Word comes this morning that Sempra Energy, with revenues falling in 2009 to only $8 billion down from around $11 billion each for 2007 and the Crash of 2008, is cutting jobs at corporate by shifting responsibilities down to its owned units, including San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E).

One can only hope that giving SDG&E more authority to manage its own business will help to improve its image, damaged after multiple fines to the California Public Utilities Commission for a variety of non-felonious wrongs, including investigatory obstruction and withholding information in a number of matters ranging from the Sunrise Powerlink to causes of 2007 wildfire complexes. The running total on CPUC fines over the last two years is running about $15 million, which does not include damage awards many times that amount for the deaths of 4 Marines in a helicopter crash caused by an unlit transmission tower.

Anyone interested in what the federal government thinks of SDG&E corporate responsibility should google "SDG&E guilty" to see if the US Dept. of Justice announcement of guilty verdicts still haunts our local power utility.