California Assembly Kills Newsom's Wildfire Liability Deal

California Democrats killed Gov. Gavin Newsom's wildfire liability deal Tuesday, September 1, on the final day of the legislative session — after the bill had already been stripped of its most contentious provisions.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, announced the Assembly would not take up Senate Bill 492 less than three hours after the session convened, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The decision surprised several lawmakers in the Senate.

Rivas said the bill, the product of weeks of negotiations between the governor's office, lawmakers and stakeholders, amounted to "half-measures."

What The Deal Would Have Done

Newsom's original proposal was aimed at shielding utility companies from soaring costs when their electrical equipment starts a wildfire, per the Chronicle.

It would have barred insurance companies from suing utilities to recoup the cost of claims — a process known as subrogation — limited noneconomic damages for some wildfire survivors, and limited local governments' ability to recover the full replacement cost of damaged infrastructure.

Those provisions drew heavy opposition, including from wildfire survivor groups who called the plan a bailout for utilities. By the time the final version was published over the weekend, they were gone: no cap on what utilities owe when their equipment is found to have started a fire, no end to subrogation, no limits on local government claims.

What was left, according to the Chronicle, was a program to fast-track wildfire claims from the state's existing Wildfire Fund; a ban on selling wildfire claims to private equity groups and hedge funds; new fee caps and limits on attorneys representing survivors against utilities; new prevention programs including a data-sharing platform and mandated wildfire preparedness reports; and a ban on utility executives collecting bonuses soon after a utility-sparked fire.

The Center Square reported the bill aimed to help victims who lost their homes, and that the Assembly simply did not take it up at the last minute on the Legislature's final day.