Think again.

Without a strong political opposition forcing them to close ranks, Democrats routinely splinter along lines of ideology, region, gender, ethnicity and — perhaps most consistently — competing economic interests.

At its core, the state Capitol still functions much like a marketplace, where various interest groups haggle over legislation that affects their bottom lines. That’s essentially how the late journalist Carey McWilliams characterized it back in 1949 in his book “California: The Great Exception.”

Since then, California has transformed dramatically — its population has exploded, its economy has been reshaped, and its politics have flipped from Republican control to Democratic dominance. Yet McWilliams’ observation still rings true, even as the players and interests jockeying for influence have changed.

The clearest recent example is the fight that consumed the final stretch of this year’s legislative session, ending in gridlock: the enormously costly question of who should pay when wildfires — now a grim constant in California life — cause destruction.

Many of the state’s most devastating fires have been traced back to power lines that fail during windstorms, including one of last year’s major blazes in Los Angeles County.

The investor-owned utilities that operate those lines — companies like Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison — have generally accepted some degree of financial responsibility for fire damage. But because they operate as state-regulated monopolies, determining exactly how much they should pay gets complicated.

These utilities provide an essential service, and state regulators are tasked with keeping them financially healthy enough to secure the capital and loans needed to keep the lights on.

That means payouts to wildfire victims can’t be so large that they threaten a utility’s financial footing — which, in practice, means ratepayers end up absorbing part of the cost, pushing already sky-high electricity bills even higher.

This debate has simmered in the Capitol for years. Gov. Gavin Newsom, now in his final year in office and widely seen as eyeing a potential presidential run, decided it was time to settle the matter once and for all.

As lawmakers were racing toward the end of the legislative session, Newsom put forward a plan that would cap utility liability for wildfire damage — a move that would shore up the companies’ finances but shift more of the burden onto fire victims and their insurers.

Predictably, the proposal drew swift backlash from victims’ advocates and insurance companies, reigniting another simmering crisis: the growing reluctance of insurers to write policies in California’s increasingly fire-prone landscape. Like utilities, insurers operate under state oversight, and regulators face similar pressure to keep the industry profitable enough to stay in the state.

Insurance companies and wildfire survivor groups mounted an aggressive campaign urging lawmakers to reject Newsom’s plan, framing it as a handout to utility companies. Facing mounting opposition, the governor ultimately backed off.

State Senate leaders then crafted a compromise that Newsom appeared to accept, albeit without much enthusiasm. But utility executives — joined by their labor unions — blasted the new deal, arguing it would weaken their companies’ financial stability. They pointed to a sharp drop in utility stock prices after Newsom’s original proposal collapsed as proof of the risk.

In the end, no agreement could be reached, and lawmakers wrapped up the session Tuesday without resolving the issue.

Newsom told reporters he isn’t ready to give up and left open the possibility of calling a special legislative session to revisit the matter.

But without buy-in from all sides, such a move would likely accomplish little.

Newsom will remain in office through the rest of the year, and lawmakers — including newly elected members from November’s races — will reconvene in December. By then, though, he’ll be operating as a lame duck, with a successor, most likely Xavier Becerra, already chosen to take his place.

Wildfire liability remains one of California’s most tangled political puzzles — a Gordian knot born from the state’s singular complexity. And as this latest standoff shows, one-party rule hasn’t made it any easier to untie.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California Democratic Leaders Wrestle With Wildfire Liability Issue, Reach No Resolution appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The termed-out Democratic governor had pushed hard for changes to how much California utilities must pay after their equipment ignites wildfires, seeking to strip insurance companies of their ability to sue utilities to recover costs. But after weeks of resistance from lawmakers and survivors of the devastating Los Angeles-area fires, the state Assembly on Tuesday rejected a compromise version of the bill that Newsom himself had signed off on just days earlier.

The failed measure, Senate Bill 492, was dismissed by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas as a set of “half measures” that fell short of what Californians deserve. The state Senate, led by Pro Tem Monique Limón, had been ready to approve the deal, but the Assembly’s rejection leaves open whether Newsom will call a special session to try again before leaving office in January.

Even Newsom conceded the effort had come up short. “Simply put, this measure did not meet the gravity of this moment,” he said in a statement. “California cannot settle for half measures.”

A pattern disrupted

Over his tenure, Newsom has become known in the Capitol for what insiders call “jamming” the Legislature — negotiating behind closed doors with interest groups and legislative leaders, then unveiling compromise bills just hours or days before a deadline, leaving little room for amendments, hearings or public pushback. The tactic has previously helped him secure exemptions to California’s environmental review law and fast-track infrastructure projects.

This year, though, the approach largely fizzled. Late last week, a Newsom aide acknowledged in a memo to legislative leaders that the governor’s original wildfire proposals “do not appear to have a path” forward, offering a scaled-back version instead. Even so, the governor’s office insisted Newsom hadn’t caved to pressure from lawmakers or fire survivors, declaring in the memo that “all other outstanding issues are off the table.”

The uncertainty rattled financial markets. Shares of the state’s three major investor-owned utilities dropped sharply last Friday and continued falling Monday, with Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric each losing more than 20% of their value.

Frustration over the rushed process

Several lawmakers voiced irritation over the compressed timeline during a Monday night hearing before the Assembly’s utilities committee. Assemblymember Chris Rogers, a Ukiah Democrat, said most committee members hadn’t even seen the bill’s final language until it was too late to make meaningful changes.

By the time it reached the Assembly floor, the measure had already been stripped of some of Newsom’s original priorities, including provisions that would have limited insurance companies’ ability to recover damages from utilities and capped other liabilities utilities owe to fire victims and local governments.

“I have a sell-by date. I get it,” Newsom told reporters Monday during an unannounced visit to the Capitol. “I’m not going to be here to solve this, but it needs to be solved.”

He argued the bill’s final version failed to address the deeper financial pressures facing utilities — pointing to the stock slide as proof — and urged lawmakers to revisit the issue next year with his successor.

A mixed record of late-session wins

Newsom’s last-minute dealmaking hasn’t always failed. Last year, negotiations over an energy package tied to the state’s cap-and-trade program ran so long that lawmakers extended the legislative session by a day to finish the job.

This year, however, several of his priorities collapsed under lawmaker opposition. A push to expedite a controversial shipyard project in the East Bay backed by tech billionaires stalled after Solano County officials and area legislators showed little enthusiasm. (Newsom said Monday that the county board’s vote effectively killing the plan “made no damn sense.”)

