SACRAMENTO, California — The Newsom administration has proposed limiting some of the costs power companies must pay if they are responsible for the spark that ignites a wildfire.
What happened: Staff from the governor’s office, including Christine Aurre, Newsom’s legislative affairs secretary, and Ann Patterson, a former senior Newsom adviser and current Stanford scholar, explained their wildfire liability proposal to Assembly Democrats in the Capitol building as the Legislature enters its final four-week stretch.
The proposal would cap how much utilities must pay out to insurance companies, hedge funds and disaster attorneys when the power companies spark a wildfire, according to the governor’s office. The goal of limiting those claims is to prioritize paying out the economic and emotional losses of individuals who lost their homes or were injured during the disaster, the governor’s office said in a separate meeting with reporters.
The proposal would not impact California’s inverse condemnation policy, which makes the state’s power companies liable for damages their equipment sparks, whether or not they acted negligently. It would also tighten oversight of the utilities’ wildfire prevention plans by limiting executive pay, increasing fines paid by shareholders for violations, and raising the possibility that power companies could be put into receivership if they repeatedly fail to provide safe, reliable power to customers.
