A state bill that would have required that southern California Edison and other public services owned by investors take measures to avoid causing catastrophic forest fires in Sacramento on Friday.
The district of Senator Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena) includes Altadena, which was devastated by the Eaton fire in January.
She introduced SB 256 Earl this year, to make energy infrastructure more safe and less prone to start forest fires, citing Reports in Los Angeles Times About some researchers and expert concerns that a dismantled energy transmission line in Eaton Canyon may have been the fire ignition site.
That report also revealed that Edison knew that some of the electric towers under investigation were very late for critical maintenance and were classified as a “risk of ignition” in the company's records.
Their legislation would have required Edison and other public service companies owned by investors to eliminate electric dismantling lines throughout the state.
It would also have promoted the “California electrical infrastructure and resistance to forest fires by improving forest fire mitigation planning, improving emergency response efforts, under electricity lines and requiring a narrower collaboration between public services, emergency services and local communities to prevent forest fires,” according to an email from Jerome Parra, a spokesman for the senator.
Pérez described the bill, which he wrote, his main legislative priority this year, and said that his failure was “disappointing” given the commitment of the problem.
“I am very frustrated because, when are we going to have responsibility? When are we going to begin to reduce the risk of fire and ensure that public services are reducing the risk of fire?” Pérez said in an interview.
Pérez also cited Reports in the times In which Edison's international executive, Pedro Pizarro, acknowledged that “the possibility that an Edison transmission line of California in Southern California inactive in some way on January 7 is” a leading hypothesis “for which the destructive fire of Eaton began.”
Brian Leventhal, Edison spokesman, provided a brief statement on behalf of the company.
“We work with the senator's office, we withdraw our opposition and remain neutral,” he said.
Nic Arnzen's house in Altadena was one of the thousands destroyed during the Eaton fire. As vice president of the City of Altadena and president of the Altadena Coalition of Neighborhood Advisors, Arnzen represents many residents who lost loved ones, belongings and livelihoods to the fast fire.
He said he was so “passionate” by SB 256 that he traveled to Sacramento earlier this year to speak in support, in particular the disposition that would have required the elimination of electric lines and dismantling infrastructure. He was also dismayed when he had died on Friday even before voting a committee.
“I am a person who lost our house, all in our house, and I went there because I believed that of all invoices … this came to the core of the problem,” Arnzen said in an interview. “Without this bill, I cannot think of another bill that really successfully addresses this specific issue of the dismantled lines. Therefore, it is extremely disappointing.”
Pérez said that public service companies that had previously asked to reject the bill formally withdrew their opposition in recent weeks. Then he said he was “surprised” for his inability to move forward.
Pérez, who began his first mandate just a month before the Eaton fire destroyed much of his district, said that the veterans legislators had told him that his legislation would be a “hard fight” given how powerful and influential public services are. Since there was no formal opposition to the bill, he told him that public service companies participate in the “shadow lobbying” behind the scene to ensure that legislators do not support him.
“The cost is insignificant, there is no registered opposition, I made my priority number 1. Tell me what happened here,” he said. “I am lost by the words.”