He also abandoned a last-minute attempt to exempt a Santa Monica housing development — tied to a longtime political donor — from standard coastal permitting rules, and dropped a proposal to redirect road funding toward a Phillips 66 refinery in Contra Costa County after backlash from environmental groups, transportation advocates and the oil industry.

Lawmakers push back on the pressure tactics

The string of setbacks has drawn criticism from lawmakers and political observers alike. Assemblymember Alex Lee, a San Jose Democrat, needled the governor by gifting him a jar of “last-minute jam” — a jab at what he called Newsom’s “assertive” style with the Legislature.

“Legislators want a governor who is present and that they can work with,” said Tim Rosales, a Los Angeles-based Republican political strategist. “Newsom has never had that kind of relationship with the Legislature and really has been focused pretty specifically on himself. I think that’s probably rubbed a lot of legislators the wrong way.”

Solano County Supervisor Mitch Mashburn, who voted against the shipyard proposal, said concerns about being steamrolled by the governor’s office — not any real urgency — drove much of the local debate. “I ain’t really that afraid of the governor,” he said. “The governor doesn’t get to make law. The Senate and the Assembly get to make law.”

Not everyone agrees Newsom’s influence is fading. Longtime Capitol lobbyist Chris Micheli said the narrative of a weakened lame-duck governor is “overplayed,” noting Newsom still holds significant power over hundreds of bills awaiting his signature or veto. He said this year’s rejections stemmed more from policy disagreements than personal pushback against the governor.

“They win some, they lose some, every single year,” Micheli said of governors generally. “I don’t see it any more pronounced this year.”

Katelyn Roedner Sutter, a lobbyist for the Environmental Defense Fund, said the wildfire liability issue might have gone differently had Newsom’s office started negotiations earlier in the year rather than waiting until the session’s final stretch. “It’s been a growing issue for years,” she said. “So we really should’ve started on this much sooner.”

A defense of the effort

Sen. Josh Becker, a Menlo Park Democrat who authored the eventual wildfire bill and was deeply involved in the negotiations, said lawmakers simply “ran out of time” to fully hash out such a complicated issue — but he didn’t blame Newsom for trying.

“These are big, complex things that take time,” Becker said. “I’m not going to fault the governor one way or another on this. He could have done nothing.”

Newsom, for his part, suggested some of the resistance stemmed from newer legislators not fully grasping the complicated relationship between utilities and insurers. He left open the possibility of calling a special session to revisit the wildfire liability issue, though that would require cooperation from lawmakers.

“I’m just not going to leave without trying,” he said last week, invoking football coaching legend Vince Lombardi. “I feel like Lombardi or something: ‘Did you lose? No, we just ran out of time.’ I wish I had a few more months here.”

He pushed back firmly on the idea that his influence is diminishing as he heads toward the exit. “They haven’t paid any attention — literally no attention,” Newsom said of critics. “We landed 90 planes on some of the toughest issues, as relates to chatbot bills and child safety — a lot, a lot of issues. I decided to take a last at-bat on the toughest issue that I could,” he added, referring to wildfire liability. “And the good news is we made progress.”

Original source: CalMatters

The post Newsom’s Signature Legislative Maneuver Fell Flat in Session’s Final Days appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The Assembly never brought the measure, Senate Bill 492, up for a vote Tuesday, effectively ending weeks of tense, closed-door negotiations between the governor’s office, legislative leaders, utility companies, insurers and wildfire survivor groups.

Newsom and utility executives had pushed hard to limit the companies’ liability in wildfire lawsuits, warning that without changes, California risked another utility bankruptcy and continued spikes in electricity rates. Last week, the governor reached a compromise with legislative leaders that stopped short of capping compensation for fire victims or limiting attorneys’ contingency fees. It also would have preserved insurers’ ability to sue utilities to recover claims costs and blocked private equity firms from investing in wildfire claims.

That compromise, however, triggered a sharp drop in utility stocks — and ultimately went nowhere.

“The proposal before us does not yet deliver the relief, accountability or meaningful reform that Californians deserve,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said in a statement Tuesday, noting that lawmakers had spent “hundreds of hours” trying to reach a workable deal.

Newsom had hoped the legislation would help address rising electric bills and reduce the odds of another utility collapse tied to catastrophic wildfires. Speaking to reporters Monday night at the Capitol, he signaled he wasn’t giving up on the issue, noting he’ll be in Sacramento “until January.”

“I know we all hate utilities, so no one wants to defend a utility, but you’ve got to deal with reality,” Newsom said. “This thing’s not going to get better on its own.”

In a statement issued after the bill died, Newsom said the proposal, while well-intentioned, didn’t go far enough. “The reforms in this bill, while important, did not address the underlying structural problems driving this crisis, as the initial market reaction this week demonstrates,” he said. “The only solution is to return to fix the entire problem, not part of it.”

Wall Street had already reacted harshly to the emerging deal. Shares of Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison tumbled in recent days, with San Diego Gas & Electric also taking a hit as investors absorbed what some analysts described as a legislative defeat for the utilities.

In a letter sent Monday to Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón and Speaker Rivas, the chief executives of PG&E and Edison said the companies had collectively lost roughly $20 billion in market value since the previous Thursday. They warned that shaken investor confidence could lead to higher borrowing costs, reduced infrastructure investment and, ultimately, higher rates for customers.

Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, a Democrat whose district includes Eaton Fire survivors, said she was troubled that stock market jitters appeared to influence the outcome.

“We as a legislature do not write legislation in response to how the stock market is performing,” Pérez said. “Our focus and our priority needs to be on the safety of Californians, on protecting fire survivors when they’re impacted by these devastating events.”

For consumer advocates and wildfire survivor groups, the bill’s failure was seen as a win, even as they criticized how it unfolded. Groups including Consumer Watchdog and insurance industry representatives had lobbied hard against any deal viewed as a “bailout” that would shift financial risk away from utilities and onto ratepayers or insurers.

“It’s tragic the way this all played out,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. “They negotiated a deal, and renege when the utilities didn’t like it.”

Joy Chen, executive director of the Every Fire Survivors Network, said advocates had invested enormous effort fighting provisions they viewed as harmful to fire victims. “We have invested hundreds of hours to fight back the utility bailout and the attacks on victims’ rights,” Chen said. “If the speaker says his focus is on survivors, then we would expect that those attacks don’t come back in any legislation that comes out of any special session.”

Some senators said they were blindsided by how quickly the deal unraveled after clearing the upper chamber. “I think for our house, the votes and the members were there,” said Limón, a Santa Barbara Democrat. “So there certainly is a sense of disappointment.”

