State Sen. Scott Wiener will be joined by San Francisco supervisors on Monday to announce legislation to “break up” with PG&E.  

Some San Francisco residents and politicians have long held the idea that the city should dump PG&E and get its own publicly controlled power grid. Wiener put forth similar legislation in 2020, but alleges that PG&E was “so powerful” that the bill didn’t even get a hearing.  

In December, Wiener posted on social media that new legislation was in the works to create a local counter to PG&E, which he said is too large, places shareholders’ interests above the public’s, and fails to effectively maintain its infrastructure. 

Public power in San Francisco already exists under CleanPowerSF through the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, though customers use a hybrid of both CleanPowerSF and PG&E. Should the city ditch PG&E, the SFPUC would continue to serve as San Francisco’s publicly owned power utility, sourcing an electricity mix from California-certified renewable resources. 

California has more than 45 public power utilities, including ones serving cities like Los Angeles, Sacramento, Palo Alto and Alameda. 

Wiener will be joined Monday at 9:30 a.m. on the steps of City Hall by Supervisors Rafael Mandelman, Bilal Mahmood and Alan Wong to announce the legislation. 

Katy St. Clair got her start in journalism by working in the classifieds department at the East Bay Express during the height of alt weeklies, then sweet talked her way into becoming staff writer, submissions editor, and music editor. She has been a columnist in the East Bay Express, SF Weekly, and the San Francisco Examiner. Starting in 2015, she begrudgingly scaled the inverted pyramid at dailies such as the Vallejo Times-Herald, The Vacaville Reporter, and the Daily Republic. She has her own independent news site and blog that covers the delightfully dysfunctional town of Vallejo, California, where she also collaborates with the investigative team at Open Vallejo. A passionate advocate for people with developmental disabilities, she serves on both the Board of the Arc of Solano and the Arc of California. She lives in Vallejo.