re: Proposed public takeover of PG&E

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But the cooperative structure, promoted during the Great Depression to electrify the nation’s rural areas, has not been done at the scale of PG&E, which serves 5.4 million electric customers across 70,000 square miles.

Not all cities and counties in PG&E’s vast service territory stretching from Bakersfield to the Oregon border are on board with the cooperative idea. Most conspicuous among them is San Francisco, which has sought to acquire PG&E’s transmission network and run it as a municipal utility. The San Francisco mayor’s office, however, said it does not consider the cooperative proposal “mutually exclusive” to its own plans.

With the exception of Humboldt County, the officials backing the cooperative proposal were not expressing formal support of the governments of the cities and counties they represent.

PG&E has rejected San Francisco’s grid purchase offer as insufficient, as well as the cooperative idea, stating that its “facilities are not for sale, and changing the structure of the company would not create a safer operation.”

Others, including those who support turning all or parts of PG&E into a government-run power utility like those serving Sacramento and Los Angeles, have questioned whether the cooperative structure, operating as a private nonprofit, would serve the public better

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