‘My blood is boiling’: Californians furious with PG&E for billing customers for TV ads | Opinion
Furious with PG&E
“PG&E customers were billed for a TV promo campaign,” (sacbee.com, April 14)
Every time I saw these ads, my blood boiled. The utility could have opted for above-ground insulation and an update of its antiquated infrastructure to achieve excellent utility wildfire mitigation in a fraction of the time needed to complete its planned undergrounding and at a fraction of the cost.
The notion that the public should foot the bill for propaganda intended to convince viewers that PG&E’s undergrounding plans are purely altruistic is ludicrous. One need only consider the utility’s sordid history of putting profit over people and its record $2.2 billion earnings last year to recognize these ads were rubbish, meant to con and not inform. I would be laughing at the absurdity of it all except my blood is busy boiling so much that my brain might explode.
Jennifer Normoyle
Hillsborough
California deserves better
“PG&E customers were billed for a TV promo campaign,” (sacbee.com, April 14)
PG&E has record profits, yet it raised its electricity rates in January. PG&E customers are now being billed for ads touting their underground work. This corporation is a convicted felon.
Their incompetence has killed California residents time and time again. They blew up San Bruno and burned Santa Rosa and Napa. The California Public Utilities Commission doesn’t regulate them, it enables them. California deserves better than this.
PG&E serves their shareholders, and California businesses and residents suffer.
Michael Scott Bloom
Auburn
Opinion
Rally behind CA farmworkers
“California radio ads aim to dissuade farmworker organizing,” (sacbee.com, April 15)
Farmworkers make the world go round and still the fight to combat unfair labor practices
continues. There has been a spread of misinformation among farmworkers that have made the fight seem impossible to attain fair working conditions. The spread of misinformation is causing a lot of discouragement among our farmworking community in the attempt to unionize and attain better working conditions.
There is also a sense of farmworkers feeling discouraged from participating in the union
elections we worked so hard to establish last year, with a 335-mile journey to have the farmworker union election bill passed.
Helping combat the spread of misinformation allows us to give a voice to those who are so often minimized. It’s time we advocate for our farmworkers and rally behind them. Our farmworker communities that keep our nation running should finally be appreciated for all their hard work and treated fairly in their workplace.
Ariana Sandoval
Hollister
Greater accountability
“CA audit cites uncertainty about homelessness spending,” (sacbee.com, April 9)
Among the findings of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee was that only two of the five state-funded plans to address homelessness had enough data to determine whether they were effective. The three others “lacked sufficient data for the auditor to determine their cost-effectiveness.”
Though billions have been spent on homelessness, “the state is not doing enough to evaluate how that money is being spent.” The sheer amounts wasted when so many are suffering should give pause to all state residents, including those of us in Sacramento who have been asking for greater accountability from local officials.
Bill Motmans
Sacramento
Ban plastic bags once and for all
“CA lawmakers introduce bills to ban all plastic grocery bags,” (sacbee.com, Feb. 12)
If you’ve lived in California long enough, you might have thought that we put an end to single-use plastic pollution with a 2014 bill (Senate Bill 270). Maybe you even remember the statewide referendum on the issue. Unfortunately, plastics companies have exploited the language of the bill to mass produce thicker plastic bags, technically classified as “reusable,” while exponentially increasing plastic waste. In fact, in 2021, Californians threw away over 230,000 tons of plastic bags.
It’s clear this is a problem and something that the people of California have already agreed to address. Luckily, Sens. Benjamin Allen, D-Santa Monica, and Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, are working on Senate Bill 1053 to permanently ban plastic carryout bags from all California grocery stores.
Neha Suri
Roseville
False climate solution
“California climate program could raise gas prices 50 cents,” (sacbee.com, Feb. 23)
All Californians should be alarmed by House Resolution 7609, the “Biomass for Transportation Fuel Act,” recently introduced by Rep. John Garamendi, D-Fairfield. The bill would permit facilities generating “renewable” energy from forest biomass to participate in the Renewable Fuel Standard.
Burning wood for energy pollutes more than burning coal. The production of wood pellets used in the incinerators also pollutes. Consider, too, the consequences of lost forest carbon during the extraction of the wood to be burnt and the harmful impacts on forest ecosystems.
Wood pellet production and biomass incineration are not green, and it takes decades to recapture the carbon lost by the logging and then burning of trees. Garamendi’s constituents in the East Bay should let him know what a bad idea his bill is. We need clean electricity from wind and solar, not more false climate solutions.
John W. Armstrong
Rocklin
