PG&E execs got bonuses for meeting safety goals:
State regulators have identified a years-long pattern of poor maintenance at PG&E that violated state regulations and led to the deadliest fire in California history, 2018's Camp fire, which killed 85 people.
But from 2012 to 2017, PG&E paid its five top executives roughly $17 million in bonuses, including special payments for exceeding public and employee safety benchmarks, Securities and Exchange Commission filings show. Every year during that period, except 2016, PG&E's executive pay was boosted by safety performance that the company said had exceeded its goals. During most of that period, the utility, which serves more than 5 million households in central and northern California, was paying off more than $1 billion in penalties and fines for the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion, which killed eight people.
PG&E's board has historically reviewed the company's safety performance each year, overseeing goals and policies "with respect to promoting a strong safety culture," regulatory filings show.
In 2015, the year of the so-called Butte fire in which two people died, PG&E's safety performance exceeded its targets, the filings show, and accounted for half of the bonus calculation, generating $4.3 million in incentive compensation to PG&E's five top executives.
The names and faces of the people who just pleaded guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter
BBC coverage
A California utility has pleaded guilty to the deaths of 84 people in a wildfire, the deadliest US corporate crime ever successfully prosecuted.
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) admitted the 2018 Camp Fire, the state's deadliest and most destructive, was caused by its faulty equipment.
In the court hearing, a judge read the name of each victim aloud to the company chief executive.
The company will be fined millions of dollars, but no-one will go to jail.
Many of the Camp Fire's victims were elderly or disabled.
A number of them were found in burnt-out cars, killed as they attempted to flee the blaze with their family and neighbours.
Others were discovered in and around their homes, as some elderly residents decided against leaving early, not understanding the gravity of the threat.
In Butte County Superior Court on Tuesday, an image of each victim was displayed on a screen as PG&E's chief executive Bill Johnson pleaded to every single count of involuntary manslaughter, responding 84 times: "Guilty, your honour."
In a highly unusual US corporate acknowledgment of criminal wrongdoing, Mr Johnson apologised to the families, saying: "I've heard the pain and anguish.
San Diego coverage
Pacific Gas & Electric confessed Tuesday to killing 84 people in a devastating 2018 wildfire that wiped out the Northern California town of Paradise in November 2018.
PG&E CEO Bill Johnson entered guilty pleas on behalf of the company for 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter stemming from the fire, which was blamed on the company’s crumbling electrical grid.
“Our equipment started that fire,” said Johnson, who apologized directly to the victims’ families. “PG&E will never forget the Camp Fire and all that it took away from the region.”
Johnson also pleaded guilty on behalf of the company to one felony county of unlawfully starting a fire.
Later Tuesday, Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey is expected to release a long-awaited grand jury indictment detailing the corporate misconduct that ignited the November 2018 wildfire that destroyed Paradise, California, located about 170 miles (275 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco.
PG&E has agreed to pay a maximum fine of $3.5 million for its crimes in addition to $500,000 for the cost of the investigation. The San Francisco company won’t be placed on criminal probation, unlike what happened after its natural gas lines blew up a neighborhood in San Bruno, California, killing eight people in 2010. That tragedy resulted in a criminal conviction that put San Francisco on a five-year probation that ends in January 2022. (italics added)
With no prospect of jail time for a corporation, Ramsey tried to use Tuesday’s hearing to force PG&E to confront the death and destruction stemming from its its corporate culture of placing a greater priority on profits for its shareholders than protecting the safety of the 16 million Northern Californians who rely on the utility for power.
The proceeding unfolded as PG&E approaches the end of a complicated bankruptcy case that the company used to work out $25.5 billion in settlements to pay for the damages from the fire and others that torched wide swaths of Northern California and killed dozens of others in 2017.
There’s lot more coverage if you look, but the gist is this:
PG&E is a criminal corporation. It is a serial killer and the method is constant: ignoring safety requirements resulting in deaths, repeated over years.
And yet, despite all the deaths, not one executive has been held accountable.
Think about that for a moment.
Citizens United gave corporations all the privileges of personhood without an ounce of the responsibility that should accompany it.
But corporate immunity, like qualified immunity for cops, means that corporate executives can get away with murder, literally.
The current protests are not just about police brutality and murderous cops.
It is about a corrupt system that openly uses several sets of justice. Which applies to you depends on the color of your skin, your brand of politics, your religion, and the degree of wealth you possess.
The US is a sick country in more ways than one, and has been from colonial days.
But citizens are fed up with a rigged system that promotes injustice for all.
BLM is the most obvious component, but Occupy, MoveOn, and many others are also part of the protests. police killings are symptoms of a greater overall problem stemming from a lack of genuine representation for the greater mass of citizens in legislative halls by either party. Both are corrupt and both cater to the whims and desires of the oligarchs. Granted, Democrat are less corrupt than Republicans, but is that really a good standard?
The PG&E case illustrates the fact that like cops, corporate executives are rarely if ever held accountable. The Great Recession was caused by multiple frauds, but the executive perps were not only not prosecuted, but in fact were rewarded for openly criminal behavior.
Just as police culture must change if we are to move forward, so too must corporate culture change, and judicial as well.
It can start by charging each and every board member with the highest level of manslaughter charges on the books. Conviction should be easy, they have already confessed to 84 counts and felony arson. Sentencing should take into consideration the fact they are serial killers for profit.
So long as these perps walk free and enjoy their perks, no justice is to be had for their victims, who died the most horrible deaths you can imagine.
So long a these perps aren’t held accountable, corporate executives will continue to kill for profit.
“Shaming” them by reciting the names of their victims isn’t justice,it is an insult to victims and survivors.
Demand justice for the Paradise 84 and all the others!
Demand the arrest, prosecution and sentencing of these serial killers.
Otherwise don’t pretend to be upholding the rule of law.