For the past 15 years, PG&E has plotted a round trip from one bankruptcy to another, according to a Wall Street Journal commentary. In between, it navigated the aftermath of a catastrophic natural-gas pipeline explosion and a series of increasingly demanding green-energy mandates from state regulators. Managing that push and pull would have challenged any company. It proved to be especially challenging for a plodding utility undergoing management upheaval, heavily regulated and saddled with aging, neglected equipment. Executives were so focused on the past and the future that the present sneaked up on them. PG&E’s electric lines, after years of deferred maintenance, were threatening drought-parched California. When the Camp Fire started to burn in late 2018, eventually killing 85 people, it was the first of four fires that PG&E reported it sparked that day. It was its 408th of 2018, and the 1,961st since record-keeping started in mid-2014.
