Nearly two years after the Eaton Fire tore through Altadena, a coalition of wildfire survivors is sounding the alarm over what they describe as a coordinated effort by California’s investor-owned utilities to reshape public opinion — and state policy — in their favor, even as thousands of fire victims continue to struggle to rebuild their lives.
I am one of those survivors. I lead Every Fire Survivor’s Network, which represents more than 10,000 people affected by California wildfires. This year, a group calling itself Wildfire Victims First has been sending mailers and running advertisements across the state, positioning itself as a voice for people like me. It is not. That organization is funded by California’s three for-profit electric monopolies, according to reporting by the Los Angeles Times, and it does not speak for the families who actually lost their homes, businesses and loved ones.
The real numbers tell a different story than the one being marketed to Californians. Eighteen months after the Eaton Fire, roughly two-thirds of survivors remain displaced from their homes. Retirement accounts have been emptied. Credit cards are maxed out. More than half of us are on the verge of losing whatever temporary housing we’ve managed to secure.
Meanwhile, Gov. Gavin Newsom is reportedly negotiating another utility relief package behind closed doors, ahead of the Legislature’s return in August. Survivors have seen this playbook before, and we know how it typically ends.
Last September, in the final 48 hours of the legislative session, Newsom and legislative leaders gutted Senate Bill 254 — originally intended to protect wildfire survivors — and replaced it with a 231-page measure that instead shielded California’s electric utilities. The rewrite came so late that lawmakers had to extend the session just to satisfy the state’s constitutional requirement for a 72-hour public review period. Some legislators later admitted they cast votes without fully understanding what was in the bill. One observer described the maneuver to the Los Angeles Times as “effectively a bailout.”
That is not how democratic government is supposed to function.
State regulators justified the move by warning that utilities faced financial collapse without intervention. The California Public Utilities Commission subsequently approved a $1.1 billion rate increase for Southern California Edison, along with nearly $1 billion in retroactive charges — paid for by California ratepayers to the very utility whose equipment investigators have identified as the probable cause of the Eaton Fire.
Two months later, Edison raised its shareholder dividend for the 22nd consecutive year, bringing the total payout to nearly $1.3 billion. The company’s three largest institutional shareholders are BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street. Thanks in part to the rate increases, Edison’s profits more than tripled in 2025, climbing from $1.3 billion to $4.5 billion. CEO Pedro Pizarro’s compensation rose 20% to $16.5 million.
This wasn’t a rescue from bankruptcy. It was a transfer of wealth from working Californians to Wall Street investors — occurring the same year the Eaton Fire claimed 19 lives and upended the futures of tens of thousands of residents across the San Gabriel Valley and beyond.
California lawmakers and the governor now face a defining choice: stand with the families who lost everything, or continue shielding the corporations whose equipment has been linked to some of the state’s deadliest fires.
A national coalition has launched a campaign, DearNewsom.org, backed by organizations including the NAACP, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network — representing 70 immigrant rights groups — and Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization with more than a million members. NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said the letter urges the governor to choose democracy over corporate influence, calling on him to “stand with survivors, reject policies that shield corporate misconduct and ensure California leads the nation by putting people before powerful interests.”
The message is straightforward: no more utility bailouts negotiated in private before survivors have been made whole.
If Newsom believes his proposals genuinely serve California’s interests, he should make that case publicly, through the normal legislative process — not through last-minute language inserted days before lawmakers adjourn. California has an opportunity to set a national example of accountability, rather than demonstrate what happens when corporate influence overrides the democratic process.
The principle at stake is one most of us learned as children, and one that underpins our civil justice system: if you break it, you fix it. Not: you break it, your victims lose everything, and the shareholders and executives responsible walk away wealthier than before.
If the outcome of repeated catastrophic wildfires continues to be record corporate profits, record executive pay and record shareholder dividends, then that is precisely the outcome this system will keep delivering.
Original source: CalMatters
