The California Public Utilities Commission’s legal division moved to open to public view each Pacific Gas & Electric record that’s discovered during the commission’s investigation into the safety of California’s natural gas pipelines. PG&E wants all its files to remain confidential. The issue “is critical to both a retrospective review of PG&E’s safety and to the future safety of California’s entire gas infrastructure,” the CPUC division claimed in an Oct. 19 motion. The investigation is supposed to determine “whether PG&E’s record-keeping practices for its entire gas transmission system have been unsafe and therefore in violation of the law.” The utility responded Oct. 20 that it does not intend to reveal the locations of transmission infrastructure, “such as valves and regulators.” The “living database” containing that information cannot be divulged “without undermining its utility for the purpose for which it was created,” stated PG&E. PG&E documents apparently show the utility’s “historic re-use” of junked and salvaged transmission pipe, as well as poor welding on the pipes. The motion to make documents public is relevant to safety, noted the legal division, both “to the public and to the media.” PG&E claims that all its job files--the primary source of records about the pipes, according to the legal division--are to remain secret to the public. The case stems from the September 2010 explosion in San Bruno that killed eight, injured many others, and destroyed more than three dozen homes. The claims of blanket confidentiality are expected to be taken up at a Nov. 1 hearing.