Uneasy Rhetoric

I’ve lived under both public and private electricity regimes — including an Enron-owned utility — and I can’t say as I’ve seen much difference between the levels of service. I can’t really compare prices either because energy prices are set in a manner that makes the federal budget process look like balancing a checkbook.

But, as an article in today’s Bee points out, a credit PG&E is giving to its customers this month looks an awful lot like an attempt to buy voters away from allowing SMUD to annex Yolo County into its electricity service area.

In PG&E defense, they are required to give the rebate. However, according to the article, they would not be required to do so until 2007. It seems odd to me that a company wouldn’t want to hold on to that cash as long as possible, unless there was an ulterior motive. Like the potential loss of thousands of customers.

And speaking of customers, buried at the end of the article was this tidbit:

[PG&E spokesperson]Taber said that the company is undergoing a corporate transformation in which it is making an effort to put customers first.

“We just celebrated our 101st anniversary on Oct. 10,” she said. “At 100 years (last year), the company took a deep, hard look at itself, at what we need to do going forward for the next 100 years. The answer was to put customers at the center.”

I would be worried about any company that depends upon the retail sale of anything (regulated or not), whether that be toothpaste or energy, that takes an entire century to realize that it should be putting customers first.

Update: (10/19/2006) To comment on this post, please go here. Apologies, but something broke commenting on this post.