Rep. Ro Khanna Calls for PG&E to Become Publicly Owned

Extreme winds of up to 60 miles per hour caused new fires to erupt across southern California Wednesday, prompting tens of thousands to evacuate. The blazes are just the latest in a spate of climate change-fueled fires threatening the state. In Northern California, firefighters have finally beat back the Sonoma County Kincade Fire that had forced nearly 200,000 people to flee their homes over the weekend. Nearly all evacuees in the region have now been allowed to return to their homes and the utility giant Pacific Gas & Electric said Wednesday it would begin restoring power to the 365,000 customers who were plunged into darkness over the weekend as fires first erupted across the state. PG&E — the corporation that controls most of Northern and Central California’s electricity and the biggest utility in America — has been implicated in many of the fires that have ravaged California in recent years, including the Camp Fire that killed 85 people and completely destroyed the town of Paradise in 2018. In January, PG&E declared bankruptcy amid a number of lawsuits related to the wildfires. We speak with California Congressmember Ro Khanna, who is calling for the California state government to take over control of PG&E. Khanna says, “PG&E is basically a private monopoly that gets a return on investment for their private investors, but has no competition. It is the worst of both worlds.”

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