Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story referred to the state settlement with SDG&E as a "fine." KPBS regrets the error.
UPDATE: Read about the California Public Utilities Commission's decision here.
California regulators will decide tomorrow whether to approve a $14 million settlement with San Diego Gas & Electric after state investigators claimed poorly maintained power lines started the 2007 wildfires. The money would be paid into the state's general fund.
The $14 million is part of a tentative settlement between SDG&E and the Public Utilities Commission. If the deal is approved, SDG&E will be required to do expanded inspections of its lines until 2016.
State investigators have found that SDG&E lines started three of the 2007 fires that caused more than $1 billion in damage and destroyed 1,500 homes.
"It's not at all the scale of the damage it produced," says Barbara Levine, who lost her Rancho Bernardo home in the fires. She says the settlement against SDG&E isn't big enough. "It's not enough for them to change their current behavior."
Cox Communications has also agreed to pay $2 million in another proposed settlement. One of its wires hit a power line that ignited the Guejito fire.
