PG&E Public Policy and External Affairs, Eric Daniels

By MARY FOPPIANO For Avila

Ihave known Eric Daniels, PG&E Public Policy and External Affairs, since he started at PG&E on December 18, 2012. I am sure you are surprised that I would remember the exact date that he started there, but Eric came to the Community Center to help us spread decomposed granite in our Healing Garden on his first day of work. Perhaps this work ethic can be attributed to his family history. He is a member of the 6th generation of a cattle ranching family from the Lonoke area of eastern Monterey County.

Eric majored in American Government and History, focusing on pre-Soviet Russian Romanoff Dynasty at Sacramento State University. He worked for Assemblymember Eric Seastrand until he died in 1990 and then for his wife Andrea, who went on to Congress and was later the Executive Director of the California Space Authority (CSA). He left Sacramento and became a lobbyist for the CSA for 15 years with his main interest in access to and services from space.

The CSA was a nonprofit corporation representing the commercial, civil, and national defense/homeland security interests of California’s diverse space enterprise community in four domains: Industry, Government, Academia, and Workforce. CSA was also a participating member in the coalition for Space Exploration. It officially ceased operations on June 10, 2011.

Some of the issues that Eric worked on were transitioning Vandenberg Air Force Base into a location for commercial space launch, rebuilding the engine launch test stands at Edwards Air Force Base, and helping local airports reposition themselves into space launch sites, such as Mojave Airport. Airports such as the one in Paso Robles are now considering the change for themselves. He was also involved in international consulting, linking American aerospace companies with European industry members at European trade shows.

At PG&E for the past 10 years, Eric leads their public relations, external affairs activities, and strategy activities on the Central Coast, including local government advocacy for the company in San Benito, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara Counties. He partners with cities and counties, community-based organizations, and environmental and business organizations to enhance customer loyalty, environmental leadership, and community engagement for the purposes of enabling infrastructure development and generating corporate goodwill.

I discussed our power outage on January 10 with Eric to better understand why the power was off for two days. He said that the lines along Avila Beach Drive are for cable and telephone with no electricity and thus no fire ignition risk. The electric power lines are along the Bob Jones Trail, and it took two days to make repairs to the downed line because of flood waters and dense debris buildup.

Some of the methods that PG&E are using to manage and reduce ignition risk are:

1. Comprehensive Monitoring and Data Collection programs, i.e., wildfire cameras and asset inspections, designed to provide insight into changing environmental hazards.

2. Operational Mitigations, i.e., Enhanced Power Line Safety Program (EPSS), Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS), and Downed Conductor Detection that, provide on-going risk reduction and influence how they manage the environment around the electric grid.

3. System Resilience mitigations i.e., 10,000-mile distribution undergrounding program and transmission line removal work to reduce ignition risk in high fire-threat areas where PSPS events have been most prevalent.

4. Engaging with customers and communities to address issues related to wildfire preparation, ongoing safety work, other public safety/preparedness issues.

I asked Eric about the future of Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP). It was expected that renewable generating sources would supply sufficient energy to customers by the time DCPP was slated to close in 2025. But, the growth of renewables, including wind and solar power sources, have not materialized as predicted. Consequently, California has asked PG&E to continue operations at DCPP for another five years, and PG&E is working towards that goal. At the same time, PG&E is working to complete the necessary permitting processes for the ultimate decommissioning of the plant so that once closure does come, transitions from operations to decommissioning can be more seamless and less disruptive to the community and the local economy.

As you can see, Eric has a big job to keep all of us informed of the many PG&E issues facing our community. He provides monthly updates to the Avila Valley Advisory Council (AVAC), and I am happy to announce that Eric has agreed to be one of my judges for our upcoming 4th of July Doggie Parade. Either tune in to AVAC or come to the Doggie Parade if you want to meet him.