{"id":188284,"date":"2025-08-31T00:56:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T00:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/188284\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T00:56:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T00:56:09","slug":"bill-requiring-removal-of-unused-power-lines-to-avoid-wildfire-risks-dies-in-sacramento","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/188284\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill requiring removal of unused power lines to avoid wildfire risks dies in Sacramento"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A state bill that would have required Southern California Edison and other investor-owned utilities to take steps to avoid causing catastrophic wildfires died in Sacramento on Friday.<\/p>\n

Sen. Sasha Ren\u00e9e P\u00e9rez\u2019s (D-Pasadena) district includes Altadena, which was devastated by the Eaton fire in January. <\/p>\n

She introduced SB 256<\/a> earlier this year to make power infrastructure more safe and less prone to starting wildfires, citing reporting in the Los Angeles Times<\/a> about some investigators and experts\u2019 concerns that a decommissioned power transmission line in Eaton Canyon may have been the fire\u2019s ignition site. <\/p>\n

That reporting also revealed that Edison knew that some of the electrical towers under investigation were long overdue for critical upkeep and were classified as an \u201cignition risk\u201d in company records.<\/p>\n

Her legislation would have required Edison and other investor-owned utilities to make a plan to remove decommissioned power lines across the state. <\/p>\n

It would have also boosted \u201cCalifornia\u2019s electrical infrastructure and wildfire resilience by improving wildfire mitigation planning, enhancing emergency response efforts, undergrounding power lines, and requiring closer collaboration between utilities, emergency services and local communities to prevent wildfires,\u201d according to an email from Jerome Parra, a spokesperson for the senator.<\/p>\n

P\u00e9rez called the bill, which she wrote, her top legislative priority this year, and said its failure was \u201cdisappointing\u201d given the stakes of the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very frustrated because, when are we going to have accountability? When are we actually going to start reducing fire risk and ensuring utilities are reducing fire risk?\u201d P\u00e9rez said in an interview.<\/p>\n

P\u00e9rez also cited reporting in The Times<\/a> in which Edison International Chief Executive Pedro Pizarro acknowledged that \u201cthe possibility that an idle, unconnected Southern California Edison transmission line somehow reengerized on Jan. 7 is \u2018a leading hypothesis\u2019 for what started the destructive Eaton fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brian Leventhal, a spokesperson for Edison, provided a brief statement on behalf of the company. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe worked with the senator\u2019s office, withdrew our opposition, and remain neutral,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Nic Arnzen\u2019s home in Altadena was one of thousands destroyed during the Eaton fire. As vice chair of the Altadena Town Council and president of the Altadena Coalition of Neighborhood Assns, Arnzen represents many residents who lost loved ones, belongings and livelihoods to the fast-moving blaze.<\/p>\n

He said he was so \u201cpassionate\u201d about SB 256 that he traveled to Sacramento earlier this year to speak in support of it, in particular the provision that would have required the removal of decommissioned power lines and infrastructure. He too was dismayed to learn that it had died Friday before even a committee vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a person who lost our home, everything in our home, and I went up there because I believed that of all the bills \u2026 this got to the core of the issue,\u201d Arnzen said in an interview. \u201cWithout this bill, I can\u2019t think of another bill that really successfully addresses this specific issue of the decommissioned lines. So it\u2019s just extremely disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n

P\u00e9rez noted that utilities that had previously called for rejecting the bill formally withdrew their opposition in recent weeks. So she said she was \u201cshocked\u201d by its failure to move forward.<\/p>\n

P\u00e9rez, who began her first term barely a month before the Eaton fire destroyed much of her district, said she had been told by veteran lawmakers that her legislation would be a \u201ctough fight\u201d given how powerful and influential utilities are. Given that there was no formal opposition to the bill, she said she is concerned that utilities engaged in \u201cshadow lobbying\u201d behind the scenes to ensure that legislators did not support it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cost is negligible, there\u2019s no registered opposition, I made it my No. 1 priority. Tell me what went on here,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m at a loss for words.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A state bill that would have required Southern California Edison and other investor-owned utilities to take steps to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":188285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[21053,17281,1582,276,105390,5810,95584,2961,224,5337,105389,88788,39931,14198,8808,22875,86405,105388,86973,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-188284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-altadena","9":"tag-bill","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-catastrophic-wildfire","13":"tag-eaton-fire","14":"tag-edison","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-losangeles","18":"tag-nic-arnzen","19":"tag-opposition","20":"tag-perez","21":"tag-removal","22":"tag-reporting","23":"tag-sacramento","24":"tag-senator","25":"tag-unused-power-line","26":"tag-utility","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115120661095743410","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188284","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=188284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}