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Governor Gavin Newsom has a new plan for battling the wildfires that California has been battling and will continue to battle for the following months.
This of course comes with a $10.5 billion wildfire fund that power companies would be able to use to help pay for damage, if they can meet safety standards set up by the state.
Newsom stated, "Financially unstable electrical utilities will put wildfire victims in jeopardy and cause California families to see their electrical bills skyrocket. In the coming days, I will continue working with the Legislature to turn this framework into a package of bills that make the changes we need".
The Los Angeles Times reports that as needs to control wildfires have arisen in the past couple years, Newsom has spent a lot of time and money to come up with a way to relieve pressure from utility companies.
With Newsom's new proposal, California would "enforce safety standards" by building a wildfire division in the California Public Utilities Commission. Electrical utility companies would then have to pass an "annual review process" in order to be able to draw from the wildfire fund if necessary.
So, how exactly would the wildfire fund work?
There are two models being proposed.
The first one is called a "liquidity fund" in which $10.5 billion would be raised over 12 years. The money would pull money from electricity bills.
The second model takes $10.5 billion from ratepayers and then take an extra $10.5 billion from utility companies and this money would act as another type of insurance.
Chad Mayes, an Assemblyman from Yucca Valley says, "I think the cost of inaction is much higher than acting and we've got to act".
Listen to John and Ken talk about it below!