GoKawiilWhile similar ballot measures have been voted down for decades, the city may no longer have to go through voter approval. Since residents passed Proposition A in 2018, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission can now issue revenue bonds to buy clean power facilities with approval by two-thirds of the Board of Supervisors. This means that, if San Francisco and PG&E agree on a price, the city could potentially buy PG&E’s wire, poles and other physical infrastructure without putting anything on the ballot, according to John Coté, a spokesperson for San Francisco Power and Water.
Though many residents may not be aware of it, the city has been in a protracted battle over whether or not to leave PG&E since the start of the 20th century, said Josh Lappen, a researcher at the University of Notre Dame who studies utilities and energy. The last significant attempt took place in the early 2000s and failed as a ballot measure over concerns about government spending, questions about San Francisco’s ability to run a utility and significant campaigning from PG&E.
While PG&E has said that a takeover would increase San Francisco electricity rates for decades, some advocates believe it might be the only way out. With the ever-increasing cost of living, would a takeover make life easier for Dabit?
Their discontent recently led the Board of Supervisors to reaffirm their commitment to cutting ties with PG&E, a process that’s been quietly underway for about five years.
Between December’s series of power outages and skyrocketing electricity bills, Dabit and other San Franciscans are growing increasingly frustrated with the utility company. In February, a group of residents and small businesses filed a class-action lawsuit against PG&E, alleging the utility failed to remediate major financial losses after major power outages in December .
The utility company initially offered him just $2,500, he said — which barely covered his typical electricity bill, let alone all the product and business that he lost. After more than three months of back and forth, he said he finally got PG&E to agree to something he found reasonable, but only after threatening to hire a lawyer.
The city’s latest attempt to buy the utility officially started in 2019 when it offered $2.5 billion for PG&E’s infrastructure. The company rejected the offer outright, saying the offer was too low, but in 2021, the city asked the California Public Utilities Commission to set a fair price. After years of delays, the CPUC directed San Francisco to submit its valuation and for PG&E to file its response by Oct. 20, 2026.
In April, San Francisco submitted a valuation of $3.4 billion to acquire the land, infrastructure and equipment needed for a takeover. PG&E, which has repeatedly said its infrastructure is not for sale, said in a statement around the same time that San Francisco “greatly undervalues” the utility’s property, and doesn’t account for separation costs or costs of state-mandated programs that would be offloaded onto remaining customers.
If San Francisco ever gets to the end of this process, Jim Lazar, an economist with a five-decade career in utility regulation and an advocate for public power, estimated that rates could go down by 15%-20% in the 10 years following purchase. Lazar said that prices would go down primarily because investor-owned utilities come with some baked-in costs that make them more expensive to run than consumer-owned utilities.
For example, being a public, nonprofit company allows consumer-owned utilities to both borrow money for construction projects at a cheaper rate and to pay less in taxes.
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