Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
California Utility Company Knew For Years That Its Outdated Equipment Could Spark Fires, Investigation Shows
PG&E Corp. knew for years that hundreds of miles of high-voltage power lines could fail and spark fires, yet it repeatedly failed to perform the necessary upgrades. Documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal under the Freedom of Information Act and in connection with a regulatory dispute over PG&E鈥檚 spending on its electrical grid show that the company has long been aware that parts of its 18,500-mile transmission system have reached the end of their useful lives. The failure last year of a century-old transmission line that sparked a wildfire, killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise wasn鈥檛 an aberration, the documents show. (Blunt and Gold, 7/10)
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered PG&E Corp. to respond, 鈥渙n a paragraph-by-paragraph basis,鈥 to a Wall Street Journal article that said the company has failed to upgrade hundreds of miles of high-voltage power lines despite knowing they could fail and spark wildfires. (Blunt, 7/10)