Sen. Ben Allen, whose district includes Palisades Fire survivors, said he didn’t expect the Assembly to abandon the compromise. “I think everyone agrees the package could have been more comprehensive,” Allen said, adding that lawmakers were trying to balance competing interests without a simple solution. “This negotiation forced the Legislature to balance competing forces, like the long-term success of our electricity grid, how it impacts the insurance market, fire survivors (and) communities.”

Assembly leaders say they plan to hold hearings this fall to continue shaping wildfire policy. Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, an Irvine Democrat, said while the bill included provisions meant to speed up payouts to fire victims and reduce wildfire risk, lawmakers wanted more time to get the details right.

“We don’t want to get it wrong and have unintended consequences that are going to hurt the people that we are here to represent,” Petrie-Norris said. “I don’t know why (the governor’s office) came to us in August with the proposal. You’ll have to ask them.”

PG&E and SDG&E did not immediately respond to requests for comment after the bill’s collapse. A spokesperson for Edison, David Eisenhauer, said the company remains focused on long-term solutions. “Californians need a durable, comprehensive policy that puts wildfire survivors first, protects communities and strengthens the safety, resilience and reliability of the energy system,” Eisenhauer said.

Warning signs emerged Monday night, as lobbyists and lawmakers raised concerns that eroding investor confidence could translate into job losses and reduced spending on grid improvements. Scott Wetch, a lobbyist representing utility labor groups including the California Coalition of Utility Employees, was blunt in his assessment during an Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee hearing before the bill’s demise.

“Workers got screwed, ratepayers got screwed, lawyers and insurance companies win,” Wetch said.

Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, a Thousand Oaks Democrat, called the outcome disappointing. “It is a big disaster that we were not able to come up with that structural reform,” she said.

Assemblymember John Harabedian, a Pasadena Democrat, dismissed the stock sell-off as overblown, calling it “hysteria” driven by unrealistic expectations about what lawmakers could accomplish in the final stretch of session. By Tuesday, though, he acknowledged the deal had lost support across the board.

“No one seemed to be happy” with the bill, Harabedian said. “So why are we doing this?”

Original source: CalMatters

The post Wildfire Liability Bill Fails to Reach Vote as Legislative Session Closes appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The agreement, announced Saturday, represents a retreat from the governor’s original vision. Rather than reducing what utilities owe insurance companies, local governments and fire victims after their equipment ignites a wildfire, the final package focuses on more targeted reforms — barring private equity firms from investing in wildfire claims and stripping bonuses from utility executives in years when their companies’ equipment causes a fatal fire.

For Inland Empire and Southern California residents who have watched wildfire costs and insurance premiums climb in recent years, the outcome marks a win for legislators who refused to soften penalties for utilities or cap what fire victims can recover. Opposition to Newsom’s original plan came from a coalition that included insurance companies, consumer watchdogs and survivors of the January 2025 Eaton Fire, which killed 19 people in Altadena after being traced to Southern California Edison equipment.

Under the new agreement, formalized in Senate Bill 492, the state will establish a “fast-pay” system to speed compensation for property losses and pain and suffering following utility-caused fires. Insurance claims would need to be evaluated within 60 days, with settlement offers following within 30 days after that — though survivors would still retain the option of pursuing lawsuits against utilities through the courts. The bill also directs the state to strengthen local wildfire prevention efforts and improve transparency around insurance availability in high-risk fire zones.

The deal caps weeks of tense, closed-door negotiations between the governor’s office and legislative leaders over how much financial responsibility utility companies should bear when their equipment sparks a fire. Newsom had sought to reduce what utilities pay to insurers, local governments, businesses and some wildfire survivors, arguing that ballooning costs threaten investor confidence in California’s three major investor-owned utilities — Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric. Higher borrowing costs for those companies, his administration warned, could ultimately translate into higher electric bills for ratepayers across the state.

The governor also framed his proposal as a way to ensure homeowners who lost everything get paid first, pointing to past wildfire cases in which investors funded lawsuits or bought up claims, injecting third parties into the payout process.

But SB 492 leaves most of those cost-shifting provisions out entirely. The state’s $18 billion wildfire fund — financed equally by utility customers and shareholders, and the same fund that would back the new fast-pay program — remains unchanged in structure. Supporters of Newsom’s original approach warn that another catastrophic fire season could drain the fund, leaving utilities exposed to massive costs and the risk of bankruptcy. Nine of California’s 20 most destructive wildfires on record have been linked to power lines or electrical equipment.

“This system needs full structural reform — not a partial one,” Newsom said in a statement Saturday. He called on lawmakers to revisit the issue next year to shore up the wildfire fund, stabilize electricity rates and prevent fire victims from becoming “unsecured creditors” in the event of a utility bankruptcy.

Sen. Josh Becker, a Menlo Park Democrat central to the talks, said he expects the debate over utility liability to resurface under a future governor. “What I heard very clearly, certainly from senators, from the Assembly and even from all the stakeholders, was that they’re willing to do that,” Becker said. “They’re willing to start getting around the table and looking at some of those structural issues. But that takes time. We ran out of time in this session.”

Sen. Ben Allen, who represents constituents affected by the Palisades Fire, said lawmakers stood firmly behind fire survivors even as the broader issue of electricity affordability remains unresolved. “Challenges with affordability of electricity remain,” Allen said. “That’s not going away.”

Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric declined to comment directly, instead referring inquiries to Wildfire Victims First, a utility-backed advocacy campaign whose goals mirrored the governor’s original wish list. Campaign spokesperson Nathan Click said the state still needs urgent structural changes “to ensure a fair recovery system.” A PG&E spokesperson said the company is reviewing the legislation and remains focused on speeding survivor recovery, improving safety and protecting customer rates. PG&E’s stock dropped Friday after reports surfaced that a deal without utility cost relief was likely.

Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón, a Santa Barbara Democrat whose caucus resisted Newsom’s original proposals, said the final agreement “supports survivors in their recovery, curbs Wall Street practices that increase costs on consumers, and mitigates the destruction of these wildfires in the first place.” Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris of Irvine, who led Assembly negotiations, called the deal “an important step forward,” adding, “We held the line to protect the people who needed it most.”

One of the fiercest fights centered on subrogation — the legal mechanism allowing insurance companies to sue utilities to recover wildfire claim payouts. Newsom wanted to eliminate it, but lawmakers rejected that idea, fearing it would destabilize California’s already fragile insurance market, drive up premiums and push more insurers out of the state.

“This outcome keeps costs with the parties responsible for wildfires and helps protect the progress California is making in stabilizing its insurance market,” said Denni Ritter, vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.

