Could ratepayers' day be coming soon?

Things are happening fast and furious over the back-channel communications between Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and officials of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) over the amount PG&E should be assessed for its role in the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion that killed eight people and leveled a neighborhood.

PG&E has announced that federal prosecutors are investigating eight years' worth of emails in which the utility was seeking — and got — pro-utility administrative law judges in the deliberations. The company has already admitted violating CPUC rules by secretly exchanging emails.

The City of San Bruno is now stating that Mike Florio, a commissioner handling the case, should recuse himself from the PG&E case because of his friendly emails to PG&E. Commission president Michael Peevey has already recused himself. Gov. Jerry Brown is returning $9000 in political contributions that he received from PG&E executives.

Mia Severson of San Diego law firm Aguirre & Severson has requested under the California Public Records Act that the CPUC deliver all documents showing communications between Peevey or his staff and anyone representing Southern California Edison from 2005 to the present.

Aguirre and Severson are probing the attempt to get ratepayers to pick up much of the tab for the closing of the San Onofre nuclear operation, which, they say, was a management mistake, and ratepayers should not have to pay for it. Aguirre is calling for a criminal grand jury investigation of the CPUC over its roles in both the San Bruno disaster and the San Onofre fiasco.