Government Energy Policy, Business and Technology

PG&E confesses to killing 84 people in 2018 California fire

Associated Press: Pacific Gas & Electric confessed Tuesday to killing 84 people in one of the most devastating wildfires in recent U.S. history during a dramatic court hearing punctuated by a promise from the company’s outgoing CEO that the nation’s largest utility will never again put profits ahead of safety.

PG&E CEO Bill Johnson made the roughly 170-mile (275-kilometer) journey from the company’s San Francisco headquarters to a Butte County courthouse to plead guilty to 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter stemming from a November 2018 wildfire ignited by the utility’s crumbling electrical grid. The blaze nearly wiped out the entire town of Paradise and drove PG&E into bankruptcy early last year.

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