California Energy History

  • 1906: Pacific Gas and Electric is formed using legal and technical resources from JP Morgan and John D Rockefeller;
  • 1906: After the quake, where some blamed PG&E's gas lines for the city's burning, citizens went after Abe Ruef and his lobbying tactics for the utility company;
  • 1920 Federal Energy Act passes. The national campaign to stop corruption by huge corporate utilities and railroad companies is cut short as the law allows private companies to build hydro dams on public property. The compromise is that the license for the dams will go up for open bidding at the end of 50 years.
  • 1922 PG&E and SoCal Edison form the Greater California League, using free publicity from most the states corporations to stop a state-wide initiative calling for the municipalization of electrcity. The company utilizes red-bating as primary tactic to scare San Franciscans away from municipalization.
  • June 2nd 1925: John Raker, author of the 1913 Raker act is on the cover of the S.F. Examiner stating that the city was violating the letter and spirit of his law, which was set up to start a municipally owned power system in San Francisco.
  • June 1925: The National Electric Light Association holds its national convention in San Francisco, creating a 3 ring circus on the miracles of electricity. The last day of the massive promotional campaign, the city votes to give Hetch Hetchy to PG&E. The S.F. Examiner calls the event a disaster!
  • 1940: After years of legal fighting the case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court. San Francisco and PG&E lose the case, but refuses to do anything.
  • 1942: Hetch Hetcy system is taken over by the federal government to produce power for the wartime effort.
  • 1945: PG&E gets conservative Cronies in congress to help them steal all the electricity from Central Valley Power (CVP) project's two major dams (Shasta and Friant), by cutting the funding for powerlines (same tactic used at Hetch Hetchy). This nearly kills cooperative municipal districts all over northern California.
  • 1945: The city comes up with a workaround on Hetch Hetchy, using the legal slip of the Raker Act, where the word municipal in the act was not fully defined. Allowing the city to use the power for municipal purposes, like city lighting, rather than starting its own municipal power system.
  • 1954: PG&E takes a lead role in the Atoms for Peace campaign with involvement in construction of some of the first nuclear power plants in the U.S.
  • 1955: PG&E consolidates its control over electricity from the CVP project which had been billed to be on the same scale as TVA and Bonneville.
  • 1958: PG&E announces plans to build 4 large nuclear power plants near the epi-center of the 1906 earthquake, in the Bodega Headlands.
  • 1963: After a massive battle between rank and file Sierra Club activists and others, PG&E gives up on its plans to build the facilities, leaving a $7 million duck pond behind.
  • 1963: PG&E goes to the president of the Sierra Club and sets up a secret plan to remove Sierra Club from opposing future nuclear power plants in the state.
  • 1965:Sierra Club agrees to allow PG&E to build reactors at Diablo Canyon, the state's second to last wilderness area, a proposed state park, sacred native america area and home to the worlds' largest Oak trees.
  • 197?: PG&E announces plans to build over 60 nuclear power plants in Northern California.
  • 1973: Investigative reporter discovers that there is a fault line near Diablo Canyon, likely the same fault that destroyed the area in a major 1927 earthquake.
  • 1974: 10,000 Abalone are killed the first time PG&E flushes hot water, filled with polutants through its piping system at Diablo Canyon.
  • 1975: The state's utilities pass a counter measure in the state legislature a week before a close vote over permanently banning nuclear power construction in California.
  • 1975: the Nuclear Regulatory Agency orders PG&E to redesign the Diablo Canyon reactors to handle a greater earthquake.
  • 197?: PG&E fights consumer campaign for low-income lifeline rates all the way to the bitter end, then turns around and claims its a good idea after failing to stop the program.
  • 1981: As PG&E is applying to start operation at Diablo Canyon the Abalone Alliance holds 2 weeks of protests at the gates to the facility. During the protest, a new engineer discloses that the utility has built the seismic bracing backwards.
  • 1982: First use of a SLAPP suit is initiated by allies of PG&E in an attempt to kill opposition to the utility.
  • 1983: PG&E takes the 1975 law it put in place to the U.S. Supreme court in an attempt to continue on with its plans to build nuclear power plants across the state. The Court rules against the company. The company pressures the state public utilities Commission to get ratepayers to cover the costs of all its lost projects.
  • 1983: PG&E is unable to obtain further financing anywhere in the world in it attempt to rebuild the Diablo Power plants for a 3rd time. President Ronald Reagan gives PG&E a $2.7 billion loan from the Environmental Protection AGency funds, to allow the facility to be rebuilt again.
  • 1984: As nearly 80 dams in the state come up for relicensing from the 1920 Federal Power Act, PG&E and allies create a national campaign to sucessfully kill the original law, blocking public options on the dams.
  • 1985: PG&E is illegally allowed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to start operating Diablo Canyon. The NRC transcripts of the illegal action are released to a local TV station causing a major uproar and additional hearings in Washington D.C.
  • 1985: The state of California spends $6 million to investigate the Diablo Canyon controversy and to make sure that ratpepayers don't pay for PG&E's mistakes.
  • 1986: PG&E takes the newly formed Citizen's Utility Board campaign's victory, allowing access to the company's bills to send information to ratepayers, to the U.S. Supreme Court and succeeds at killing the program and similar ones across the country.
  • 1988: The state compromises its 3 year investigation of Diablo Canyon and gives the utility a $54 billion rate deal for operating the reactors, which include a 50% rate increase for the utiltity over the next 5 years.
  • 1994: with rates the highest in the nation, as a result of the Diablo Canyon rate decision, state manufactures call for deregulation or the right to buy power directly from other sources.
  • 1994: So Cal Edison and PG&E succeed in getting the Federal Electric Regulatory Commission to kill the state's new round of independent power production, setting the stage for the state's energy crisis.
  • 1996: AB1890 is rammed through the state legislature by key industry allies and governor Wilson. Opposition from consumers groups was stymied gaining compromises from moderate environmental groups rather than than the consumer based organizations. Wilson gets the deal only if the utilities are given $28 billion for their stranded costs in their nuclear power plants and the hated renewable energy programs.
  • 1998: Consumers attempt to stop the massive $28 billion stranded costs boondoggle but fail when the utilities spend $40 million in a massive TV advertising campaign that threatens the ratepayers with false claims.
  • 2000: San Diego gets the first wave of deregulation's impacts with electric bills going throught the ceiling.

    This page is still under construction: April 26th, 2001