A state bill requiring investor-owned utilities to take steps to prevent catastrophic wildfires failed in the California Legislature. Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez represents Altadena, a community hit hard by the Eaton fire in January, and made wildfire risk reduction her top priority. She cited investigators' and experts' concerns that a decommissioned transmission line in Eaton Canyon may have ignited the Eaton fire and noted that some towers were overdue for upkeep and labeled an "ignition risk" in company records. The legislation would have required plans to remove decommissioned lines, advance mitigation planning, underground lines, and improve emergency collaboration. Pérez expressed frustration and called the bill's defeat disappointing given the stakes.
She introduced 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.
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.
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