‘PG&E no longer exists. It will be completely transformed.’ Six quotes from Gov. Newsom
Gov. Gavin Newsom met with The Bee’s Editorial Board last week and covered a range of issues in the 90-minute session. Here are key quotes from six of the topics:
On Pacific Gas and Electric’s bankruptcy: “PG&E has to come out of bankruptcy, but it will not approximate what it is today. PG&E no longer exists. It will be completely transformed. There will be a new board, managers, directors. This will be made real to people in the next few years.”
On operating the high-speed rail segment in the San Joaquin Valley: “Let us do something demonstrable, real, transformative to this part of the state and do justice to our promise to the taxpayers.”
On the future of farming in California: “You think of California and you think of three things — breadbasket to the world, Hollywood and innovation. It is a three-legged stool. Agriculture is what makes California special — it is central of California’s fate and future.”
On his personal review of parole cases: “This is personal to me — I spend 10 or more hours every week. It’s people’s freedoms, life and death in some respects. We know a sentence of freedom is a sentence of death, as some have no capacity for life outside prison. It is such a glaring gap in the system. We are looking at step-down facilities. I would like to see, in my lifetime, a shutdown of a state prison, but you cannot do it without the support of the union, staff, the community — it requires an alternative that meets everyone’s desires.”
On reforming the California Environmental Quality Act: “I have been on the receiving end of abuses by CEQA. I have literally been threatened by CEQA. I have seen abuses for non-environmental reasons. I have been made very familiar with it. I support CEQA; I don’t like abuse, bullies and threats.”
On the San Joaquin Valley’s historic problem of poverty: “As a Democrat, I am a little offended that my party has not addressed issues in this part of the state. There is systemic poverty and under-investment. We have to own up to that.”