San Bruno sues state for PG&E blast documents
Jaxon Van Derbeken | San Francisco Chronicle
Updated 8:52 pm, Monday, February 3, 2014
San Bruno sued the California Public Utilities Commission on Monday to obtain documents it said may expose a "cozy" relationship between regulators and Pacific Gas and Electric Co., marking a new low in relations between the city and state over the 2010 pipeline explosion that killed eight residents and destroyed a neighborhood.
Attorneys for the city say the commission, which regulates PG&E, has failed to turn over a wide range of documents that San Bruno is seeking under the state Public Records Act. They include what the city says could be evidence of improper meddling by agency Executive Director Paul Clanon in the blast probe and investigative reports on other PG&E gas pipeline incidents.
"These requests go directly to the issue of the (commission's) oversight of PG&E," said the suit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court.
San Bruno says the state agency wrongly denied the city access to some documents and has "systematically" failed to respond to other requests within the legally required 10 days. In some cases, the city said, the utilities commission "did not reply at all."
The commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit, which asks a judge to order the state to turn over the documents.
Among the items San Bruno is seeking are any e-mails or other documents that it says could show that Clanon sought to influence administrative law judges considering how PG&E might be penalized for violations leading up to the September 2010 explosion.
Size of fine
The commission's staff first recommended against fines entirely, saying improvements that PG&E has made in its gas system should count toward the San Bruno penalty. After a dispute within its legal staff, the agency ultimately recommended that PG&E be fined $300 million and make more than $2 billion worth of improvements.
In one e-mail, city attorneys believe, Clanon urged the commissioner and law judge overseeing the case to accept PG&E's accounting of fixes it had made - even those unrelated to the 2010 disaster - as satisfying the San Bruno penalty.
'Cozy' suspicions
The city says the disclosure of such an e-mail "may further embarrass" the agency "by evidencing its continued cozy relationship with PG&E and its lax oversight" of the utility.
The utilities commission refused to release any communication from Clanon regarding the PG&E case, saying agency officials have the right to keep such deliberative documents private. San Bruno countered that the exchanges cannot be kept secret under commission rules.
The city is also seeking any communications that commission President Michael Peevey has had with Wall Street analysts regarding PG&E's ability to pay a large fine.
San Bruno has made numerous other requests for state documents, including one seeking information about a $375,000 fine that the utilities commission imposed against PG&E in December. The commission soon rescinded the fine, for violations of gas-system record-keeping rules, after attorneys raised questions about its effect on the prospective fine against PG&E for the 2010 explosion.
Agency 'very busy'
When San Bruno asked for the documents last month, its suit said, the commission's public records attorney said the agency was "very busy" and would respond when staffers had free time.
"This response makes a mockery of the value of public participation" in government, the suit said.
San Bruno's relations with the utilities commission have been spiraling downward for months. City officials were outraged last year when the head of the agency's safety division suggested that the cost of PG&E's gas-system improvements were a sufficient penalty for the 2010 blast, and the mayor recently called for an independent monitor to make sure the commission is regulating PG&E effectively.
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