FRESNO, Calif. (KMPH) — If you get your power from Southern California Edison, your bill could go up to pay for the Eaton fire damages.
The Eaton fire could end up costing more than what’s in the wildfire fund, which could make ratepayers cover part of the difference.
It is still unknown when and how much customers will have to pay just yet.
Last-minute language that made it onto Senate Bill 254, a utility reform bill, could put the cost of damages from the Eaton fire onto Edison customers.
April Sommer with Wild Tree Foundation advocates for utility customers.
She says this language will hold electric companies less accountable for wildfires.
“The new legislation pretty much establishes a bailout on top of the already existing bailout system. It’s not the type of action that we need to incentivize the utilities to clean up their act and stop causing catastrophic wildfires,” said Sommer.
The bill says in part: “The risk of wildfires is also impacting utility rates. Utilities and their customers bear the immediate and long-term financial burden of infrastructure upgrades, wildfire prevention, and post-fire liabilities…”
Mark Toney with Turn, a utility reform network, says that the language in the bill was released back in August.
Policy makers waited until the 11th hour to release it.
“No one got a chance to weigh in because it came out at the last minute. And that’s the responsibility of all the policy leadership in California. This is not just a governor thing. This is a collective that policy leaders in California have a habit of releasing big bills at the last second,” said Toney
Toney says it was so last-minute, lawmakers had to extend their session to Saturday to get it passed.
Despite the last-minute change, Toney supports the bill, saying Eaton fire victims need to be helped one way or another.
Turn decided to support saying if the amount of damages of the Eaton fire exceeds 21 billion, and that’s a mighty big if, but if it does, let’s make sure that the Eaton victims get paid. And the best way to do that is to spread it a little bit among all ratepayers. There are hard choices to be made. We could make the choice and say, let the Eaton customers fall short, get shortchanged if there’s not enough money. I do agree that there’s a good chance there’s going to be enough money, but no guarantee. If they were to declare bankruptcy, that would cost ratepayers even more money.
The state’s 21 billion dollar wildfire fund was established in 2019 to help California utilities cover wildfire claims.
Although Edison customers aren’t seeing rate hikes from the Eaton fire yet, if the damages total more than 21 billion dollars, they will be responsible for picking up part of the tab.
“And regarding costs, there is language in the bill that proposes an equal 50/50 split between utility shareholders and customers.
Toney says it could take 2 to 3 years to see if the 5 million Edison utility customers will have to pay for costs from the Eaton fire.