California has officially reached peak Newsom. The outgoing governor is spending the final two weeks of his last legislative session demanding a bailout for the state’s three for-profit utility companies — the very companies that have poured nearly $1 million into his campaigns and causes during his term, according to a blistering op-ed in the New York Post by Consumer Watchdog president Jamie Court.
The governor’s murky plan would limit the ability of wildfire victims — and their insurance companies — to recover damages from utilities whose equipment sparks fires. His fact sheet brands it “Wildfire Survivors First.” Yet every legitimate wildfire survivor group in the state opposes it. Let that sink in.
Who does back the plan? The utilities themselves — which are bankrolling a coalition called “Wildfire Victims First” to sell it, complete with $3.5 million in television ads set to blanket California. The coalition’s spokesman is Nathan Click, Newsom’s former spokesman. The ad maker is Bearstar, Newsom’s own political consultant. And the companies funding it all caused eight of the 20 worst wildfires in California history.
The dollar figures tell the real story. When Newsom signed a 2019 law creating a $21 billion wildfire fund to protect utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric was in bankruptcy. But in 2025 — the year Southern California Edison apparently caused the Eaton fire that killed at least 19 people — Edison reported $4.5 billion in profits, triple the year before, paid out $1.4 billion in shareholder dividends, and handed its CEO $16.5 million in compensation. A new government report found the Eaton fire was sparked by an abandoned Edison transmission line the company never bothered to remove.
A coalition of insurers, local governments, fire survivors, attorneys and consumer groups has urged the legislature to kill the plan. “Strong liability standards encourage utilities to invest in system hardening, vegetation management, grid modernization, and prudent operational practices,” the groups wrote. “Weakening accountability sends exactly the wrong signal by reducing the financial consequences when utility equipment causes catastrophic destruction.”
Even Democrats are balking. State Sen. Ben Allen — who represents the fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades and chairs the Senate’s Energy Committee — wrote to the CEOs of PG&E and Edison after both reportedly suggested on investor calls that if they don’t get their bailout, they’ll buy back stock rather than invest in infrastructure. “To read that the state’s largest investor-owned utility companies might be threatening to harm service to Californians if they don’t get the outcomes they seek on liability reform in the Legislature does not bode well for a cooperative approach,” Allen wrote.
Court’s verdict was simpler: “Shame on Gavin Newsom for backing up the utilities’ bailout blackmail.” As Newsom polishes his 2028 resume on the way out the door, the families who lost everything in the Palisades and Eaton fires are left waiting at the back of the line — behind the donors.
Source: nypost.com
