![\"Ashley](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/21271fb1-6e06-4bcf-8b56-97b158a0e14b_1759272616.png\")
<\/a>SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\nCalifornia lawmakers and the governor this weekend agreed to make some changes to the state’s wildfire liability system and how it handles payouts when an investor owned utility company causes a catastrophic fire, an issue that could have an impact on utility ratepayers across the state.<\/p>\n
(Previous coverage in the video player above) <\/p>\n
While Gov. Gavin Newsom did not get the major overhaul he was pushing for to shift some of the cost burden onto insurance companies<\/a>, he and Democrats in the State Senate and Assembly found common ground in setting other limits and restrictions.<\/p>\n The legislation reflecting that agreement was filed Saturday morning in SB 492<\/a>. The bill shows state leaders are prepared to prohibit the CEOs and executives of investor-owned utilities from getting bonuses in the short-term if their company starts a wildfire that destroys at least 500 structures. The compensation would be prohibited for the year the fire happened and the following year. <\/p>\n The proposal also sets new limits for attorney fees who litigate on behalf of insurance companies and attempts to prevent “billboard lawyers” from swooping in after a catastrophe. The measure would also ban hedge funds and private equity firms from investing in wildfire claims, an issue that arose after the Los Angeles area wildfires. <\/p>\n For victims, the legislation creates a fast-pay program to speed up payments. The legislation also establishes a wildfire data sharing system and requires the state to establish a new statewide wildfire preparedness plan every five years. <\/p>\n These are all ideas lawmakers and the governor have been talking about publicly. <\/p>\n But there are other aspects of the bill that have not been discussed publicly. Two key parts of this related to the state’s wildfire liability fund raise transparency and cost questions for ratepayers.<\/p>\n Technically, California has two wildfire liability funds. Both are split between investor-owned utility shareholders and ratepayers. The first was established in 2019 following the PG&E-caused Camp Fire in Butte County. That fund has a claim payout capacity of about $22 billion, and the Newsom administration expects claims from the Eaton Fire to exhaust that fund. <\/p>\n The other fund, which is considered the “continuation account” was established last year and would have a claim paying capacity of $18 billion. This account is available for utility-caused fires that occur after September of 2025. There is no cash available in this account and contributions aren’t supposed to start until 2029, according to the Newsom administration.<\/p>\n The legislation filed Saturday morning would give the state agency that oversees the fund, the California Earthquake Authority, the power to borrow money and issue bonds to support the wildfire fund and cover costs if it runs out of money. Ratepayers of a private utility company that causes another fire would be on the hook to pay back those new bonds, if needed.<\/p>\n The legislation also would allow some meetings and records related to the wildfire liability fund to be shielded from the public. <\/p>\n SB 492 allows the California Catastrophe Response Council to be exempted from the state\u2019s public meeting and public records laws when it comes to addressing either the administration or evaluation of individual claims submitted to the state’s wildfire liability fund accounts. <\/p>\n The California Earthquake Authority would also be exempted from the state\u2019s public records act with records related to the administration or evaluation of claims submitted for reimbursement from the wildfire funds.<\/p>\n It was not immediately clear on Saturday why exactly the public records meeting and records exemptions were necessary. <\/p>\n Lawmakers are expected to vote on the proposal some time after 7:00am on Tuesday morning. <\/p>\n The deal overall represented a blow to Gov. Newsom, who pushed for an overhaul that involved eliminating the right of insurance companies to sue the utilities for losses and would have set new limits for wildfire victims. State lawmakers rebuffed both of those ideas for days, even as negotiations dragged late into Friday night. <\/p>\n “This is all real progress for future fire survivors,” Gov. Newsom said in part in a statement Saturday morning. “Nonetheless, this system needs full structural reform \u2014 not a partial one. I urge the Legislature to build on this progress next year and finish the work we started to secure the Wildfire Fund\u2019s long-term durability, stabilize electricity rates, and ensure fire victims are never again turned into unsecured creditors in a bankruptcy proceeding.”<\/p>\n Wildfire victims, who worried about Gov. Newsom’s original proposal that would have limited their ability to seek some restitution, applauded the deal.<\/p>\n “Our legislators showed Californians what representative democracy can look like when elected leaders listen to the people they serve,” Joy Chen with Every Fire Survivor’s Network said in a statement. “This is an enormous victory for every Californian who could become the victim of the next utility-caused fire.”<\/p>\n “After months of conversations on how we can advance the priorities of Californians, we have come to an agreement that 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,” State Senate Pro Tem Monique Lim\u00f3n said in a statement. <\/p>\n See more coverage of top California stories here<\/strong><\/a> |<\/strong> Download our app<\/strong><\/a> |<\/strong> Subscribe to our morning newsletter<\/strong><\/a> |<\/strong> Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel<\/strong><\/a> |<\/strong> Make KCRA a preferred news source in Google<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here’s how California lawmakers and Gov. Newsom plan to change payouts when a utility starts a wildfire SACRAMENTO,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1034673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[276,2809,11397,414054,389283,1854,126675,51,30409,114043,3230,2934,3272,50,414053,162662,6514,34961,5213,290,52,86973,7307,414052],"class_list":["post-1034672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-california","tag-california-wildfires","tag-claim","tag-continuation-account","tag-cost-burden","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-gov-newsom","tag-headlines","tag-hedge-fund","tag-insurance-company","tag-lawmakers","tag-legislation","tag-legislature","tag-news","tag-newsom-administration","tag-pge","tag-proposal","tag-record","tag-saturday-morning","tag-state","tag-top-stories","tag-utility","tag-victim","tag-wildfire-liability-fund"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117189419610819267","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1034672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1034673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1034672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1034672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1034672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}