California’s Newson Wants to Limit Utility Company Liability for Wildfires

California Governor Gavin Newsom is on a wildfire hot seat of his own with a proposal to limit utility company liability when their faulty equipment causes a wildfire. PG&E, SoCal Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric stand to benefit from Newsom’s plan.

He is submitting this a mere two weeks from the Legislature’s planned adjournment.

The governor’s worry is the wildfire liability fund running out of money. That will happen when Southern California Edison gives compensation to the Eaton Fire victims.

At the time this is written, the governor has not presented a written, formal plan.

Newsom has indicated his plan will cut liability for the utility companies while speeding up payments to survivors and reducing the money the survivors have to give to trial attorneys, hedge funds, insurance companies — and last — the money given to utility company executives.

As expected, the howls of disagreement came immediately.

Denni Ritter, the Vice President of State Government Relations for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA) said her group is very concerned.

"It's simple math at this point,” she said. “If you shift billions of dollars being borne by utility shareholders and shift that onto insurers and policyholders. You're looking at a 20% rate impact across the state, and our estimates are that it would be far worse for people in high wildfire risk areas.”

Ritter noted people in high risk areas could see their insurance premiums jacked up 100%.

Insurers, local governments, attorneys, consumer advocates and wildfire survivors have formed a coalition. They sent a letter and a fact sheet to the Legislature and its leadership urging them to not buy Newsom’s plan.

The fact sheet, Wildfire Recovery Reform: Survivors First, says all this is going to do is drive up insurance costs and cap what survivors receive and limit what insurance companies can get back from the utility, or utilities, causing the fire.

“Wildfire survivors should not be asked to subsidize utility shareholders,” the fact sheet said. “Families who have lost loved ones, homes, businesses, and livelihoods because of utility-caused fires deserve full compensation and a clear path toward recovery.”

The two gubernatorial candidates running to replace Newsom had opinions on the matter. Democrat Xavier Becerra said he’s concerned.

"I wouldn't say they [state leaders] are looping me in, I'm somewhat aware of it. I don't have the details,” Becerra said. "I do know it's an important matter, we're going to have more wildfires.”

He’s on record as wanting to call a state of emergency to freeze home insurance rate increases until a solution is found. Becerra, however, is on record as saying he’s very concerned about the impact of all of this on insurers.

Republican Steve Hilton called the plan outrageous and a bailout of the energy companies.

"They're loading up the utilities with all these costs to push forward all the climate posturing, so they're spending all this money and then they don't have enough money for the wildfires," Hilton said.

Source link: KCRA — https://bit.ly/4ge92Wk

Source link; New York Post — https://bit.ly/4bXEOpi