Even so, Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, who represents Eaton Fire survivors, said insurers shouldn’t escape scrutiny altogether. “We know that in many cases, insurance companies delayed and denied fire survivors’ claims and payments, delaying recovery,” Pérez said. “We need all industries to come to the table in a real way.”

Lawmakers also blocked Newsom’s proposal to cap non-economic damages for survivors — pain and suffering claims that Eaton Fire victims fought hard to protect throughout the negotiations.

Fire survivors and consumer advocates praised the Senate, and Limón in particular, for standing firm against the governor’s proposals. “In the face of extraordinary pressure from some of the most powerful interests in our state, they centered survivors and California families,” said Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network. Consumer Watchdog president Jamie Court described the negotiations as “an exercise in the democratic process,” noting that legislators refused to cave during private talks with the governor’s office.

Pérez credited the survivors themselves with steering the outcome. “The fire survivors have shaped this entire conversation,” she said. “They made a tremendous impact.”

Lawmakers are expected to vote on SB 492 next week.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Lawmakers Reach Wildfire Deal That Sidelines Most of Newsom’s Key Proposals appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The plan, introduced with only weeks left in the legislative session, would cap payouts to wildfire survivors, restrict insurance companies from recovering wildfire-related costs from utilities, and limit how much cities and counties could recoup for destroyed roads, water systems and other public infrastructure.

Newsom’s office defends the proposal as a way to speed up compensation for fire victims while easing the financial exposure utilities face after major wildfires — exposure that officials warn could otherwise translate into higher electricity bills for ratepayers.

But the response from Sacramento has been anything but warm. Local governments, wildfire survivors, consumer watchdogs and insurance representatives have all voiced strong objections, arguing the governor is rushing through sweeping changes without public bill language or adequate legislative debate.

Tensions boiled over after a report surfaced that utility executives were hinting at unspecified retaliatory steps to protect shareholder interests if lawmakers don’t act to shrink their wildfire liability. State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, a Pasadena Democrat, didn’t mince words in response, saying the Legislature has no intention of “negotiating with companies that want to act like terrorists.”

“My job is not to ensure that we’re increasing profits for shareholders for these companies,” Pérez said.

Despite the friction, there is some common ground. Lawmakers and the governor’s office agree on curbing bonuses for utility executives following destructive fires, increasing penalties for safety violations, and capping legal fees for attorneys representing wildfire victims.

Still, with the legislative session winding down, the broader fight over who bears the financial burden of California’s wildfire crisis — ratepayers, utility shareholders, insurers or taxpayers — remains far from settled.

In other Sacramento news this week, state lawmakers are racing against the clock to protect health coverage for transgender youth on Medi-Cal. Beginning Oct. 13, roughly 1,500 transgender and gender-nonconforming children could lose access to puberty blockers, hormone therapy and related care after the Trump administration barred federal reimbursement for gender-affirming treatment for minors.

To bridge the gap, legislators are pushing for $10 million in emergency funding intended to buy time while the state develops a new funding mechanism outside of federal Medicaid dollars. But LGBTQ advocacy groups say they feel blindsided — many believed the state budget passed in June already included protections for this population, only to discover it did not.

“It’s been very frustrating to see California say in many words that it’s supportive of trans people, and be so unprepared for something we all knew was about to happen,” said Arne Johnson, an organizer with Rainbow Families Action.

Meanwhile, CalMatters continues its ongoing investigation into California’s DUI laws, which reporters have found to be among the weakest in the nation, often allowing repeat offenders to remain behind the wheel with minimal consequences. The news organization is now gathering accounts from residents affected by crashes involving drivers who were not prosecuted, as part of a broader look at what happens after serious collisions.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Newsom’s Eleventh-Hour Wildfire Proposal Runs Into Resistance at Capitol appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Members of the Assembly and Senate have balked at several of the governor’s proposed changes, including limits on compensation for pain and suffering, restrictions on how much insurance companies can recover after paying out claims tied to utility-caused fires, and caps on what local governments can collect for destroyed public infrastructure. That’s according to internal legislative memos and sources familiar with the closed-door talks, which CalMatters obtained.

The proposals are part of a broader wildfire liability package Newsom has been quietly hammering out as he nears the end of his final term. Neither his office nor legislative leaders have made the actual bill language public, raising concerns that a sweeping and consequential set of policies could be rushed through with little opportunity for public input before the session ends Aug. 31.

If no deal is reached by Friday — the deadline for publishing bill text ahead of a vote — the contentious issue of utility liability could be left for the next governor to sort out.

Speaking to reporters last week, Newsom acknowledged he’s willing to adjust his plan but said the state can’t afford to wait.

“I feel very strongly that we need to move on this,” he said.

According to his staff, Newsom’s goal is twofold: speed up payouts to wildfire victims while protecting utilities from lawsuits that could rattle investors and potentially drive up customer rates. But critics — including local governments, insurers, consumer groups and wildfire survivors — say the plan lets utilities off the hook too easily.

Although any resulting changes would only apply to future fires, the negotiations have angered a group of Eaton Fire survivors who traveled to Sacramento this week to voice their opposition. Earlier this month, investigators determined that Southern California Edison equipment sparked the January 2025 Eaton Fire, which killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,400 structures in the Altadena area.

“My job is not to ensure that we’re increasing profits for shareholders for these companies,” state Sen. Sasha Renee Perez, a Democrat representing Altadena, told a crowd of protesters Tuesday. “And we certainly, as a Legislature, are not going to negotiate with companies that want to act like terrorists.”

Points of Disagreement

Perez’s comments referenced recent reporting that executives from Pacific Gas & Electric and Edison have signaled to Wall Street that they may take unspecified steps to protect shareholders if the Legislature doesn’t act this year to reduce their wildfire liability exposure.

There is some common ground. Newsom and legislative Democrats agree on curbing executive bonuses at utilities following major fires and increasing penalties for safety violations. Senate negotiators, according to sources, want to go further by pushing regulators to more closely scrutinize utility spending and potentially tie rate hikes to inflation.

Lawmakers and the governor also generally agree on funding wildfire mitigation efforts and using future insurance-related tax revenue to help homeowners fireproof their properties. There’s also broad support for limiting attorney fees for those representing fire victims in litigation, though the Senate version would extend that cap to utility attorneys as well.

Where the sides split sharply is on Newsom’s proposal to eliminate subrogation — the legal mechanism that allows insurance companies to seek reimbursement from utilities after paying out fire-related claims. Neither Assembly nor Senate leaders support scrapping that right, according to internal counterproposals and Senate sources.

Insurance industry representatives have warned that eliminating subrogation would drive up their costs and, in turn, homeowners’ premiums.

