Oct 15, 2026 · 8 min · 7 segments
Will San Francisco pay the price to ditch PG&E and run the grid itself? The move could cost the city $20 billion dollars. For more on this, KCBS' Steve Scott spoke with KCBS Insider Phil Matier.
Phil MatierGuestSteve ScottHostWill San Francisco pay the price to ditch PG&E and run the power grid itself? We're joined live on the KCBS RingCentral News Line by our KCBS insider Phil Matier.
At least that's what, uh, PG&E's top, uh, brass told the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday, uh, when the discussion came up.
Uh, somewhere in between, but I-- in this case, PG&E is holding a lot of the cards.
And so the city has been looking at trying to take over PG&E for decades, and it's really come into focus recently because of power outages due to faulty substations within the city.
And so there's a move afoot to say, "Let's take San Francisco over a-and hand it over to the city to run." It's a popular idea, but it's gonna cost.
And one of the things it's gonna cost is the equipment already set up in San Francisco.
And as you said, San Francisco, when they are talking about taking it over, they're telling voters and others it'll go for about four billion dollars.
When PG&E talks about it, they say, "No, it's more like twenty." So, uh, you know, who gets to set the price? Probably the California Utilities Commission if they get that far, and it's going to be a whopper no matter what.
I mean, why in the world would the city want to run the power grid? I mean, that just sounds like a boondoggle in the making.
Well, you're talking on sort of like the common sense and [laughs] historical pattern as one of the biggest arguments against the city taking it over.
It says, "Namely, you know, would you want Muni running your electricity? If you did, the, uh, the, uh, dishwasher would go on when you turned on the oven." Uh, i-it's-- the idea is that you could do it cleaner, you could do it, uh, cheaper, uh, because PG&E is a for-profit operation, and they are making a lot of money.
Now, they've also-- you know, they've built, uh, this trouble into themselves, you know.
Their sort of, uh, neglect at keeping, uh, the infrastructure up and going over the decades has wound up costing billions in repair.
There's also questions about, you know, uh, gas and fire, uh, damages that have-- and wildfires across the state.
Will San Francisco pay the price to ditch PG&E and run the power grid itself? We're joined live on the KCBS RingCentral News Line by our KCBS insider Phil Matier.
At least that's what, uh, PG&E's top, uh, brass told the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday, uh, when the discussion came up.
Uh, somewhere in between, but I-- in this case, PG&E is holding a lot of the cards.
And so the city has been looking at trying to take over PG&E for decades, and it's really come into focus recently because of power outages due to faulty substations within the city.
And so there's a move afoot to say, "Let's take San Francisco over a-and hand it over to the city to run." It's a popular idea, but it's gonna cost.
And one of the things it's gonna cost is the equipment already set up in San Francisco.
And as you said, San Francisco, when they are talking about taking it over, they're telling voters and others it'll go for about four billion dollars.
When PG&E talks about it, they say, "No, it's more like twenty." So, uh, you know, who gets to set the price? Probably the California Utilities Commission if they get that far, and it's going to be a whopper no matter what.
I mean, why in the world would the city want to run the power grid? I mean, that just sounds like a boondoggle in the making.
Well, you're talking on sort of like the common sense and [laughs] historical pattern as one of the biggest arguments against the city taking it over.
It says, "Namely, you know, would you want Muni running your electricity? If you did, the, uh, the, uh, dishwasher would go on when you turned on the oven." Uh, i-it's-- the idea is that you could do it cleaner, you could do it, uh, cheaper, uh, because PG&E is a for-profit operation, and they are making a lot of money.
Now, they've also-- you know, they've built, uh, this trouble into themselves, you know.
Their sort of, uh, neglect at keeping, uh, the infrastructure up and going over the decades has wound up costing billions in repair.
There's also questions about, you know, uh, gas and fire, uh, damages that have-- and wildfires across the state.
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