By Garance Burke
Associated Press

California's top utility regulators communicated often and enthusiastically with executives at PG&E, even offering unsolicited advice on handling the media while they presided over a case to decide how much the company should pay for the deadly September 2010 natural gas pipeline blast in San Bruno, according to a trove of emails released Monday.
The 7,000 pages of emails between leaders at PG&E and California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey and his staff were released as the result of a lawsuit filed by the city of San Bruno.
The commission is responsible for punishing PG&E in the wake of the explosion that killed eight people, injured dozens and laid waste to a suburban neighborhood — a disaster federal investigators say could have been averted.