A state bill that would have required Southern California Edison and other investor-owned utilities to take steps to avoid causing catastrophic wildfires died in Sacramento on Friday.
Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez’s (D-Pasadena) district includes Altadena, which was devastated by the Eaton fire in January.
She introduced SB 256 earlier this year to make power infrastructure more safe and less prone to starting wildfires, citing reporting in the Los Angeles Times about some investigators and experts’ concerns that a decommissioned power transmission line in Eaton Canyon may have been the fire’s ignition site.
That reporting also revealed that Edison knew that some of the electrical towers under investigation were long overdue for critical upkeep and were classified as an “ignition risk” in company records.
Her legislation would have required Edison and other investor-owned utilities to make a plan to remove decommissioned power lines across the state.
It would have also boosted “California’s electrical infrastructure and wildfire resilience by improving wildfire mitigation planning, enhancing emergency response efforts, undergrounding power lines, and requiring closer collaboration between utilities, emergency services and local communities to prevent wildfires,” according to an email from Jerome Parra, a spokesperson for the senator.
Pérez called the bill, which she wrote, her top legislative priority this year, and said its failure was “disappointing” given the stakes of the issue.
“I’m very frustrated because, when are we going to have accountability? When are we actually going to start reducing fire risk and ensuring utilities are reducing fire risk?” Pérez said in an interview.
Pérez also cited reporting in The Times in which Edison International Chief Executive Pedro Pizarro acknowledged that “the possibility that an idle, unconnected Southern California Edison transmission line somehow reengerized on Jan. 7 is ‘a leading hypothesis’ for what started the destructive Eaton fire.”
Brian Leventhal, a spokesperson for Edison, provided a brief statement on behalf of the company.
“We worked with the senator’s office, withdrew our opposition, and remain neutral,” he said.
Nic Arnzen’s home in Altadena was one of thousands destroyed during the Eaton fire. As vice chair of the Altadena Town Council and president of the Altadena Coalition of Neighborhood Assns, Arnzen represents many residents who lost loved ones, belongings and livelihoods to the fast-moving blaze.
He said he was so “passionate” about SB 256 that he traveled to Sacramento earlier this year to speak in support of it, in particular the provision that would have required the removal of decommissioned power lines and infrastructure. He too was dismayed to learn that it had died Friday before even a committee vote.
“I’m a person who lost our home, everything in our home, and I went up there because I believed that of all the bills … this got to the core of the issue,” Arnzen said in an interview. “Without this bill, I can’t think of another bill that really successfully addresses this specific issue of the decommissioned lines. So it’s just extremely disappointing.”
Pérez noted that utilities that had previously called for rejecting the bill formally withdrew their opposition in recent weeks. So she said she was “shocked” by its failure to move forward.
Pérez, who began her first term barely a month before the Eaton fire destroyed much of her district, said she had been told by veteran lawmakers that her legislation would be a “tough fight” given how powerful and influential utilities are. Given that there was no formal opposition to the bill, she said she is concerned that utilities engaged in “shadow lobbying” behind the scenes to ensure that legislators did not support it.
“The cost is negligible, there’s no registered opposition, I made it my No. 1 priority. Tell me what went on here,” she said. “I’m at a loss for words.”
