La Asamblea de California aprueba un proyecto de ley para abordar los déficits de compensación a las víctimas de incendios forestales

A bill that could lead to future compensation for past Northern California victims of wildfires who were never made whole passed out of the state Assembly unanimously Thursday afternoon. While not a guarantee, AB 2700 would require the California Public Utilities Commission to issue a report assessing restitution shortfalls for survivors of utility-caused wildfires before July 2019.

That analysis would recommend mechanisms for energy companies to address those gaps “to ensure victims are fully and fairly compensated.” Recommendations would not include options to shift costs onto ratepayers. The legislation was introduced by Assembly member James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, whose district includes Paradise, the site of the deadly 2018 Camp Fire.

“Today I am here on behalf of my late husband, Todd, who passed away in 2024,” 2018 Camp Fire survivor Doreen Zimmerman said during a May 13 Assembly committee hearing in support of AB 2700. “During his final hours with me, he repeatedly apologized that the life we had built together over 47 years was gone because of the fire and that he had to die before we were ever made whole.

Not one more person should ever have to die apologizing for their devastated finances resulting from a utility-caused wildfire on their death bed. Not one more person.” Some 70,000 survivors of catastrophic record-setting wildfires sparked by Pacific Gas & Electric between 2015 and 2018 across the North Bay and counties further north endured years of waiting and uncertainty for payouts from the energy giant to rebuild their homes and lives.

Those fires included the 2017 North Bay firestorm that claimed 40 lives and destroyed more than 6,000 homes and hundreds of businesses across the region, and the 2018 Camp Fire that leveled the town of Paradise, killing 85 people. Gallagher, the bill’s author, is running for a Northern California seat in Congress that includes Santa Rosa as its main population base while stretching across a fire-ravaged swath of Mendocino and Lake counties, through the Sacramento Valley, to the Nevada border.

His top competitors in the race are two Democrats: state Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, and Chico educator Audrey Denney.

Ultimately the Fire Victim Trust topped $14 billion — still $6 billion short of what was owed — enough to cover 70% of survivors’ claims minus attorneys’ fees. Victims received their last payment in late 2024 and are still awaiting a small final distribution.

A contingent of those victims have pressed lawmakers to help find a way to make them whole, claiming the deal they made with PG&E was in part the result of pressure and hurried political wrangling as the state contended with its major energy utilities facing potential collapse in the face of ever-mounting damages from blazes sparked by their infrastructure. Assembly Bill 2700 is one result of those efforts.

Supporters include a range of wildfire victim advocacy groups including the Utility Wildfire Survivor Coalition, Sonoma County-based After the Fire, Eaton Fire Residents United — representing victims of the deadly and costly January 2025 fires in Los Angeles — as well as the Adler Law Group, a law firm involved in litigating the PG&E fires as well as those in Los Angeles and Maui. The Fire Victim Trust has not weighed in publicly on the effort.

“People are still recovering without receiving this money that they deserve,” Gallagher said in the May 28 Assembly floor session. AB 2700 “strengthens California’s commitment to those who lost everything from those natural disasters.” “This is an acknowledgement that the previous way that we have compensated survivors was inadequate,” bill co-author Assembly member Chris Rogers, D-Santa Rosa, said on the floor.

Rogers was a Santa Rosa council member in 2017 when the Tubbs Fire destroyed roughly 3,000 homes in the city. As the last bill Gallagher would introduce as an Assembly member, his colleagues broke out in applause before a vote that ended up passing 76-0.

“Wildfire recovery shouldn’t be a bipartisan issue — it’s about people,” Rogers said in a statement. “I am coauthoring AB 2700 because recovering from a wildfire is hard enough, and our survivors deserve restitution and the assistance they need to move forward with rebuilding their lives.” The legislation now moves on to the state Senate.

It is one of a host of bills moving through state chambers meant to address interwoven crises facing California spurred by worsening climate change-driven disasters, spanning wildfire prevention and recovery to insurance to utility rates. A major state study released in April served as a jumping off point.

A host of consumer, environmental and wildfire survivor organizations have criticized the report’s recommendations for what they see as prioritizing utilities over wildfire victims and others. Will Abrams, a member of the Utility Wildfire Survivor Coalition and a lead advocate on AB 2700, hopes to further strengthen the legislation in the Senate.

“It is universally understood that we are going to continue to have utility-caused fires in the state of California and these can either be opportunities for positively addressing these risks or they can continue to be a fight for scarce resources where victims and our communities lose and utilities and their investors win,” Abrams said. “There are people with medical debt, there are people living off the land literally because they don’t have the money to rebuild their houses, there are people that can’t afford rent.

We need to provide some certainty. We do all sorts of things to provide certainty for the energy markets and certainty for utility financials.

And it’s about time we focus on more certainty for victims.