Opinion | California cannot keep rewarding utilities after wildfires

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Eaton Fire survivors and community supporters rally at a press conference in Altadena on June 29, 2026. Photo by Mario Tama, Getty Images

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This story is part of California Voices, a commentary forum aiming to broaden our understanding of the state and spotlight Californians directly impacted by policy or its absence. Learn more here.

Guest Commentary written by

Joy Chen

Joy Chen is the executive director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network and a former deputy mayor of Los Angeles.

A group calling itself Wildfire Victims First has been mailing Californians this year and running ads, claiming to speak for people like me.

It does not. It is a fake wildfire victims group, funded by California’s three for-profit electric monopolies.

I am an Eaton Fire survivor. My organization, Every Fire Survivor’s Network, represents more than 10,000 people. We are the real wildfire victims.

Eighteen months after the Eaton Fire, 2 in 3 survivors remain displaced. Retirement savings have been drained. Credit cards are maxed out. More than half of us are on the brink of losing our temporary housing.

Rather than protect us, Gov. Gavin Newsom is working on an 11th-hour utility bailout behind closed doors — right now — before the Legislature reconvenes in August.

We have seen this before. We know how it ends.

Last September, in the final two days of the legislative session, Newsom and legislative leaders gutted and amended Senate Bill 254, stripping a bill meant to protect wildfire survivors and replacing it with a 231-page bill protecting California’s electric utilities.

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The rewrite came so late, the Legislature had to extend its session to meet the constitutional 72-hour review requirement. Some legislators admitted they didn’t know what they were voting on. One observer told the Los Angeles Times it was “effectively a bailout.”

That is not how democracy is supposed to work.

The state said the electric utilities needed protection or they’d go bankrupt. The California Public Utilities Commission approved a $1.1 billion rate increase, plus nearly $1 billion in retroactive payments, paid by California families to Southern California Edison — whose equipment was investigated as the probable source of the Eaton Fire.

Two months later, Edison raised its shareholder dividend for the 22nd consecutive year, to nearly $1.3 billion. Edison’s three largest institutional shareholders are BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street.

Thanks to the rate hikes, Edison’s profits more than tripled in 2025, from $1.3 billion to $4.5 billion. CEO Pedro Pizarro’s pay soared 20% to $16.5 million.

This was not protection from bankruptcy. It was a transfer of wealth from hardworking Californians to Wall Street. It happened the same year the Eaton Fire killed 19 people and destroyed the lives of tens of thousands more.

California’s legislators and Newsom face a choice: protect the families who lost everything or hold the corporations responsible.

A nationwide coalition recent launched a website, DearNewsom.org, and it includes the NAACP, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which represents 70 immigrant rights organizations, and Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy grou with more than a million members.

In a letter, NAACP’s president and CEO Derrick Johnson urged Newsom to choose democracy over corporate special interests, calling on the governor to “stand with survivors, reject policies that shield corporate misconduct and ensure California leads the nation by putting people before powerful interests."

To put it simply: No more bailouts of the electric monopolies negotiated behind closed doors, before survivors have been made whole.

If Newsom’s proposals are good for California, make that case openly — through the ordinary legislative process — not in language inserted days before the legislative session ends. Let California be a model for America, not a model for what happens when corporate power outweighs democracy.

Newsom should apply the same basic principle every parent teaches their child, and which forms the basis of our nation’s system of civil justice: You break it, you fix it. Not: You break it, your victims lose everything, and shareholders and executives walk away even richer.

If the results of repeated...