Instead the CPUC laid out four criteria for PG&E to improve, the Redding Record Searchlight reported. That included focusing its tree-trimming efforts in high-risk fire areas. Regulators said the company had previously trimmed easy, low-risk regions.
The CPUC’s Public Advocates Office recommended that the five CPUC commissioners reject PG&E’s fire prevention plan for 2021, according to the AP. A final decision has not yet been made.
PG&E lightly pushed back against its critics, saying it has worked hard to make its grid safer, the AP reported. But the company sits in a precarious legal position because of its post-bankruptcy deal.
Thursday’s meeting was the latest in a long line of PG&E criticism and legal wrangling. The company pleaded guilty last year to 84 counts of manslaughter for causing the 2018 Camp Fire, which nearly wiped the towns of Paradise and Concow off the map.
PG&E declared bankruptcy to handle all the civil settlements it owed for the blaze, and multiple others in prior years, which were eventually set at $13.5 billion.
But that hasn’t stopped its equipment from starting fires. PG&E was sued earlier this month over damages from the 2019 Kincade Fire, and the 2020 Zogg Fire, which killed four people, started when a tree crashed through a PG&E power line.