Public Relations in the Energy Business Normally Means Someone’s Lying

When it comes to PR in the energy business, I must confess that I have a suspicious mind. For example, when I see a billboard like this one pictured here, I somehow believe that it must be some sort of logically spurious (not to mention tasteless, profoundly offensive, etc.) attempt on the part of the fossil fuel industry to convince us that their products have no harmful environmental consequences. And bulls-eye! It’s the work of the Heartland Institute, whose funding sources include Koch Industries.

I bring this up only because one of our largest utilities here in the U.S., Pacific Gas and Electric, has been under pressure because their lack of attention to basic safety procedures resulted in a gas line explosion in Northern California in 2010, which demolished an entire neighborhood and killed eight people. Making matters worse (far worse) is the fact that PG&E covered up the evidence of their breaches in safety, resulting in today’s AP announcement of felony indictments in federal court:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal grand jury charged Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) (NYSE:PCG) on Tuesday, July 29 with lying to federal investigators in connection with a fatal pipeline explosion that killed eight people and leveled a suburban Northern California neighborhood in 2010. The U.S. attorney in San Francisco announced the obstruction of justice charge and 27 related counts, which are in a new indictment charging the utility with felonies. It replaces a previous indictment that contained 12 counts related to PG&E’s safety practices, but not obstruction.

Prosecutors say PG&E hampered the investigation by lying to National Transportation Safety Board investigators after the blast. In particular, PG&E officials are accused of trying to mislead the NTSB about the pipeline testing and maintenance procedures the utility was following at the time of the explosion and for six months after under a company policy that did not meet federal safety standards.

In truth, we all should have known something along the lines of this indictment was in the works, when PG&E’s ads extolling their attention to consumer safety started to hit the airwaves a few weeks ago. It’s a dead give-away. Somebody’s lying; the only question is who.