Scott Wiener Revives Push for San Francisco to Break With PG&E After Massive Outage

State Sen. Scott Wiener renewed calls for Bay Area cities like San Francisco to  break away from PG&E Monday, citing repeated failures to maintain its infrastructure.

“PG&E is way too big and we’re putting together legislation for next year to authorize San Francisco and other cities to break away,” the San Francisco Democrat told KQED. “We’ve had enough.”

The criticism came after a fire at one of PG&E’s substations on 8th and Mission left 130,000 customers and businesses without power over the weekend, just as the city geared up for the holiday season.

Noting a previous incident at the same location, Wiener criticized the utility for putting shareholder interest over public good and said PG&E should be financially accountable for the economic harm caused. Five years ago, the lawmaker proposed turning PG&E into a publicly owned utility, after faulty wires caused deadly wildfires in the state.

Speaking Monday outside the affected substation, PG&E CEO Sumeet Singh acknowledged customer frustrations.

“You can see the men and women behind me. They have put their blood, sweat, equity and tears since the incident happened working around the clock to make sure we restore every single customer. I can appreciate [their] anger… and we’re doing everything that we can to restore everyone as safely and as quickly as possible,” said Singh.

Singh estimated that power would be restored to 96% of affected customers by 2 p.m. Monday afternoon, and added that the company is working on a process to expedite claims for lost food and merchandise.

Beyond the press conference at the substation, crews were seen wheeling in giant rolls of new cables intended to divert energy around damaged lines that they said could take weeks to repair. One workman, who said he was first on site after the fire, told KQED he had been working nonstop, having slept only a couple of hours each night since the outage began. Bob Dean, Business Manager of IBEW Local 1245, praised PG&E workers for their dedication under difficult conditions.

On Sunday evening, Mayor Daniel Lurie highlighted the city’s emergency response, noting that fire, police and public works teams worked overnight to keep residents safe and steer them toward charging stations, snacks and temporary shelter.

“Our city really stood together,” said Lurie.

The California Public Utilities Commission is investigating the outage to determine the cause and assess PG&E’s responsibility.