A federal judge approved Pacific Gas and Electric’s $60 billion Chapter 11 reorganization plan Saturday, two days after a state judge sentenced the company to $4 million in fines and costs, the maximum allowable, for starting the November 2018 Camp Fire that killed 84 people and destroyed the town of Paradise.

It was the state’s deadliest and most destructive wildland blaze and the worst of the catastrophes that led PG&E to seek bankruptcy protection in January 2019.

The approval of PG&E’s reorganization plan by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Dennis Montali in San Francisco came after 17 months of negotiations between the utility, fire victims and other creditors, and Gov. Gavin Newsom. It allows the country’s largest electricity provider to resume its role as monopoly utility for most of Central and Northern California.

The utility will leave bankruptcy burdened with billions of dollars in debt and operating under the scrutiny of judges, elected officials and an angry public.

In Chico, Calif. on Thursday, Butte County Superior Court Judge Michael Deems said he couldn’t imprison a corporation, but he repeated the words of Federal Judge William Alsup, who oversees PG&E’s probation for felony convictions related to the San Bruno gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people in 2010.

“‘If there was ever a corporation that deserved to go to prison, it’s PG&E,'” Deems said, quoting Alsup. “This court is adopting that sentiment. If these crimes were attributed to an actual human person rather than a corporation, the anticipated sentence … would be 90 years to be served in state prison.”

PG&E pleaded guilty Tuesday to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter and one felony count of unlawfully starting a fire as part of a sentencing agreement with the Butte County District Attorney’s Office.

‘Back to Business’

Fire victims who lost family members in the Camp Fire made statements to the court all day Wednesday and on Thursday morning.

Mike Hanko, a retired truck mechanic, broke down in sobs as he recalled the death of his brother, Dennis Hanko, in the Camp Fire and the devastating effects on their family. The brothers had lived together in Paradise, helping each other through hard times, until a month before the fire, Hanko said.

Hanko, speaking on behalf of himself and his three sisters, said it upset him that PG&E seemed to care more for profits than human lives.

“They just file for bankruptcy, pay fines, money to people they have harmed, and then it’s back to business,” Hanko said. “How can you put a price on a life?”

District Attorney Michael Ramsey read a statement by Tammie Hillis, whose father, T.K. Huff, died in the Camp Fire. Hillis said her father was able to make it to the edge of his property in his wheelchair, where he’d apparently tried to protect himself with a hose and water bucket.

Hillis said her family will never know if her father died quickly or suffered at length as the Camp Fire raced toward his home in the hamlet of Concow, which the fire destroyed shortly before it hit Paradise. His burned remains were identified through a DNA match.

“We are left to picture his last heart-wrenching moments on Earth,” she wrote. “Please explain to me why my father had to die this way … alone, afraid of what was coming down the hill. This was a flaming monster, destroying everything in its path. Our father died from the ultimate monster, PG&E. Their complacency year after year is pure evil. They knew and chose to do nothing, which makes them murderers.”

Ramsey released a report Tuesday, based on grand jury testimony, that detailed PG&E’s failure to maintain its aging transmission lines near Paradise. A C hook that cost 22 cents when it was made in 1919 broke after nearly 100 years of wear. That dropped a 115-kV line that arced on its steel tower, sending molten metal onto dry brush below, Ramsey said Thursday. (See PG&E Pleads Guilty to 84 Homicides and Arson.)

He said his office had been unable to show that any PG&E executives approved decisions over the course of decades that led to the fire, but he warned the utility it should know that future disasters could result in individual prosecutions.

“Now, as a result of the investigation and the prosecution and the distribution of the report to the executives of PG&E, those folks are now tasked with the knowledge of their company’s reckless behavior in failing to maintain their equipment,” Ramsey said. “They are on notice.”

He likened it to the procedure in California courts of warning repeat drunk drivers that they will be charged with second-degree murder if they kill someone while driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

PG&E Director Bill Smith, who will take over as acting chief executive when current CEO Bill Johnson retires at the end of June, represented PG&E at Thursday’s hearing. (Johnson had pleaded “guilty, Your Honor” 85 times on Tuesday.)

Smith promised, as PG&E executives have vowed numerous times since the utility filed for bankruptcy in January 2019, that it would change and that its equipment would never again cause a tragedy like the Camp Fire.

“Your Honor, we have come before this court [and the] Camp Fire victims … with humility and respect, ready to be held to account for this tragedy and committed to regaining the trust that we have broken,” Smith said.

Bankruptcy Approved

On Saturday, Bankruptcy Judge Montali signed an order approving PG&E’s reorganization plan, as he had said he would in a written order Wednesday and again on Friday, during a hearing to resolve remaining objections.

“These cases are among the most complex in U.S. bankruptcy history,” Montali wrote in his Wednesday order. “They involve difficult legal, financial, practical and personal issues. They were filed because of overwhelming damage claims following the devastating 2015-2018 Northern California wildfires, leaving thousands of victims who suffered from those wildfires owed billions of dollars, plus thousands more of traditional non-fire creditors of various types also owed billions of dollars.”

Like Deems, Montali said he felt he had little choice.

“If the court does not confirm the plan, the only option appears to be leaving the debtors where they have been for the last 17 months,” he wrote. “Leaving tens of thousands of fire survivors, contract parties, lenders, general creditors, allegedly defrauded investors, equity owners and countless others with no other options on the horizon is not an acceptable alternative.”

PG&E had met the requirements of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code by offering a plan that is financially feasible and will not leave the utility facing liquidation after it exits bankruptcy, Montali said. PG&E had also resolved major disputes with objecting parties, and it had won approval for its plan from the California Public Utilities Commission under Assembly Bill 1054, which establishes a wildfire insurance fund for the state’s investor-owned utilities. (See CPUC Approves PG&E Bankruptcy Plan.)

The company reached negotiated settlements with creditor committees, agreeing to pay $13.5 billion to fire victims, $11 billion to insurance companies and hedge funds that hold third-party subrogation claims and $1 billion to local governments and agencies for wildfire expenses. PG&E plans to finance its bankruptcy with billions of dollars in stock and debt offerings, which it has already begun filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.