It is sadly not hyperbolic to say that PG&E has caused widespread destruction across California over the past decade. It’s time to put an end to this devastation and turn the company into a publicly owned utility.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s faulty equipment led to the explosion in San Bruno that killed eight people almost 10 years ago. More recently, its power lines have sparked a series of wildfires, among them the deadliest in California history. The 2018 Camp Fire killed at least 85 people, injured 17 and almost totally destroyed the communities of Paradise and Concow. Fifty-two thousand people were forced to temporarily evacuate their homes.

After the Camp Fire, rather than fix its outdated equipment, PG&E imposed mass blackouts across Northern California in the name of “public safety,” while handing out millions of dollars in executive bonuses. Last fall’s shutoffs affected millions of Californians, but they were especially difficult for seniors trying to survive the heat without air-conditioning, people with disabilities and illnesses who rely on electric-powered medical equipment, people on nutritional assistance whose food spoiled without refrigeration, small businesses that were forced to close, and people who couldn’t collect a paycheck because their workplace shut down or their children’s schools closed.

And what’s most frustrating is that these shutoffs could have been avoided if PG&E had been a responsible company focused on fixing its equipment.

Why, given this terrible track record, has PG&E failed time and time again to fix its power lines and keep its system in a state of good repair? The answer is simple: money.

PG&E is an investor-owned utility, so it’s accountable to its Wall Street owners rather than its ratepayers and the people of California. And, frankly, the state government has allowed PG&E to put its investors ahead of the public.

Under its current structure, PG&E makes money not by maintaining a safe and reliable power system but by extending its lines farther and farther, often into wildfire zones. That’s because PG&E is guaranteed a “rate of return” on all expansions of its system. As it stands, the utility simply doesn’t benefit much financially from maintaining its existing equipment. Rather, it profits by building as much infrastructure as possible — at the expense of taking care of existing assets.

When these power lines spark fires and cause disasters, Californians are left to clean up the mess.

To add insult to injury, PG&E customers pay some of the highest energy bills in the nation for some of the worst service.

PG&E also regularly opposes clean-energy initiatives, including efforts to make it easier and cheaper to access distributed energy resources such as rooftop solar panels and energy storage. Investment in clean alternatives to fossil fuels is a crucial strategy to address the climate crisis, and the company’s opposition to such alternatives makes it that much harder to stem global warming.

Californians have had enough: The status quo isn’t working. PG&E has shown over and over again that it can’t be trusted and that the people of California are not its priority. It’s time to change our approach. We can’t fix a broken utility without fundamental structural reform.

That’s why I authored SB917, which would turn PG&E into a publicly owned utility — one accountable not to Wall Street and profit maximization but rather to delivering safe, reliable, affordable power to Californians.

PG&E workers have also been victims of the company’s mismanagement. These workers perform acts of heroism trying to keep the system safe and functional, despite management’s failure to focus on those goals. It’s time for these workers to get a fresh start with new leadership.

Under my legislation, the day-to-day management of the utility would be transferred to a public benefit corporation to assure the workforce an easy transition. Under a public benefit corporation, PG&E workers would keep their jobs and their union contracts, wages, benefits and pensions.

PG&E and other opponents of this approach claim the government is incapable of running a utility. That’s simply false. California has numerous examples, including large publicly owned and operated utilities in Sacramento and Los Angeles, and some in smaller communities. Public utilities have existed throughout the United States for many years.

The public model is the best approach because it guarantees the highest level of transparency and accountability. Public utilities must comply with the state’s Brown Act and maintain elected boards, open meetings and open records.

Additionally, because public utilities are exempt from state and federal taxes, a publicly owned PG&E would be able to direct significantly more financial resources to much-needed upgrades than a privately owned entity could.

The question for California and its governor and Legislature is this: How is PG&E’s investor-owned status quo working out? The answer: not great. A transition to public ownership would do away with a backward incentive structure that gives short shrift to safety to boost shareholder returns. Public ownership would allow the utility to focus on what Californians need and want: safe, reliable, affordable power.

I urge everyone — taxpayers, customers, local officials, my fellow legislators, PG&E employees and more — to see the big picture. This is an important moment for us to ask who should make decisions for California: Wall Street or the people? I think it should be the people.

Scott Wiener is a state senator representing San Francisco and northern San Mateo County. He previously served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.