The utility bailout is lifeless; the people of – Latest News
The Eaton Fire burned down some of our houses and poisoned others. So after we discovered Gov. Gavin Newsom was negotiating an Eleventh-hour bailout that will defend California’s three for-profit utility monopolies from billions in wildfire legal responsibility whereas taking compensation from survivors, we knew what we had been up towards.
Money. Power. Access. And secrecy.
A month earlier than the eight-month legislative session ended, there was nonetheless no invoice textual content and no public listening to. Survivors couldn’t even learn what was being negotiated about us.
We’d seen this earlier than: We’d seen it when the state of California was gradual to demand accountability from State Farm — the insurance coverage giant that Los Angeles County is now suing over allegations that it mishandled fire claims.
In 2025, in the ultimate two days of session, Newsom changed a shopper safety invoice with 231 pages of new language benefiting California’s utility monopolies.
This time, strange Californians stated no.
On one facet had been three of Sacramento’s strongest company pursuits: They make use of a whole bunch of lobbyists; they even funded a marketing campaign referred to as Wildfire Victims First to push their agenda, though no wildfire survivor teams had been amongst its supporters.
The corporations that burned down our houses had been pretending to be us; we had been the actual wildfire survivors. It was David versus Goliath. And most improbably, the people gained.
Survivors traveled to Sacramento, the place we rallied, protested exterior the governor’s mansion and delivered hand-painted playing cards to each legislative workplace. But we did more than say no to a bailout. We identified that Sacramento was fixing the improper drawback.
The debate was about how to cut back the financial penalties for these firms and their shareholders when their gear causes catastrophic wildfires.
But we requested a more elementary query: Why do California’s three for-profit utility monopolies keep burning down California communities, and what is going to make them stop?
Joy Chen, government director of the Every Fire Survivor’s Network, speaks at an occasion on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. Courtesy Joy Chen
According to Aon’s worldwide rankings by inflation-adjusted insured losses, California’s electric monopolies triggered three of the 5 costliest wildfires ever recorded worldwide. Yet in 2025, their holding corporations reported more than $10 billion in income or adjusted earnings, paid more than $3 billion in shareholder dividends and paid their three CEOs almost $60 million.
Shareholders get to get pleasure from the upside as a result of they take the dangers of proudly owning these corporations, together with what occurs when the corporations they own trigger catastrophic fires. Shareholders get the upside; shareholders also needs to bear the draw back.
It is not the California authorities’s job to prop up their share costs. But it is its job to serve the people.
So survivors constructed a Survivor-First Proposal round the most elementary rule of accountability: You break it, you repair it. Protect survivors. Hold firms accountable. Make utilities do the security work Californians already paid for. Prevent the subsequent catastrophic fire.
More than 4,700 people and organizations representing 3.5 million Americans joined us by way of Dear Newsom.
And then our state legislators listened.
State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D) stated, “The fire survivors have shaped this entire conversation” and that survivors “made a tremendous impact.” Fellow state Sen. Ben Allen (D) stated, “We certainly stood with fire survivors.” While Senate President professional Tempore Monique Limón stated the settlement “supports survivors in their recovery.”
We are deeply grateful to the Senate and Assembly members who listened, particularly Limón and the legislators who stood with the actual fire survivors.
The firms had the money. The lobbyists had the entry. The governor had the energy. All survivors had had been our voices, our concepts and one another.
And that was enough.
The ultimate SB 492 rejected the bailout provisions we fought — and guarded survivors. That is democracy.
Come January, survivors are able to help our Legislature in shaping what Californians actually need: secure, dependable and reasonably priced electrical energy.
If the system now we have can’t ship that with out catastrophic wildfires and shifting the losses onto California households, preserving it shouldn’t be our aim.
Maybe this is our second to construct one thing higher.
Joy Chen is government director of the Every Fire Survivor’s Network and a former deputy mayor of Los Angeles.
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