Power Outages Needed

American Thinker

California's Gavin Newsom 

calls power outages needed

Socialism, including greenie socialism, is always about blaming Those Greedy Capitalists for whatever hideous policies the government cooks up, which inevitably prompts an unintended consequence.

California's Gov. Gavin Newsom is right there with the best of them, blaming the wreckers and hoarders for California's massive power outages, taking northern California back to a state of nature and, in the full greenie spirit, telling us it's needed, necessary, all for our own good.

Get a load of it, from the Sacramento Bee, emphasis mine:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday he's "outraged" over Pacific Gas and Electric Co shut-offs, blaming decades of mismanagement at the utility.

He made the comments Wednesday morning, several hours after millions of Californians woke up without power amid massive blackouts that have stranded huge swaths of the state without electricity.

Given the potential danger posed by the utility's power lines, Newsom said the blackouts are needed to keep people safe as powerful winds sweep through the state.

There's more detail here, from CBS's San Francisco–affiliated KPIX5:

But Newsom, who spoke to reporters after he signed a rent cap measure at the West Oakland Senior Center, said the power shutoff "was anticipated many months ago and this is the (utility) industry's best practice."

Newsom said, "The determination of whether or not to do this is based on a number of factors," including intense winds, low humidity and the areas that are near to windy areas. 

He said that determination is up to PG&E based on "their determination of what's in the best interest of their customers in partnership and consultation with the Office of Emergency Services, CalFire and experts in this field."

Newsom said, "This is all about public safety and saving lives.  This is part of something we all knew was likely and would occur many months ago when PG&E finally woke up to their responsibility to keep people safe."

However, the governor said the power shutoff "is not how things should work in the (utility) industry."

He said, "None of us are happy about this."

Ah, the best interest...and PG&E, not his policies, is the one that did it. 

Actually, it's PG&E's best interest, given the leftist lawsuit lunacy that prevails in California, sufficient to drive PG&E into bankruptcy last January, now that any wildfire is the basis for a lawsuit against it.  In the past, homeowners used to deal with wildfire damage through fire insurance, but with costs being what they are, some can't afford and others conclude they can skip it: who needs fire insurance when lawsuit payouts are even better?  The electrical monopoly ought to be immune from such lawsuits, given its role in supplying power to the population, but it's not — it's now vulnerable to big lawsuits all over the place any time there's a fire.  Can the law be fixed?  Not a chance of that under Newsom California's one-party blue regime — blaming the utility is much easier.

So, too bad about the hospitals and the cell phones and the refrigerators now that the electrical supplier is focused on legal liability based on weather conditions, and Newsom assures us it's needed.

Instead of telling Californians it's for their own good, Newsom should be blasting this legal situation and moving to change the law.

That's not the only Castroite Cuban master in the woodwork that Newsom's taking orders from as it commands the state's Venezuela-like power failure here, either.

The real root of the problem, prompting the PG&E reaction, is the state's greenie laws, which, as AT contributor Tom Trinko notes, prevents the clearing of brush to prevent power equipment from catching fire and spreading wildfires.  (This one, by J.R. Dunn, is good, too.)  Apparently, no greenie law can be criticized in Newsom's purview, any more than Nicolás Maduro's laws against wreckers and hoarders can be blamed for Venezuela's currency collapse or structural shortages.

Newsom just claims that the people at PG&E has "finally woke up to their responsibility" on wildfire blame (of course they did — they're liable for billions for past wildfires and bankrupt to boot) so nothing needs to be changed on the greenie laws.  Hence the "need" to shut off power and return the state to greenie nature.

Quite a blame game he's got going on as he makes nominal claims about not liking it and being concerned about his rich man's plaything winery harvest even as refrigerators go bad with spoiled food, looting and car crashes commence, and hospitals go dark.

It's green regulations behind this, and those also include the lunatic ones from the Jerry Brown era, which Newsom supports, demanding crazy greenie fuel mandates from solar and wind sources, which require — are you ready? — more power lines to transmit it.  The cost of that less efficient and unreliable boutique fuel is like the cost of Hugo Chávez's socialist handouts - the investment capital needed by P&GE and all the state's electrical companies to maintain upkeep and the best equipment in wildfire zones, is going instead to expensive and unsustainable greenie projects.

It's the same pattern as Venezuela, except that instead of Cubans commanding things from the inside and Chavista social spending spending all the seed corn, it's greenie mandates, which drive capitalists to protect themselves from ruinous lawsuits and drain their investment capital dry. That's Newsom's real Cuban master. And like Nicolás Maduro, Newsom, in that same socialist tradition blames people downwind of the policies, everyone but himself, as he tries to explain it out for the cameras.

Here's another one: Notice his Facebook page: He's got all kinds of stuff up there about all his supposed great achievements and it's updated every few hours. Anything to say about the man-caused disaster of California's blackouts? He's mysteriously silent. 

Blackouts look exactly the same in Caracas or California, and what's most obvious here, as Newsom tells us we need these blackouts is that socialism is at the root of all of it. He's getting more and more like Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro by the day.