PG&E is no choice
 	 		 		
PG&E is no choice | October 24, 2001 | SFBG News
 						 						
TO THE SURPRISE of almost nobody, the San Francisco Chronicle 
made official on its editorial page Oct. 21 what its news 
coverage has shown for months: the paper (which has almost always 
supported Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s private monopoly) 
endorsed against the municipal utility district initiative, 
Measure I, and the water and power authority initiative, 
Proposition F. But even the Chron was forced to admit that public 
power might not be such a bad idea – and the paper's arguments 
against F and I were so flawed and inaccurate that it's hard to 
take the editorial seriously.
 						
The Chron argues, in essence, that the problem with the two 
public power measures is that there's no financial proof that 
they'll work. In fact, there's plenty of proof: Not only does 
public power work in cities all over California, but also we've 
done a very conservative analysis ourselves, and the numbers work 
just fine (see "MUD Money," 10/10/01). Besides – and this is key 
– a public power agency could never buy out PG without detailed 
financial projections; the bond brokers on Wall Street would 
demand it.
 						
But the fatal flaw of the Chron's analysis – along with all of 
the PG campaign lies – is that it somehow assumes that PG is 
doing a credible job right now, that the choice is between a 
working system and an unproved one. As Paul Fenn notes in the 
op-ed on this page, that's not the case at all. PG's system is in 
collapse, the company is in bankruptcy – and its assets are going 
to be sold off shortly. If the city doesn't take over, some 
out-of-state energy company will buy out the local system, and 
San Francisco will face huge rate hikes, unreliable service, and 
an inaccessible, unaccountable corporate owner that owes and 
offers nothing to the community. (In fact, the Sacramento Bee, a 
paper that has covered its public power district for years, 
editorialized in favor of forming an S.F. MUD Oct. 21.)
 						
Meanwhile, as Rachel Brahinsky reports on page 17, PG's Hunters 
Point power plant has been causing serious health problems. For 
years the aging plant has been belching hundreds of tons of 
nitrogen oxide (which has been linked to respiratory problems), 
dust, and soot out of its smokestack. It's not a coincidence, 
health authorities say, that the surrounding neighborhoods have 
alarmingly high rates of asthma and other illnesses.
 						
Only a public power agency, accountable to the voters, will do 
what desperately needs to be done: shut the plant down, now, and 
quit poisoning the people of Bayview-Hunters Point.
 						
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