By MARISA ENDICOTT (opens in new tab), THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/08/04/utility-lobbying-california-wildfires-victims
“We need a permanent fix to bring California back from the brink of this wildfire crisis,” an urgent voice says over images of burned-out neighborhoods in an advertisement (opens in new tab) launched in July.
The statewide campaign, according to the group behind it, Wildfire Victims First (opens in new tab), is “calling out” California’s “compounding wildfire, insurance and affordability crises” and “pressing lawmakers for a permanent fix before the legislative session ends in August.”
Mailers have started to arrive in North Bay mailboxes, and on Instagram, more ads urge viewers to demand action from various state legislators. “Join the coalition,” one post said. “Stand with wildfire victims and demand a system that puts people first.”
Some of those fire survivors, however, have taken issue with the group and its campaign, which both get their financial backing from California’s largest investor-owned energy utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — whose equipment has sparked some of the state’s recent major wildfires.
“Part of this is, on its face — that utilities are saying, ‘wildfire victims first,’” said Will Abrams who heads up the Utility Wildfire Survivor Coalition (opens in new tab). His home burned in the 2017 Tubbs Fire. “You can just look at the fires that they’ve started (opens in new tab) and know that that is not true. They are not putting fire victims first. And by the way, they’re corporations, and they’re going to put shareholders first. That’s their duty.”
Representatives for the utility companies directed questions to the Wildfire Victims First campaign.
Wildfire Victims First (opens in new tab) is made up of a coalition of over 250 organizations, said spokesperson Nathan Click, a public affairs strategist who formerly served as Gov. Gavin Newsom’s communications director. The group includes an array of labor organizations, chambers of commerce and local politicians as well as some fire safe councils. Groups specifically representing fire victims are not readily apparent on the list.
Jennifer Gray Thompson, CEO of After the Fire USA (opens in new tab), a national nonprofit started after the 2017 North Bay fires that helps communities navigate wildfires and their aftermath, was briefly part of the coalition but pulled out. Gray Thompson said she was approached by former state Sen. Bill Dodd on behalf of Wildfire Victims First. Dodd, the former Napa legislator “was a champion for fire survivors for years,” she said.
He now runs a public affairs and lobbying firm. He directed a reporter to Click.
Gray Thompson isn’t opposed to working with utilities — “we’ve got a big problem. We need to solve the problem,” she said, referencing the rippling consequences of the state’s increasingly destructive wildfires. She also made clear to Dodd that her organization’s support was limited to specific survivor-centered solutions and not broader utility liability reform, according to emails between the two.
But, once she saw the ad campaign, especially with its targeting of specific lawmakers, and heard more concerns from fire survivors, she said she felt “pretty duped.”
“If there’s a process to get people paid more quickly and limit the amount (opens in new tab) that attorneys take from fire survivors, I would have that conversation, but fire survivors must be at the center of that conversation. That’s just how it has to go,” Gray Thompson said.
She isn’t clear on the group’s specific advocacy efforts, but “what is clear is it’s offensive to fire survivors, and so we don’t want anything to do with it.”
Click said the organization was a direct response to a major state study (opens in new tab) released in April, and meant to provide lawmakers with options to address interweaving crises stemming from worsening climate change-driven disasters. That report “highlighted how payouts to financial middlemen — like trial attorneys, hedge funds, and insurance companies — are often paid out before wildfire victims receive a single dollar for rebuilding,” Click said. “We have called on state legislators to urgently implement many of its conclusions.”
It’s unclear exactly which conclusions — the group doesn’t currently specify support for existing legislative proposals — but its website broadly promotes wildfire prevention, insurance reforms and improved victim compensation. A framework document proposes caps on trial attorney fees and the replacement of litigation as a primary route to compensation with a claims process that pays out in 60 days, although Click did not provide details on what that could look like or how “fair” pay would be assessed.
Fear over eleventh-hour proposals
The state report in question was a product of last year’s wide-ranging energy package, Senate Bill 254, passed in the very last moments of the legislative session. In the wake of the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires that threatened to empty out a $21 billion state wildfire recovery fund, SB 254 added an (opens in new tab) $18 billion infusion, again split between ratepayers and utility shareholders. That fund, meant to guarantee victim payouts while keeping utilities from going under, was established in 2019 after PG&E declared bankruptcy in the face of damages from Northern California’s wave of deadly blazes, including the 2017 North Bay fires.