Insurance Concerns Loom Large

State Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat running for insurance commissioner whose district includes the fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades, warned that solving the utility rate problem by gutting subrogation could backfire by making insurance even less affordable.

“I fear we will create a massive new strain on the insurance system that could break basic questions of affordability for Californians,” Allen said, adding that it could worsen an already fragile insurance market statewide.

Lawmakers do appear aligned with Newsom on restricting the number of financial intermediaries — such as hedge funds — that can profit from wildfire claims. Both chambers want to prevent insurers from selling subrogation rights to outside investors, though the Senate’s version would allow exceptions with approval from the state insurance commissioner, a provision that could help smaller insurers needing quick cash after a major fire.

Assembly leaders are also resisting Newsom’s push to limit how much local governments can recover for destroyed infrastructure by tying reimbursement to depreciated value rather than full rebuilding costs. That proposal drew sharp criticism from the California State Association of Counties, the League of California Cities, and school district advocacy groups.

Facing pressure from the California Professional Firefighters union, Newsom appears to be softening his stance. In a letter sent Monday, the union thanked the governor for what it described as adjustments meant to protect local governments from the proposal’s impact, while still voicing overall support for his broader wildfire package. A Newsom spokesperson did not respond to questions about the change.

Who Counts as a Survivor?

Perhaps the most emotionally charged part of the debate centers on how to determine which wildfire survivors deserve compensation for pain and suffering — and how much.

Newsom’s original plan would limit noneconomic damages to those who lost a family member or suffered physical injury. Others could qualify only if they were within the fire’s burn perimeter and forced to evacuate, with payouts capped at $150,000 per person to protect the state’s wildfire fund, which draws money from both utility shareholders and ratepayers.

In response to backlash, the Assembly has proposed expanding who qualifies for those damages and removing the cap altogether, while the Senate’s version would keep eligibility broad but require survivors outside the burn zone to provide stronger proof that the fire caused their trauma.

Even so, weeks of protests by Eaton Fire survivors suggest there’s no easy way to satisfy everyone. Members of the Every Fire Survivors Network argue that any effort to rank or categorize victims is fundamentally unfair.

“We are the real wildfire survivors,” several dozen protesters chanted outside the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento on Monday night, timed to coincide with an end-of-session reception Newsom was hosting for lawmakers.

Among them was Gayle Nicholls-Ali, whose Altadena home burned to the ground in the fire and who is now in the process of rebuilding. Her son’s house nearby survived structurally but suffered extensive smoke damage. He and his wife have been living in a donated RV parked on the property while they wait for insurance approval to begin repairs.

Under Newsom’s plan, it’s unclear whether her son would even qualify for noneconomic damages, since he evacuated but didn’t lose his home or suffer physical injury.

“The mental stress alone” has taken a heavy toll on the family, Nicholls-Ali said. A retired public school teacher, she and her husband have called Altadena home for more than three decades. Her son, she said, had always dreamed of settling down in the same community.

“He wanted to live near home,” she said.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Lawmakers Reject Core Elements of Newsom’s Wildfire Plan as Deadline Nears appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

With just weeks left before lawmakers adjourn, Newsom’s administration has been quietly shopping a broad but still largely undefined set of proposals aimed at reducing how much money utility companies must pay out when their equipment sparks a wildfire. The effort has managed to unsettle nearly everyone with a stake in the issue.

Insurance companies have launched a statewide ad campaign warning that the plan amounts to a “utility bailout” that would strip them of their ability to recover costs from power companies after paying out policyholders’ claims. Attorneys who represent wildfire victims are bracing for cuts to their fees. Survivors fear they won’t be fully compensated for their losses and trauma. And local governments are pressing to ensure they still receive full reimbursement to rebuild roads, water systems and other infrastructure destroyed by fire.

On the other side of the debate are the state’s three major utilities — Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — which together serve roughly three-quarters of California and have faced intense criticism for sparking some of the state’s deadliest and most destructive fires.

None of the three companies appears to be in immediate financial distress; all reported rising profits last year. But wildfire-related costs have helped push California’s electricity rates to the second-highest in the nation, and officials in Newsom’s office and the Legislature worry that continued financial strain on utilities could drive prices even higher — or trigger a bankruptcy that would leave fire victims waiting even longer for compensation.

Newsom and his allies argue that utilities are currently held responsible for too much after a fire, creating an opening for hedge funds and other investors to profit by purchasing victims’ claims.

“The status quo doesn’t work,” Newsom said at a press conference last week when asked whether his proposal serves fire survivors’ interests. “We’re trying to balance all of those needs in a very familiar process that will unfold over the course of the next few months.”

When CalMatters asked the governor’s office to clarify that timeline — given that the legislative session ends in just three weeks — a spokesperson said Newsom meant the remaining weeks of this year’s session, but did not say whether he might call a special session to keep the effort alive beyond that deadline.

As Newsom weighs a potential run for president, he has political incentive to strike a deal. Critics on the right have used California’s disaster costs and affordability struggles as talking points, and further rate increases — or another utility bankruptcy — would only fuel that narrative. But aligning with the utilities carries its own risks. Anger toward the companies remains raw: just last week, Cal Fire and the Los Angeles County Fire Department determined that Edison equipment was responsible for igniting the January 2025 Eaton Fire, which killed 19 people in Altadena.

Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, an Irvine Democrat who chairs a key Assembly committee, has expressed general support for Newsom’s direction. Senate leaders appear more cautious. Wildfire survivors are urging lawmakers to slow down and hold the debate in public rather than behind closed doors.

“You cannot be ‘there are some bad actors’ and therefore we will have a secret bill,” said Joy Chen, who leads a coalition of Los Angeles-area fire survivors. “Then your bill is the bad actor.”

A familiar fight

This isn’t the first time Newsom has waded into this territory. He took office not long after devastating wildfires tore through Northern California in 2017 and 2018 — fires that investigators later linked to PG&E equipment.

At the time, PG&E faced a legal and financial crisis. Under California’s strict liability standard, utilities are responsible for wildfire damage tied to their equipment even when they weren’t found negligent, and regulators had stopped allowing companies to pass those costs onto ratepayers in cases involving carelessness. Facing a wave of lawsuits, PG&E filed for bankruptcy in 2019.

Newsom quickly signed legislation intended to shield utilities from future financial collapse, prompting accusations that the state was bailing out the industry. That law created a $21 billion wildfire fund — financed equally by utility shareholders and a $2.50 monthly surcharge on customers’ bills — meant to compensate victims, provided utilities meet stricter safety standards.

