CEO: PG&E Needs Progress on Wildfire Risk Plans to Safeguard Investments

PG&E Corp. CEO Patti Poppe said Feb. 12 that every element of the utility’s spending plans “must be and will be on the table” should California legislators be unable to finalize broad wildfire policy reforms in the coming quarters.

Lawmakers last summer passed a bill that outlined the creation of a wildfire insurance fund that would collect money from both the state’s three investor-owned utilities— Edison International and Sempra in addition not PG&E—starting late this decade and from customers beginning in 2036. Utilities lauded passage of Senate Bill 254 as a key risk-management measure but the many details of the process are still being worked on, with the California Earthquake Authority scheduled to deliver to next-step recommendations on April 1.

Poppe (along with Pedro Pizarro, her peer at Edison) has in the past made the case for comprehensive reforms to California wildfire risk management because the uncertainty has depressed their companies’ valuations, which makes financing their growth more difficult and unpredictable.

On a Feb. 13 conference call to discuss PG&E’s fourth-quarter results and 2026 outlook, Poppe said PG&E’s current valuation—its price-to-book ratio is about 1.3 while peers such as American Electric Power and Xcel Energy trade at more than two times their book value—“is absolutely not sustainable.” That makes the CEA’s work, which Poppe lauded for following through on goals outlined last year, so vital. Without it, she added, PG&E would need to significantly change course.

“If progress stops or derails or we feel that the state has lost interest in getting to the right outcome on 254, then obviously, all aspects of our plan must be and will be on the table,” Poppe said.

The wildfire-valuation dynamic already has been affecting strategy at Oakland-based PG&E, which serves about 16 million customers in the Golden State. CFO Carolyn Burke said that, having identified about $5 billion in new investment opportunities beyond its $73 billion capex plan through 2030, the PG&E team is more likely to shuffle the order of its work rather than expand or extend its plan. The operative word is better.

“And when we say better, we mean in terms of affordability, in particular,” Burke said. “An example of that is accelerating or prioritizing certain capital that’s associated with new load that could improve upon our build trajectory.”

In the last three months of 2025, PG&E posted a net profit of $642 million, down slightly from its Q4 2024 earnings. For the full year, the company earned $2.7 billion on revenues of more than $24.9 billion.

Shares of PG&E (Ticker: PCG) were up more than 2% to about $18 in midday trading Feb. 13. Over the past six months, they have risen nearly 20% and the company’s market value is now more than $39 billion.