
The deal also thrusts the utility back into five years of independent oversight, similar to the supervision PG&E faced during its criminal probation after it was convicted of misconduct that contributed to a natural gas explosion that killed eight people in 2010. All told, PG&E has been blamed for more than 30 wildfires since 2017 that wiped out more than 23,000 homes and businesses and killed more than 100 people.
PG&E will have to underwrite the federal monitor’s costs, up to $15 million annually, in addition to the $55 million in other payments and penalties that the utility expects to incur in the settlement. Prosecutors in the other five counties were exploring criminal charges in last year’s Dixie Fire before cutting the deal that they said will result in far larger payouts than had they hauled PG&E into court. Because there were no deaths in the Dixie Fire, prosecutors said the utility would have paid a maximum penalty of about $330,000 if it had been found guilty in a criminal case.
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