Then came the Eaton Fire in January 2025. During a powerful windstorm, electrical arcing from an aging, decommissioned Edison transmission tower ignited dry brush in Eaton Canyon. The fire, burning simultaneously with the deadly Palisades Fire, killed 19 people and destroyed nearly 9,500 homes and other structures. UCLA researchers estimated total losses between $24 billion and $45 billion.

The state’s wildfire fund is expected to be exhausted once insurance claims, Edison’s voluntary settlements and pending lawsuits are all accounted for. Lawmakers extended the fund last year, stretching the ratepayer surcharge through 2045 to help cover future disasters. Meanwhile, some hedge funds have moved to buy up insurance claims tied to the fires, hoping to profit from settlements.

Newsom’s plan seeks to narrow who can file claims against the fund and how much they can receive. According to a policy outline released Tuesday and private briefings held last week, his proposal would pair those liability limits with measures to expand home-hardening programs, help homeowners exit the state’s insurer-of-last-resort program, tie utility executive compensation to safety performance, and require utility shareholders to cover rate relief for customers during two upcoming summers.

Specific legislative language has not yet been released.

CalMatters reached out to all three major utilities for comment. San Diego Gas & Electric did not respond. PG&E and Edison directed questions to Nathan Click, a spokesperson for the utility-backed campaign Wildfire Victims First, which has flooded the state with advertising urging residents to pressure lawmakers to act. Click, who also does political work for Newsom, declined to answer specific questions — including whether utility representatives are negotiating directly with legislators — and instead provided statements from business groups and a major electrical workers’ union supporting the liability changes.

The chief executives of PG&E and Edison have also warned that they may take unspecified action to protect shareholders if lawmakers fail to reduce their wildfire liability exposure.

Over the past four years, the three utilities have spent a combined $5.2 million on political campaigns, lawmaker travel and charitable donations tied to elected officials, according to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database. PG&E ranked among the top lobbying spenders in Sacramento during the current legislative session, and the three companies together spent nearly $7 million in the first half of this year lobbying the Legislature, the governor’s office and utility regulators.

Limiting damages

Newsom’s proposal seeks to reduce utility liability in several ways: capping attorneys’ fees, limiting how much local governments can recover for rebuilding public infrastructure, and restricting damages for certain categories of victims.

The plan includes a state-run “fast pay” system that would prioritize payouts to survivors who lost loved ones, suffered injuries or had their homes destroyed. But to use that system, claimants would likely have to forfeit their right to sue the utility — trading the possibility of a larger settlement through litigation for a quicker payment.

For other affected residents, the proposal floats a cap of $150,000 in damages.

Petrie-Norris, who supports the broader framework, said she does not want to restrict emotional distress claims for survivors she considers legitimate victims, but believes those claims should be limited for people who weren’t directly affected.

“If you were part of a disaster no one’s going to say you can’t make a claim,” she said. “If you did not actually experience a disaster, what non-economic damages should you be entitled to?”

Newsom and Petrie-Norris say they’re especially concerned about attorneys who solicit clients through advertising to sue utilities, noting that legal fees can consume 30% to 40% of a victim’s payout, according to one academic study. But advocates for survivors argue that determining who qualifies as a “real” victim isn’t so simple — someone who didn’t lose a home but suffered smoke inhalation from miles away, for instance, could still have been seriously harmed.

Chen said she was taken aback during a briefing with the governor’s office, when officials indicated that only people who evacuated and lost their homes would qualify for non-economic damages.

“Let’s say someone was out of town, but their house burned down so they didn’t evacuate,” she said. “But they lost everything, so they have to rebuild. So you won’t compensate them for pain and suffering?”

Newsom’s office has also said it wants to prevent investors from purchasing wildfire claims and prioritize small businesses over large corporations, though it hasn’t detailed how that would work in practice.

Graham Knaus, chief executive of the California Association of Counties, said he’s skeptical of the framing that some claimants are gaming the system.

“The utilities are finding a lot of creative ways to avoid responsibility. That’s it,” Knaus said. “We should not be opening the door for them to escape accountability.”

Shifting costs

Another element of the proposal could ripple across the state’s insurance market. Newsom is considering limiting — or eliminating — insurers’ ability to recover costs from utilities after paying out claims tied to utility-caused wildfires, a legal process known as subrogation.

Utilities and insurers have clashed over this issue for years. In 2018, utilities unsuccessfully pushed legislation to weaken California’s strict liability standard, which holds power companies responsible for wildfire damage near their equipment regardless of fault.

“We’re a well-resourced industry, but not like [the utilities],” said Rex Frazier, president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California. “Their lobbying spend was just crazy.”

Denni Ritter, vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, warned that eliminating subrogation could undercut progress made under insurance reforms California adopted last year to stabilize the market. Those reforms allowed insurers to factor catastrophe modeling and reinsurance costs into their pricing, prompting some companies to resume writing new policies statewide and slowing growth in the state’s FAIR Plan, the insurer of last resort.

Ritter and Frazier warned that if insurers can’t recoup wildfire-related claim costs from utilities, they’ll likely raise premiums broadly — even in areas with minimal fire risk.

“We don’t understand how they’re not embarrassed to suggest that the answer to their problem is to shift their costs over to other people,” Frazier said. “Why should a homeowners insurance customer in a dense urban environment have to pay considerably more?”

Sen. Ben Allen, a Santa Monica-area Democrat who chairs the Senate’s utilities committee and is running for state insurance commissioner, said he’s wary of that tradeoff unless the broader package includes clear benefits for consumers and taxpayers.

Petrie-Norris, however, said the exchange might ultimately be worthwhile.

“If I can save you $2 on your utility bill and your insurance bill goes up by $1, that seems like a smart thing for us all to do,” she said. “But we’ve got to make sure that’s true and whether there are unintended consequences.”

Original source: CalMatters

The post Newsom Pushes Last-Minute Plan to Shield California Utilities From Wildfire Costs appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The controversy centers on advertisements that have been circulating statewide, warning that “home insurance rates skyrocket” and that “the FAIR Plan is broken.” The ads encourage Californians to contact their state representatives and demand a fix to the state’s “wildfire problem.” But those behind the campaign, survivors say, aren’t telling the whole story.

With the Legislature set to reconvene next week for the final weeks of its session, Newsom’s office has confirmed it has been in talks with lawmakers about addressing wildfire recovery costs and the state’s growing catastrophic risk. However, no legislative language has been made public, and a spokesperson for the governor declined to confirm or deny specific details alleged by fire survivor groups and Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit focused on insurance issues.

Those groups claim the still-unseen legislation could limit compensation for pain and suffering endured by fire victims, eliminate insurance companies’ ability to recover wildfire-related costs from utilities, and cap attorney fees — making it harder for survivors to find legal representation.

