SACRAMENTO, California — A California state lawmaker wants the state to back low-interest loans for wildfire retrofits — a bid to help homeowners afford expensive upgrades that increasingly determine whether they can get insured.
What happened: State Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat who represents a part of Los Angeles that burned in last year’s Palisades Fire and is now running for statewide insurance commissioner, introduced SB 894 on Thursday.
The proposal would make California the first in the nation to create a state-backed loan program specifically for wildfire retrofits, though states including Texas have stood up similar programs for wind and storm retrofits.
The bill contains only vague intent language for now. Allen and the bill’s sponsor, wildfire resilience advocacy group Megafire Action, said they want to model the wildfire retrofit loans after an existing state-backed program for low-interest loans for energy efficient and green upgrades called GoGreen.
