Top PUC official wants PG&E fined $17m for San Carlos pipeline record-keeping blunders

SAN CARLOS — In a strongly worded rebuke of PG&E and its senior management, a top official with the state Public Utilities Commission on Monday recommended that the utility be fined more than $17 million for failing to promptly and properly notify regulators about flawed records related to a natural gas pipeline beneath San Carlos.

The huge fine proposed by PUC Commissioner Mark Ferron is the latest development in a widening controversy over PG&E’s efforts to improve record keeping and upgrade its gas pipeline in the wake of the fatal San Bruno explosion three years ago. Faulty record keeping was found to be a contributing factor to the San Bruno blast.

Read more: East Bay Times, November 4, 2013