Every Fire Survivors Network, formed by people who lost homes in last year’s devastating Eaton Fire in Altadena, along with Consumer Watchdog and several insurance industry representatives, allege the proposal would effectively transfer financial responsibility from utility companies onto everyday insurance customers. They’re warning against what’s known in Sacramento as a “gut-and-amend” — a legislative maneuver in which lawmakers strip the content of an existing bill and replace it with new, often fast-tracked, provisions late in the session.

The suspected legislative package appears to align closely with the goals of Wildfire Survivors First, an advocacy campaign funded by utility companies. Despite the name, the campaign’s list of more than 200 supporting organizations does not include a single fire survivor group.

“Californians deserve a government that works in the open, not behind closed doors,” Joy Chen, a leader with Every Fire Survivors Network, said during a press conference last week. She called on Newsom to “choose democracy over corporate special interests.”

In an open letter to the governor, Chen outlined what she describes as a pattern of the state helping utilities offload wildfire responsibility over the years. California’s three largest utilities — Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — wield enormous influence in Sacramento, operating under a web of affiliated entities and employing hundreds of lobbyists. According to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy Database, the utilities have donated more than $1.2 million to sitting lawmakers so far in the 2025-26 legislative session.

Newsom spokesperson Anthony Martinez said discussions between the governor’s office and lawmakers stem from an April report by the California Earthquake Authority, produced under Senate Bill 254, which examined how California should distribute the financial burden of natural disasters.

That same bill — rewritten so hastily last year that lawmakers had to extend the legislative session to pass it — already allows utilities to pass additional wildfire costs onto ratepayers if expenses exceed the state’s $21 billion wildfire fund, created in 2019 with Newsom’s backing. Utilities and ratepayers each covered half of that fund. Survivors of the Eaton Fire have since sued Edison, alleging negligence contributed to the blaze, and experts say the resulting claims could exceed what remains in the fund.

Among the April report’s recommendations: raising the monthly surcharge utility customers pay into the wildfire fund from $2.50 to $11.

Nathan Click, a spokesperson for Wildfire Survivors First, said the campaign supports quickly implementing many of the report’s findings, arguing that “payouts to financial middlemen — like trial attorneys, hedge funds and insurance companies — are often paid out before wildfire victims receive a single dollar for rebuilding.”

Click did not respond when asked why no fire survivor organizations appear among the campaign’s more than 200 supporters, a list dominated largely by chambers of commerce and business associations. CalMatters reached out to nearly a dozen of those groups; most did not respond or declined interview requests.

One organization that did speak out, After the Fire — a national nonprofit supporting communities recovering from major wildfires — said it asked to be removed from the coalition’s list once it learned no survivor groups were involved.

“I’m from Sonoma. I’m a national advocate for fire victims. I’m definitely not on their side,” said Jennifer Gray Thompson, the group’s chief executive. She said former state Sen. Bill Dodd had personally reached out asking her organization to back the campaign. Dodd did not respond to requests for comment.

The Bay Area Council, which counts PG&E among its members, defended its involvement, saying it supports “sensible policies and investments that reduce wildfire risk and increase community wildfire resilience” while balancing the needs of businesses, consumers and residents.

A Consumer Watchdog review of required financial disclosures found that about 66% of the nongovernmental groups listed as campaign supporters have received utility-funded contributions, grants or sponsorships totaling roughly $7.3 million between 2023 and 2025. Click dismissed Consumer Watchdog as “a shadow lobby firm for trial attorneys,” adding that the group’s criticism was unsurprising given what he called its interest in protecting attorney payouts over victims.

Representatives for PG&E, Edison and SDG&E each directed inquiries to the Wildfire Survivors First campaign.

State Sen. Ben Allen, a Los Angeles-area Democrat whose district includes Palisades Fire survivors, attended Friday’s press conference and said any solution must hold “responsible parties accountable.” Allen, who chairs the Senate’s energy and utilities committee and is running for state insurance commissioner, was unavailable for a detailed interview but issued a statement saying he would carefully scrutinize any proposal to ensure costs aren’t simply shifted among consumers without addressing the underlying problem.

State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, who represents Eaton Fire survivors in Altadena, said she would strongly oppose any effort to cap non-economic damages for victims. “I have a friend who lost his sister in the fire. How do you put a price tag on losing your sibling?” she said. Pérez added that she remains frustrated by how SB 254 was transformed in the final days of last year’s session from a bill meant to curb utility profits into one that instead benefited them. “That’s not the way government should work,” she said.

Several other legislative offices — including those of Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Assemblymember Lisa Calderon, who chairs the insurance committee, and Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, who leads the utilities and energy committee — did not respond to requests for comment. Spokespeople for Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón and Sen. Josh Becker sent statements echoing Newsom’s office, saying the current system “is unsustainable and not working for fire survivors, utility customers, or insurance policyholders.”

Insurance industry representatives, meanwhile, argue that stripping their ability to recover wildfire costs from utilities — a practice known as subrogation — would inevitably drive up premiums for everyday Californians.

“We don’t think it’s fair to make insurance policyholders pay more to bail out utility shareholders,” said Denni Ritter, a vice president with the American Property Casualty Insurance Association. She also disputed claims that insurers typically wait to recover funds from utilities before paying policyholders, saying, “It’s not like AAA goes, ‘OK, we’ll pay you once we’ve recovered from the utilities.’”

Rex Frazier, president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California, which represents many of the state’s largest insurers, said this is not the first time utilities have sought to reduce their wildfire liability — but said that in the past, such efforts involved direct dialogue with insurers. This time, he said, that communication has been absent.

“We’re trying to understand why they’re talking about the insurance market,” Frazier said. “We can’t get a clear answer about what they have in mind.”

Original source: CalMatters

The post Fire Survivors Say Newsom’s New Plan Would Again Ease Utilities’ Wildfire Liability Costs appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The decision comes as another punishing heat wave grips much of the state, underscoring the real-world stakes of the debate. In rural areas, losing electricity can also mean losing access to water, since many wells rely on electric pumps. In cities, going without air conditioning or fans during a prolonged hot spell can pose serious health risks, and in extreme cases, prove fatal.

More than a year ago, the California Public Utilities Commission determined that existing safeguards against shutoffs during extreme heat were inadequate and directed the state’s largest utilities to come up with stronger rules. But when those companies submitted their proposal in December, regulators found it did little to change the status quo.

In a unanimous 4-0 vote Thursday, commissioners rejected the utilities’ plan, saying it failed to provide “sufficient health protections for customers.” The panel had originally set May 1 as the deadline for new rules to take effect. When utilities missed that deadline, consumer advocates filed emergency motions demanding action.

