By Count Friedrich von Olsen

It is 65 degrees Fahrenheit in Lake Arrowhead at the moment, which matches the 65 degree temperature in San Francisco. Nevertheless, things are very hot in San Francisco for Michael Peevey, the former president of the California Public Utilities Commission. After getting a search warrant, agents of law enforcement searched the homes of both Peevey and Pacific Gas & Electric Vice President Brian Cherry last month, looking for evidence of bribery, influence peddling and other felony conduct. If my sources are correct, Mr. Peevey has been involved in all level of double-dealing and conflicts of interest…
What we know is this: Peevey was the former president of Southern California Edison and subsequently served as the president of the of the California Public Utilities Commission until late last year. In March 2013, while he was supposed to be regulating California’s energy industry and looking after the interest of the state’s taxpayers and ratepayers, he held a secret, off the books, ex-parte meeting with Edison’s executive vice president of external relations, Stephen Pickett, in which Peevey essentially formulated the terms of a settlement with regard to the closing of the San Onofre nuclear plant that will cost ratepayers $5 billion. Where was this meeting held? At the Bristol Hotel in Warsaw, Poland, where incidentally, I once stayed…
We also know that in 2013 Mr. Peevey had some rather interesting written exchanges with Mr. Cherry regarding PG&E’s various issues and some problems it was experiencing. In one of the exchanges, Cherry told Peevey that Peevey “owed” something to PG&E. Ultimately, what Cherry wanted, it turned out, was for Peevey’s staff to ensure the appointment of an administrative law judge PG&E was certain would prove amenable to PG&E’s views with regard to a $1.3 billion rate case…
Here in San Bernardino County, at least in some circles. Mr. Peevey is viewed in a more favorable light. He was instrumental in intervening to undo a previous CPUC decision that allowed SoCal Edison to put 197-foot high electrical line towers through Chino Hills. Again in 2013, at his instigation, he and two of his colleagues outvoted two other CPUC commissioners to force Edison to take those towers down…
For his vote against the company he once headed in favor of Chino Hills residents, Mr. Peevey was widely lauded. But there were some disturbing questions at the time. Huge electrical towers are a reality all over California. Did he create a precedent by the 2013 action with regard to Chino Hills that would result in a trillion dollars worth of power poles all over the state having to be de-erected and the lines that run between them placed underground in cities elsewhere? What does this represent in terms of a burden upon rate payers in the future? Already, the implication of that action has come home to roost as the city of Ontario is now demanding that the continuation of the same line now being undergrounded in Chino Hills be undergrounded where it crosses over into its borders…
We are left with some disturbing questions, one of which is this: Did Chino Hills receive favorable treatment from Mr. Peevey and the California Public Utilities Commission because the residents of that well-heeled city (the most affluent city in San Bernardino County, I am informed) had the means to hire lawyers and investigators that other cities simply could not afford? Another is this: Did Mr. Peevey ensure a favorable outcome for Chino Hills and an unfavorable one for Edison on the undergrounding issue because he was trying to short circuit possible accusations that he was showing favoritism toward his former employer on the San Onofre issue? And this: Did Mr. Peevey arrange a vote in favor of Chino Hills because the aforementioned lawyers and investigators had enough information to subject him to blackmail?