Letter to the Editor

December 29, 2007
By the book
The Fresno Bee

Pacific Gas & Electric's opposition to the San Joaquin Valley Power Authority is driven by economic interests -- PG&E doesn't like competition. PG&E wages vicious campaigns to stifle any competition from publicly owned utilities to maintain a monopoly, high electrical rates and profits.

Publicly owned utility districts are able to offer lower electrical power rates by keeping in the community money that would otherwise be profit and paid as dividends to power plant investors, or as million-dollar salaries to PG&E staff in San Francisco. The authority's Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) program breaks PG&E's monopoly. This scares PG&E, as it will fuel the launching of several other CCA programs -- more competition.

The tactics of PG&E are predictable and are from a PG&E playbook, parts of which are posted on a Sacramento newspaper's Web site (newsreview.com). The theme of the playbook is to create fear, confusion and doubt in people's minds about public power, in order to retain the status quo, i.e., the monopoly.

The Valley CCA program gives families and businesses a choice in who provides their electricity. PG&E's opposition should be viewed in the context of its playbook.

Mukasa Kezala
Fresno