CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 29, 2025, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“IRONY IN SACTO AS
ENVIRONMENTALISTS DEEP SIX KEY ENVIRO BILL”
There’s been deep irony in
Sacramento this summer, as some normally environmentally oriented state
senators deep-sixed what might have been the year’s most important potential
new environmental law.
At issue was whether oil
companies could be held liable for damage from future wildfires caused at least
in part by climate change.
The state Senate Judiciary
Committee vote on the measure came just two days after oil giant Chevron was
held liable by a Louisiana jury for $744.6 million to restore damage to
Louisiana’s coastal wetlands.
The case was the first of
many pending against oil companies which have supposedly lied about whether
their policies led to land loss along
that state’s coast, reaching east from the mouth of the Mississippi River.
Keeping alive the somewhat
similar bill to allow for assessing damages after California fires would have
required seven votes in committee, but it only got five, from Democrats Scott
Wiener of San Francisco, Ben Allen of Santa Monica, John Laird of Santa Clara,
Henry Stern of Los Angeles and Akilah Weber Pierson of La Mesa.
Several senators avoided
going on the record directly against this bill by abstaining from voting on it,
as good as a ‘no.’
The bill was strongly opposed
by both business and labor groups, which contended it would substantially raise
the cost of living in California. One study was presented by the California
Center for Jobs and the Economy, a nominally non-partisan think tank founded by
business interests that was established by the California Business Roundtable.
That study contended
“Businesses facing massive litigation costs (like those assessed at least
temporarily against Chevron) will pass expenses on to consumers.” That, it
said, could raise gasoline costs to $7.38 per gallon and raise electric rates
65 percent for industrial users.
Wiener and environmentalists
backing the bill could muster no solid evidence against this contention, so
Democratic senators like Tom Umberg of Anaheim and Maria Elena Durazo of Los
Angeles withheld their votes.
Meanwhile, the Environmental
Voters of California argued that assessing oil companies for damage they
indirectly cause would save enough in insurance premiums to make up for any
other costs. The majority of the committee did not find that convincing.
Business interests were
delighted by defeat of the bill (SB222). “I applaud the members of the Senate
Judiciary Committee who stood up for a more affordable California and voted
down this unconstitutional measure,” said Kyla Christofferson Powell, president
and CEO of the Justice Assn. of California, which does not disclose all its
financial backers but has had past support from the California Assn. of
Realtors.
Wiener and other supporters
had hoped his bill would become a model for other states where oil companies
have lied about effects of climate change.
Said Wiener, “Californians
are paying a devastating price for the climate disasters that have and will
continue to wreak havoc on our state.”
Noting that the January
firestorms which devastated large parts of Los Angeles County occurred far
outside normal fire seasons, Wiener added that “Tens of thousands of people in
Southern California have lost their homes and large swaths of their community,
and it happened in the middle of winter.”
He added that fires are not
the only climate-related disasters afflicting California, saying mudslides and
floods are also increasing.
Meanwhile, he insists, there
is no mechanism here to charge those damages to the parties most responsible
for them – including oil companies.
All this talk makes it
completely certain a similar measure will be back before the Legislature next
year. Said John Carmouche, lead plaintiff lawyer in the landmark Louisiana
case, “No company is big enough to walk away scot-free.”
Carmouche, of course, did not
participate in the negotiations that forced California consumers to pay $21
million into the state’s Wildfire Fund to cover still unassessed costs from
fires caused by power company equipment. No, companies like Southern California
Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric did not quite “walk away scot-free,” but
they came close to achieving that corporate aim.
The bottom line: If next
year’s outcome on the inevitable attempt at a similar bill is to be different,
there will have to be more hard information on the savings a law like Wiener’s
might bring.
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