sb901

Any help with wildfire liability that major electric companies might be expecting from the California legislature will wait until next month. Assemblyman Chris Holden (D – Los Angeles) didn’t introduce his planned bill when the legislature met briefly to swear in new members and open the new session. Holden had planned to, at a minimum, allow Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison to add damage costs to customers’ bills for 2018 wildfires. The legislature voted in August to allow them to pass on those costs to consumers for fires in 2017 and 2019 and beyond.… More

Pacific Gas and Electric and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Southern California Edison face the potential of billions of dollars of liability for 1. this year’s wildfires, 2. last year’s wildfires and 3. preventing next year’s wildfires. Someone will have to pay the tab that fires have already run up in California. Under state law, if a utility is even partly to blame it has to bear the full burden, generally. But utilities, even highly regulated ones like privately owned electric companies, can pass some or all of those costs on to their customers.… More

It’s up to the California Public Utilities Commission now to decide whether your electric bill will include billions of dollars worth of damage done by wildfires. Governor Jerry Brown signed senate bill 901 on Friday. Among other things, SB 901 allows privately owned electric utilities to raise prices to offset damage payouts due to fires that were, to one degree or another, their fault.

Utilities – electric and telecoms – have the right to plant and use poles along roads and waterways in California, with very few restrictions and no rental fees at all.… More

A plan to reduce both the risk of catastrophic wildfires happening and the risk that such fires will bankrupt privately owned electric utilities is on California governor Jerry Brown’s desk. He has to decide if the deal reached by legislative leaders as the clock ran out on this year’s session is good enough.

Senate bill 901 would, among other things, allows the California Public Utilities Commission more flexibility in deciding whether liability costs can be passed on to electric customers.… More

Utility companies will still have to pay the full cost of wildfire damage in California, even if their infrastructure isn’t fully responsible for starting it. A July agreement to revise California’s utility liability law turned into a August stalemate, and the end of the legislative session is coming fast in Sacramento.

According to a story by CapRadio reporter Ben Adler (h/t to Scott Lay at Around the Capitol for the pointer), legislative leaders haven’t come to an agreement on how to change the state’s strict utility liability law, known as inverse condemnation…

“I think it’s safe to say that ‘inverse condemnation’ is off the table,” Sen.

The fires ravaging California this morning are a stark reminder that last year’s horrific blazes were no fluke. They are the new normal. Figuring out how to live with this reality is the most pressing task in front of the California legislature when it reconvenes later today.

One of the many issues is who pays?

Under California law, if the cause involves an electric utility’s infrastructure, then it has to pay for the full cost of the damage, whether it was fully, or even truly, at fault.… More

The California legislature took care of one key item of business before it headed out on its month long summer break on Thursday. The senate and the assembly went through the necessary motions to create a conference committee that will decide how liability for California’s continuing epidemic of wildfires will be assigned. Changes to senate bill 901, carried by senator Bill Dodd (D – Napa), will be negotiated largely out of public view over the next few weeks, and then put to a straight up or down vote – no amendments or meaningful debate allowed under normal circumstances.… More