Marshall Fire lawsuits could torch Xcel Energy

Update: "PacifiCorp may have to pay out billions of dollars in damages after being found liable in a series of destructive wildfires over Labor Day weekend in 2020."

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Utilities are not your friends.

Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy screws customers in Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas and New Mexico. In 2013 the firm cashed in on its own vulnerable downed power lines it fixed with federal money in Minnesota after a record snowfall linked to climate disruptions it's partly responsible for. In my home state of South Dakota Xcel proposed the remediation of contaminated areas to permit unrestricted use of the Pathfinder nuclear site and spent more than a million bucks on ballot issues.

In Colorado alone the company and its shareholders got rich growing cannabis by burning coal and in 2014 Xcel gave nearly $20,000 to South Dakota's Republican congressional delegation. In 2015 Xcel slow-walked grid ties for subscribers with home grown solar in its home state and in Colorado the syndicate charges homeowners .17 a kWh in base rates but only pays .08 cents per kWh to subscribers with rooftop solar. 

In 2016 an Xcel principal engaged in a violent crackdown of pipeline activists. In 2017 Xcel used federal production tax credits to build South Dakota's biggest bird and bat killer. In 2022 a proposed ballot measure, called Initiative 93, would have required Colorado's investor-owned utilities — Xcel Energy and Black Hills Energy — to pay at least five percent of their revenues back to customers. Here in New Mexico Xcel Energy adds a surcharge for customers who choose a photovoltaic power grid tie. 

Recall Black Hills Energy started the 2002 Grizzly Gulch Fire that almost torched Deadwood and in California PG&E shelled out billions after its transmission lines started wildfires in 2018. South Dakota-based NorthWestern Energy burned down the town of Denton, Montana in 2021.

Xcel gives twice as much campaign dough to Earth haters like Kristi Noem than to Democrats and just recently South Dakota's public utility commission rejected a request for an eighteen percent rate increase but approved one for six percent. Why was the request so high? Because Xcel knew it helped to burn down over a thousand houses and caused over two billion dollars damage in Colorado's Marshall Fire and a lawsuit had already been filed in March.

In light of findings in the causes of the conflation a third lawsuit was filed against Earth hater Xcel in Colorado courts and experts expect many more. It could be the end of an horrendous history.