FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts: Nancy Macy, Chair, Utility Wildfire Prevention Task Force, 831/345-1555 cell, nbbm@cruzio.com
Jennifer Tanner, Leader, Indivisible CA Green Team,, jjtanner18@gmail.com, 310-701-1888
Unusual Coalition Defeats More PG&E Needless Tree Cutting
In the just-completed California Legislative Session, a PG&E-sponsored bill, mostly unheard of (SB 396) , was defeated by an unusual coalition of liberals and conservatives – environmental organizations, property rights advocates, timber landowners and rural and urban counties (see 115 groups listed in Senate Floor Analysis). SB 396 would have stripped property owners’ rights and worsened the devastation from PG&E’s reckless vegetation mismanagement. PG&E’s argument, that so many trees need to be cut down to prevent wildfires, didn’t stand up to the facts.
PG&E is spending millions of dollars a year taking down trees outside of its Right of Way, purportedly to stop fires. Since it is mainly PG&E’s bare wires that cause the fires, not the trees, disastrous fires and blackouts continue despite five years of their massive tree removals.
A growing number of counties are now protesting the damage. The counties’ concerns, such as those of Mendocino County, include the questionable removal of hundreds of thousands of trees (including healthy old-growth redwoods), the denuding of steep hillsides, impacts on streams and rivers, and the impacts on individual homeowners as well as on local and State Parks.
A key factor spelling doom for SB 396 was on August 16, 2022, when a PG&E representative, confronted with a letter from PG&E to CalFire, confirmed to the Senate Energy Committee that the Forest Practice Rules(which are enforced by CalFire) do not apply to PG&E operations, meaning there would have been no oversight, no protection of the public, had SB 396 passed.
Nancy Macy, Chair of the Utility Wildfire Prevention Task Force, said, “All homeowners should be informed that, since the PG&E bill lost, they now have a better chance to stop PG&E contractors from unnecessary tree felling outside the PG&E powerline right of way. For more information : Contact atinfo@endpowerlinefires.com.”
“Why doesn’t PG&E do what SoCal Edison is doing, and protect us by replacing bare wires with triple insulated wires to drastically reduce wildfires and blackouts?” asked Jennifer Tanner of the Indivisible CA Green Team, a key leader of the coalition.
Nancy B. Macy
Chair, Utility Wildfire Prevention Task Force
Chair, Environmental Committee
(Valley Women’s Club of San Lorenzo Valley, Inc.
831/338-6578 home
831/345-1555 cell