It’s time to make PG&E a public utility

Here in Northern California, we are getting adapted to the new normal of an annual fall firestorm season. I have developed an instinct for sensing the impending signs of the witching season: bone-dry air, balmy temperatures, and the dreaded high winds. This cycle has existed for centuries but climate disruption has elevated the phenomenon to a new and scary level. When all three conditions converge, the whole place lights up all at once and fire consumes everything in its path.

It is cruel trolling by the Trump EPA, at this time of crisis, to use the power of the federal government to do a frontal legal assault on the state of California’s laudable environmental leadership and participation in a regional cap-and-trade program that was having modest success. Global warming is why fire season in California has become an annual Halloween nightmare. Rolling back regulation is madness.

Polite words fail me at this kind of bullying provocation by the industry hacks sacking the EPA, appointed by Trump.

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