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Hold PG&E & the Monopolies Accountable

Why I believe this — and how I’ll fight for it.

For most of us, PG&E is the only option there is. And a company that knows you can’t leave has no reason to treat you right.

I know what an unaffordable utility bill does to a family. I grew up bargaining with my mom over how high we could turn the thermostat before the bill got out of reach — some winter nights I just piled on two sweatshirts and went to bed cold. No family should have to choose between staying warm and staying afloat, and PG&E makes that choice harder every year.

The line workers who climb poles in a windstorm and the crews who show up after a fire are our neighbors, and they do dangerous work well. This is about the executives who have collected hundreds of millions in pay and bonuses while our communities burned — not the people out there trying to keep those communities safe.

PG&E didn’t earn its position by being good. It built a monopoly over a century and protects it the only way a monopoly can — bankrolling the politicians who appoint its regulators and the lawmakers who could break it up. And it’s guaranteed a profit on everything it spends, so the more it spends, the more it makes — reaching for the priciest fix over the safest one. Call it what it is: a protection racket with a utility bill attached.

And look what that buys them. Their equipment torched our own communities — the 2017 Wine Country fires, the 2019 Kincade Fire — and for the Camp Fire, PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter. 84. The checks to its executives never stopped.

And nothing changes, because the people who could stop it are paid not to. No one in Congress — anywhere in America — has taken more PG&E money than our own congressman, Mike Thompson: nearly $93,000, every cycle since 1998. He took it after San Bruno killed eight people, after their equipment burned Napa, Sonoma, and Lake — and in the very cycle PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter, he took $10,000 more. That’s not someone who’ll hold PG&E accountable. That’s someone PG&E already bought. Watching the people meant to protect us get bought — by PG&E, by Big Pharma, by the insurers — is a big part of why I’m running.

But none of this is permanent. A monopoly is only as strong as the politicians shielding it — and they answer to voters. Send someone to Washington who owes PG&E nothing, and the rigged deal starts to crack. That fight is winnable.

Here’s what I’ll do — and why

Bring in a federal referee PG&E can’t buy. PG&E has Sacramento wired — but federal regulators like FERC already set the returns PG&E earns on transmission, which gives Washington real leverage over this company today. And being a regulated utility is not a license to break antitrust law or gouge customers — that is squarely the business of the Justice Department and the FTC. CPUC proceedings are rife with abuse and misconduct that goes well beyond what local and state regulators will touch. Don’t let a PG&E-funded politician tell you nothing can be done. That’s a lie. A watchdog in Washington is a lot harder for PG&E to put on its payroll than the ones back home.

Write the accountability into federal law. Congress sets the floor for the agencies that oversee this industry, and it can raise it. I’d author and fight for national standards that hold every utility monopoly to hard rules on wildfire safety and reliability — and that make executives personally liable, in their wallets and in court, when their negligence kills people. No more felonies followed by bonuses.

Fund the alternatives — give people a real way out. A monopoly only changes when it can actually lose customers. I’d expand federal financing and support for municipal utilities and rural cooperatives, so communities that want to leave PG&E — like Yolo County once tried to — finally have a funded path to public power instead of a rigged fight.

Use Congress’s oversight and antitrust power. Subpoenas, hearings, real investigations — and pressing the Justice Department and Congress to treat an entrenched, abusive monopoly like the antitrust problem it is. That’s pressure a bought congressman will never bring.

End the ratepayer-funded bailouts. When PG&E’s negligence burns down a town, the families who lost everything shouldn’t get handed the bill. Your tax dollars and your utility payments are not PG&E’s insurance policy — its shareholders and executives, not you, should carry the cost of its failures.

Reward safety, not spending. Right now PG&E profits more the more it spends, so it reaches for the priciest fix over the smartest one. I’d fight to flip that — reward what actually keeps people safe per dollar, and put CalFire and independent experts in charge of prevention instead of a monopoly with a reason to overspend.

What this means for Our District

In 2006, Yolo County voters got a rare shot at firing PG&E — bringing in the publicly owned SMUD for 77,000 homes and businesses. PG&E spent $12.6 million on misleading ads to kill it, and won. That’s what a monopoly does when it’s threatened: it doesn’t compete, it spends whatever it takes so you never get the choice. The power to break that grip sits in Washington — and for nearly 30 years, the person holding it has been on PG&E’s payroll. I won’t be.

The bottom line

A utility is a public trust, not a private ATM — and it doesn’t have to be this way. Picture a Northern California where your power bill isn’t a source of dread, where fire season doesn’t mean blackouts and bankruptcies, where the company that keeps your lights on actually answers to you. That’s what happens when our leaders work for us instead of the monopoly. End the bailouts, open the door to real alternatives, put safety over profit, and we hand our kids a safer, more affordable place to call home. That’s the future I’m fighting for.

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