The 127-page SB 254 study sought to outline a more sustainable longer-term strategy. While the options set out (opens in new tab) are broad and varied, a host of consumer, environmental and wildfire survivor groups have criticized (opens in new tab) some of its possible recommendations seen as prioritizing utilities over wildfire victims and others — capping utilities’ responsibility to pay some damages, like for emotional distress and pain and suffering, limiting insurance companies’ ability to recover from utilities, increasing ratepayers’ contribution to the state wildfire fund, for example.
A number of bills chipping away at one the state’s most intractable problems have moved through the legislature since, including some championed by fire survivors. That includes legislation (opens in new tab) to rein in insurance non-renewals and add consumer protections to the insurance claims process and another law (opens in new tab)seeking a path (opens in new tab) forward to address restitution shortfalls (opens in new tab) for Northern California victims of PG&E-linked wildfires before July 2019.
A measure that would have required independent audits of energy companies’ wildfire mitigation spending before the approval of ratepayer cost recovery failed (opens in new tab) to move forward.
But, as the legislative cycle wanes once again, some advocacy groups are bracing for last-minute proposals they worry will amount to a “utility bailout,” as Joy Chen of the Every Fire Survivor’s Network (opens in new tab) put it. If so, she said, the case should be made publicly and “not pushed through” in the eleventh hour “behind closed doors. That’s not how democracy happens.”
Every Fire Survivor’s Network was established after the devastating 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires in Los Angeles. The organization, along with Consumer Watchdog, has launched (opens in new tab) a preemptive campaign to undercut limits on utility liabilities.
An open letter, (opens in new tab) signed onto by a slate of community organizations and officials urges Newsom to publicly rule out limits on utility liabilities. Just like Northern California fire victims before them, the letter highlights Southern California survivors’ ongoing struggle to return home, navigate insurance claims and secure full compensation against a backdrop of rising investor-owned utility profits and sky-high CEO pay.
On Monday, Consumer Watchdog highlighted (opens in new tab) new disclosures that show three of California’s largest investor-owned utilities spent $16.7 million on lobbying through the first six quarters of the 2025-2026 legislative session.
Newsom’s press office did not respond to a request for comment.
“It’s still undetermined what the final actions of the legislative session will be,” state Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg said in a statement. “That said, wildfire survivors have been through hell and back. The last thing they deserve is getting short-changed by investor-owned utility companies who keep chalking up even bigger profits.”
The Legislature reconvened after a summer recess on Aug. 3, with a deadline to advance and pass all regularly scheduled bills by the end of the month.
Assembly member Chris Rogers, D-Santa Rosa, nodded to “a history of survivors being secondary to the economic health of (investor-owned utilities).”
He noted the necessary urgency that comes with getting solutions in place before any staggering losses from another bad wildfire season. At the same time, he said, “the urgency shouldn’t be designed to limit the participation of the people who are impacted.”
Rogers was a Santa Rosa council member in 2017 when the Tubbs Fire destroyed roughly 3,000 homes in the city.
“The central point that needs to be answered in any late session legislative play,” he said, is “there cannot be a conversation about liability without including a corresponding conversation around accountability.”
‘They’ve been last in line’
Rogers, who sits on the Assembly’s Utility and Energy Committee, said he understands the governor’s office has been in talks with the chairs of the insurance and utilities and energy committees, but he’s yet to see any resulting legislation. “I’m going to be carefully evaluating any proposals that are put on table,” he said. His support for any limits on damages is “highly unlikely,” but he added he’ll evaluate any package as a whole and “discuss with constituents what the trade-offs are” rather than “listening to any fictitious group purporting to represent fire victims.”
Click of Wildfire Victims First did not respond to a question on support or opposition to specific limits on utility liability or victim compensation.
Abrams of the Utility Wildfire Survivor Coalition has long called (opens in new tab) for more transparency around the backers, funding and specific efforts by advocacy groups (opens in new tab) purporting to represent wildfire victims, especially in the lead up to rushed and sweeping reforms that “over and over again” have left survivors feeling burned twice over.
Victims of wildfires stretching back now a decade have yet to be made whole, even as waves of new survivors join their ranks.
“Why wouldn’t they believe that they would be last to be bailed out? They’ve been last in line for everything,” said Gray Thompson. “They have not been treated right. They have been put behind corporations, consultants, attorneys… and it does not bode well for trust.”
You can reach senior reporter Marisa Endicott at 707-521-5470 or [email protected]. On X @marisaendicott and Facebook @InYourCornerTPD.
