:grr: :banghead:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/13/BA261FDDD8.DTL&tsp=1
State regulators will take their first look today at a proposal backed by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. that would require customers to pay all costs of catastrophic fires, such as last week's gas-line explosion in San Bruno, that exceed a utility's insurance coverage.
It's not clear whether the plan, if approved by the state Public Utilities Commission, would trigger a PG&E rate increase to help pay the utility's cost from Thursday's disaster. In a filing Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the utility said it has $992 million in fire insurance and a $10 million deductible, and "believes that most of the costs related to the San Bruno event will be covered."...
The new proposal would require utility customers to bear the uninsured costs of catastrophic fires. It is titled a "wildfire expense balancing account," but the application defines "wildfire" to include any uncontrolled fire, urban or rural, that is larger than an acre and destroys houses or other buildings.
San Diego Gas & Electric Co. introduced the proposal in August 2009 in response to fires in 2007 that caused more than $1 billion in damage. The utility intended to address "wildfires in Southern California caused by extreme weather conditions," said a spokeswoman for the company, Stephanie Donovan.Um, hello-o: The San Diego fires
were not caused by SDG&E.
This is precisely why the "just plain evil" icon was created for the Top Ten.
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