With the latest heat wave bearing down on California, the commission responded by lowering the temperature threshold at which utilities must halt shutoffs for unpaid bills, from 100 degrees to 90 degrees. Regulators also ordered utilities to adopt a more precise, region-specific heat standard within six months.

The fight over how to define dangerous heat dates back two years, to what was recorded as California’s hottest July on record. During that scorching stretch, the consumer advocacy group The Utility Reform Network asked the commission to reconsider its definition of extreme heat, arguing in an emergency petition that heat kills more people directly than any other weather-related hazard.

Existing rules already barred utilities from shutting off residential power over nonpayment when forecasts called for temperatures above 100 degrees within a 72-hour window. But advocates argued that a single statewide threshold ignored how differently Californians experience heat depending on where they live.

Regulators declined to treat the request as an emergency at the time, but did direct utilities to develop a revised threshold in coordination with consumer advocates and other stakeholders.

Utilities responded by proposing to use CalHeatScore, a newly developed state tool that rates heat risk by ZIP code on a scale of 0 to 4, drawing on local health data and historical impacts, along with factors such as proximity to cooling centers and the presence of children and older residents, who tend to be more vulnerable to extreme heat.

The sticking point: utilities wanted the shutoff protection to kick in only at Level 3 on that scale, a higher bar than advocates sought, and wanted to keep the 100-degree threshold as a backup whenever the index data wasn’t available. Consumer groups pushed back, calling for protections to begin at the lower Level 2 and for a backup threshold of 90 degrees instead.

Utilities said they couldn’t meet the original deadline because the CalHeatScore data system, managed by the state’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, wasn’t yet ready to support their compliance. Advocates countered that utilities offered little justification for insisting on keeping the higher 100-degree cutoff.

By May, with utilities still lagging, The Utility Reform Network joined forces with the San Diego-based Utility Consumers’ Action Network, the National Consumer Law Center and the Center for Accessible Technology to formally ask the commission to step in.

This week, regulators sided decisively with consumer advocates, rejecting the utilities’ approach as essentially unchanged from prior practice. The commission’s resolution noted that the extreme-heat threshold already sits below 100 degrees in 41 of California’s 58 counties.

A 90-degree day might be unremarkable in dry inland cities such as Bakersfield or Fresno, but that same temperature can pose unusual danger in coastal or mountain communities, where fewer homes have air conditioning and residents are less acclimated to heat. In San Francisco, for instance, extreme heat is defined as anything above 85 degrees. In Del Norte County, in the state’s far northwest corner, the threshold is any temperature above 76.8 degrees, according to the commission.

“A single temperature threshold is needed to better protect residents in areas of the state that are not accustomed to high temperatures,” the commission wrote in its ruling.

Although utilities had pushed for narrower protections, company representatives now say they intend to comply fully with the stricter standard. Last December, the state’s major private electric providers jointly argued that expanding protections to cover lower heat-index levels would trigger shutoffs too frequently, increase unpaid customer debt and add costs without a corresponding health benefit. In a January filing, according to a PG&E spokesperson, the companies described the 90-degree threshold as overly broad.

These protections apply only to shutoffs triggered by nonpayment. They do not prevent outages caused by equipment failures, wildfire prevention shutoffs or other emergencies. Still, advocates say the safeguards matter enormously for vulnerable households.

“When a home loses power, it can set off a cascade of problems for tenants,” said Jason Zeller, an attorney with the Utility Consumers’ Action Network. “Without electricity, tenants can face eviction, and if they have children, they can even risk losing custody.”

Ahead of Thursday’s vote, all three major utilities said they were prepared to fall in line with the commission’s new standards. Southern California Edison said the resolution would strengthen protections during extreme heat events and that it was ready to revise its disconnection policies. San Diego Gas & Electric said it supported the added safety measures and would implement whatever final requirements the commission adopted.

“At PG&E, service disconnection is always a last resort, used only after multiple attempts to reach customers and offer payment plans and assistance programs,” said company spokesperson Adrienne Moore. Region-specific rules are expected to be finalized within six months.

The commission’s independent Public Advocates Office had pushed for stronger protections throughout the process, formally opposing the utilities’ original plan. Office director Linda Serizawa said the vote would give consumers protection “that kicks in when they need it most.”

Original source: CalMatters

The post California Limits Utility Shutoffs as Dangerous Heat Wave Grips the State appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The California Public Utilities Commission voted Thursday to drop the shutoff-protection trigger from 100 degrees to 90 degrees, rejecting a competing proposal favored by utility companies. That plan would have set a higher cutoff tied to CalHeatScore, a newly developed state index that rates heat risk by ZIP code, while keeping the 100-degree threshold as a fallback in areas without index data.

Consumer advocates had pushed hard for the lower threshold, arguing that a wider safety net is especially critical for residents in rural communities, where a power outage can also mean losing access to water pumps and air conditioning or fans needed to stay safe during dangerous heat.

For Inland Empire and Southern California residents, where summer temperatures regularly climb into the 90s and above, the rule change means more days when utilities cannot legally disconnect service over unpaid bills, giving vulnerable households additional protection during the hottest stretches of the year.

The commission’s decision comes as state leaders continue to grapple with the broader effects of extreme heat, including on the youngest Californians. Two new state laws targeting school heat safety underscore the same concern that is driving utility policy: protecting people, especially those with fewer resources, from the physical toll of rising temperatures.

Earlier this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation directing the state board of education to consider adding heat-illness education to school curricula. The law does not require schools to act, but backers say it lays important groundwork. Assemblymember Tom Lackey, a Palmdale Republican who authored the bill, said the measure “promotes awareness and prevention” and arms students with “the knowledge to protect themselves” when temperatures spike.

A separate law passed in 2024 required school districts statewide to have heat-safety plans in place by July 1 of this year. Those plans must outline alternatives to outdoor activities, such as moving practices or recess indoors, when extreme heat hits. The July 1 deadline marked a key milestone for districts working to formalize their response to increasingly common heat events.

Still, critics note that neither law comes with dedicated funding, meaning schools are not required to invest in the kind of physical upgrades, such as improved air conditioning systems or added shade structures, that many advocates say are ultimately necessary to keep students safe as heat waves intensify.

Together, the utility shutoff rules and the new school heat laws reflect a broader shift in how California is confronting climate-driven heat risk, treating it not just as a summer inconvenience but as a public health and safety issue that touches everything from utility bills to the school day.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Utilities Must Limit Power Shutoffs During Extreme Heat Under New Rules appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.