SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The Biden administration is approving an eye-watering $15 billion loan to utility Pacific Gas & Electric Company, or PG&E, raising troubling questions about who’ll pay for it and whether the company’s already overcharged 16 million ratepayers will be on the hook.
PG&E says the low-interest loan, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, will support grid upgrades and clean energy programs, ultimately benefiting Californians – but it doesn’t detail how. And it’s hard to take the utility’s claims at face value, given its history of offloading costs to captive customers through repeated rate hikes, including at least three this year alone.
These rate hikes, and years of other questionable spending and planning decisions by PG&E and tracked by EWG, suggest that these promised benefits will come at a steep price.
“The loan’s low-interest rate may offer temporary relief for PG&E, but the long-term consequences for ratepayers could mean higher bills, more financial strain, and an ever-growing reliance on taxpayer funds to prop up this struggling monopoly utility,” said EWG President and Bay Area resident Ken Cook.
“This loan is less a solution for California’s energy future and more a bailout for PG&E,” said Cook. “Given the company’s disastrous track record of corruption and mismanagement, it’s hard to see how this federal loan will do anything but impose even greater financial hardship on millions of struggling ratepayers who can least afford it. Somebody must repay it, and it certainly won’t be the company’s shareholders or executives.”
###
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) 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.
.jpg?h=2e181f1f&itok=l3NX_-c7)