SAN FRANCISCO - Roger J. Peters, Pacific Gas and Electric Company's senior vice president and general counsel today issued the following statement after Loretta Lynch and Carl Wood filed a motion for stay of implementation of the company's bankruptcy confirmation order in U.S. District Court:

"It is regrettable Ms. Lynch and Mr. Wood have chosen to file their motion for stay asking a federal district court to prevent Pacific Gas and Electric Company from emerging from Chapter 11 as a financially healthy utility. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) addressed their arguments over three months ago.

"These bodies repeatedly determined that the Bankruptcy Court's confirmation order and the settlement agreement between PG&E and the CPUC are consistent with state law and enforceable under federal law. As a result, we firmly believe this motion is without merit and the U.S. District Court, like the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, should refuse to stay the confirmation order."

"The CPUC and PG&E have moved forward together in an open and public process to facilitate the settlement and associated financing activities required for the company to pay its creditors in full and exit bankruptcy. Ms. Lynch and Mr. Wood's arguments were rejected repeatedly by their fellow commissioners on the CPUC. Despite this fact, they have chosen to deliberately attempt to derail all the activities which have occurred over the past three months in a last minute attempt to prevent the settlement agreement from going effective, and allowing us to emerge from Chapter 11.

"Only now, after the company has received its investment grade credit ratings, and priced and sold $6.7 billion in bonds, are Ms. Lynch and Mr. Wood bringing this challenge. We find it irresponsible that they would put our customers at risk for tens of millions of dollars in higher financing costs that would result if their motion were to prevent the company from being able to take advantage of today's historically low interest rates."