A coalition made up of several consumer, energy and political groups held a protest Monday asking the San Diego City Council to hold a public hearing of the region’s devastating surge in natural gas prices.
, an organization that advocates for a publicly owned, nonprofit power utility. “What makes matters worse is that we already had 340,000 utility customers, one in four, behind in their payments coming into the situation, so this will only add to their angst.”
Two years ago, the San Diego City Council hired SDG&E and signed a 10 year franchise agreement. Rose said now the City Council must exercise its oversight responsibility and start with investigating the latest price spikes. “We need public hearings with a purpose, three purposes,” Rose said. “What happened with natural gas prices? What has been the extent of the damage? And what can we do to prevent this from ever happening again?”
According to Rose, no other utility in the west has imposed a rate increase anywhere near SDG&E’s and according to federal data, SDG&E’s gas inventory fell dramatically coming into the heavy heating season. “The real question is, ‘What did the utility do to protect us against this kind of volatility?’ We need to hear from outside experts. We need to hear more from SDG&E. We need to learn more so that this is less likely to happen again,” Rose said.
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