California lawmakers proposed making fossil fuel companies liable for natural disasters by allowing natural disaster victims and insurance companies to sue them due to their alleged impact on the environment. Wildfire experts, however, say that the state’s poor water management and recent cuts to forest management are largely responsible for the state’s worsening wildfires.
Early estimates of damage and loss from the ongoing Los Angeles wildfires exceed $250 billion, which means insurance companies would need to charge massive assessments to insurance holders or wait for a taxpayer bailout. SB 222 would allow insurers to instead pass the buck on to fossil fuel companies, whom legislators blame for “escalating disasters.”
“Californians are paying a devastating price for the climate crisis, as escalating disasters destroy entire communities and drive insurance costs through the roof,” said bill author state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, in a statement. “Containing these costs is critical to our recovery and to the future of our state. By forcing the fossil fuel companies driving the climate crisis to pay their fair share, we can help stabilize our insurance market and make the victims of climate disasters whole.”
However, experts at the American Legislative Exchange Council point much of the blame for the state’s worsening wildfires at the state for cutting forest management budgets, sustaining lengthy forest management permitting processes, and engaging in poor water management.
“Poor water management, bureaucratic resistance to wildfire remediation efforts, and misplaced spending priorities have left Californians vulnerable to disasters that are both predictable and preventable,” wrote ALEC’s Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force Director Joe Trotter.
Trotter notes Gov. Gavin Newsom’s first-draft budget “cut the CAL FIRE resource management budget by 50%, reducing funding for critical forest and wildfire resilience programs” while proposing “$14.7 billion for zero-emission vehicles and clean energy initiatives,” and that the “the Santa Ynez Reservoir — designed to hold 117 million gallons of water” for water storage and firefighting in the Pacific Palisades was left empty due to maintenance issues.
With an estimated forest management cost of $1,000 per acre, and an estimated 15 million acres of at-risk forest in California, the state could clear its current at-risk backlog for $15 billion, though with current environmental regulations, it’s unclear how long such a project — even if fully funded — could take.
According to U.S. Forest Service data cited in a Property and Environment Research Center report, it takes an average of 3.6 years to start mechanical thinning and 4.7 years to conduct a controlled burn after the USFS starts the environmental review process. For projects that require environmental impact statements, it takes an average of 5.3 years after initiating permitting to start mechanical thinning, and 7.2 years for prescribed burns.
With a bipartisan bill that would significantly streamline forest management permitting advancing in Congress from the House to the Senate last week, lawmakers appear ready to engage with meaningful reform that would transition the nation from a posture of reactive fire-suppression to active forest-management.
