SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom named his three appointments to a newly formed commission tasked with studying the costs of California wildfires associated with electric utilities.
The five-member Commission on Catastrophic Wildfire Cost and Recovery was established through legislation last year that made it easier for utilities to pass along some of their financial liability from wildfires to customers. The panel must produce a report for Newsom and the Legislature by July 1 recommending changes to ensure “equitable distribution of costs” from the disasters.
Former state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, San Francisco attorney Michael Kahn and Carla Peterman, a former member of the California Public Utilities Commission, were named to the commission by Newsom on Tuesday. The state Senate Rules Committee and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount (Los Angeles County), will each fill one of the remaining spots.
The 2017 wildfires in the North Bay, many of which were sparked by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. equipment, prompted the Legislature to re-examine state liability rules holding utility companies responsible for any fires started by their power lines, even if the firms followed all safety procedures.
SB901, signed last summer by then-Gov. Jerry Brown, instructs the Public Utilities Commission, when assessing damages, to determine whether a utility adequately maintained its equipment before a fire. It allows utility companies to issue bonds to pay for the damages and pass along those costs to customers on their monthly bills, if the firms are found to have behaved responsibly.
Lawmakers hoped to prevent PG&E from declaring bankruptcy over billions of dollars in potential lawsuit payouts. The company announced its intention to file for bankruptcy protection anyway earlier this month, following the November wildfire in Butte County that destroyed the city of Paradise and killed 86 people. The cause has not been determined, but PG&E reported that a transmission line malfunctioned near the blaze’s ignition point.
Also on Tuesday, Newsom made his first appointment to the Public Utilities Commission: Genevieve Shiroma, a member of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board since 1999. The powerful commission regulates sectors including electricity, telecommunications and transportation companies.
The governor named Severin Borenstein, a professor at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, to the board of the California Independent System Operator, which oversees the state’s power grid.
Alexei Koseff is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: alexei.koseff@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @akoseff
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