With much fanfare and no less hand-wringing, state regulators approved plans that for the first time set out how California’s electric utilities intend to prevent their equipment from sparking wildfires.
But the plans provide scant details, and little evidence to support the companies’ claims that indiscriminately clear-cutting millions of trees and replacing hundreds of thousands of wooden utility poles with steel ones will actually reduce the risk of wildfires.
Further, the nearly $3 billion price tag for California’s utilities to perform fire-deterrent work is heavily weighted toward projects that afford them financial advantages and tax benefits: As things stand, the investor-owned utilities may recover 10% or more beyond what they spend on the projects, recouping the money from their customers.