As electric utilities across the country raise prices on their customers, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver dedicated Sunday’s episode to hammering power companies for their terrible (and often extremely dangerous) infrastructure. At the heart of the issue is the monopoly that most utility providers have over local markets. “They’re actually the only game in town,” Oliver explained before tearing into PG&E in California, which has been the source of several fires, including the massive wildfire into 2018 that killed 85 people thanks to an almost century old hook failing on one of it power lines.
“PG&E are less a utility and more a fire company that occasionally also delivers power to people’s homes,” Oliver quipped before blasting energy companies for hindering solar use and just all around fleecing customers because its more profitable to shareholders to build more power plants than actually fix their infrastructure. Via Yahoo!:
“And high bills are just the beginning of the problems here, because utilities are also exceptionally prone to scandal. In fact, just google your utility company right now and the word ‘scandal,’ and chances are they’ve gotten into some major trouble. It’s basically like googling your local Jimmy John’s and e. coli, or the name of your favorite teacher from high school and January 6th — you’re not going to like the results that you find.”
To drive all of this home, Oliver also employed the use of Reddy Kilowatt, an electric company mascot who told customers for years that electric companies care about their customers. Clearly, that’s not the case, and the mascot was not a fan of Oliver exposing that fact. After being welcomed into the studio at the end of segment, a terrifying looking Reddy immediately electrocuted Oliver to death. It was pretty… shocking.
(Via Yahoo!)