Playing tough with PG&E

SUP. TOM Ammiano is slated to introduce his new public power charter amendment next Monday, and at press time several key issues were still undecided – issues that could determine the city's energy future.

As Rachel Brahinsky reports on page 16, Mayor Willie Brown's top energy aide, Ed Smeloff, has made it very clear the mayor won't support any measure that changes the governance structure of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and Smeloff argues against any mandate to take over Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s distribution system. The Building Trades Council – which includes the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 1245, a union traditionally friendly with PG&E – is insisting that labor oppose any move to seize the private utility's poles and power lines.

Many public power advocates are pushing Ammiano to keep the basic outlines of last fall's Proposition F, which would have created a power agency run by an elected board with a mandate to provide reliable, affordable retail electricity to San Francisco residents and businesses – and with the power to take over PG&E's system if studies showed a takeover made economic sense.

The arguments for substantially modifying Prop. F largely rest on political pragmatism. The comprehensive, sweeping measure lost last fall, and some say that it needs to be changed before it's resubmitted to the electorate. A version that keeps an appointed board in charge of the agency, and that limits its ability to embark on what all agree will be a long, costly battle to seize PG&E's system, may have broader appeal. The mayor, for example, might endorse it, and business groups might not be so bitterly opposed. And the role of labor is significant: the San Francisco Labor Council poured tens of thousands of dollars into last year's effort to pass Prop. F (over the objections of the building trades), and it's not likely the union group will take the internally divisive step of promoting a measure that doesn't have the support of all of its members this year.

But this isn't just a political exercise: the city's energy future is at stake, and hundreds of millions of dollars are on the line. The supervisors need to consider the end result and look at what San Francisco needs in the long term. And by that standard, a measure that creates an elected public power board and allows that board the largest possible set of tools to carry out its mandate makes the most sense.

Public power cities around the country operate with a range of governance systems. Some smaller cities (Alameda, for example) leave the operations of the local utility to the city manager. In Los Angeles there's a Department of Water and Power under the Mayor's Office. Some have appointed boards (like San Francisco's current Public Utilities Commission, which answers to the mayor). In a sizable number of communities, however – Sacramento is an obvious example – the board that oversees electric power is directly elected.

The advantage of directly elected board is that ensures the management of the agency is accountable. In Sacramento a board that built a nuclear power plant was thrown out of office and replaced with an antinuclear, pro-renewable energy crew that shut down the plant. In San Francisco, where PG&E has kept a devastating lock on city hall for most of this century, direct accountability is even more crucial.

One of the options on the table right now calls for a seven-member appointed board, with three members appointed by the supervisors, three by the mayor, and one by the controller. That would almost guarantee a PG&E-friendly board: all of the mayor's appointees would be pro-PG&E, and the controller certainly can't be counted on to appoint a strong public power advocate. If there's any talk of an appointed board, the supervisors should make certain that they name all or a majority of the members and give them a mandate to enforce the Raker Act and replace PG&E with a local power system.

The power agency needs to have a clear mandate in the City Charter defining its mission – and that should include the ability to take whatever steps make sense to provide low-cost clean power to the public. And based on the experience of public power agencies all over the nation, it's absolutely crucial for the city to own its own transmission and distribution system.

Taking over PG&E's existing infrastructure might prove to be foolish – the lines, poles, and meters are old and in bad repair – and the best approach may be to rebuild the system from the ground up. But the charter amendment shouldn't preclude any reasonable option; that should be up to the district-elected board.

We're sympathetic to the huge political task of taking on PG&E and its downtown allies, with all of their money, and we don't expect that any public power measure will pass without a brutal fight. But a measure with such profound implications needs to be written with the end result, not just the political campaign, in mind. A simple test might go like this: if the mayor and PG&E aren't screaming bloody murder and trying to kill the measure, it's probably too soft.