Who Pays for Wildfire Prevention? If You’re in California, You Do — in Your Power Bill.
About this episode
The episode discusses the link between California's high electricity costs, housing issues, and the home insurance market, focusing on wildfire prevention funding by utilities.
California now has the most expensive electricity in the continental United States. It also has expensive housing … and an increasingly broken home insurance market. Are the three phenomena linked? They might be. Due to a peculiarity in the state’s constitution, electricity utilities are incentivized to pay for a huge amount of wildfire prevention, above and beyond what would be seen as economically reasonable in another state. Fixing that constitutional peculiarity could help bring down energy costs and heal the home insurance market, but it will be complicated — and a number of policies will need to get passed at the same time. That’s what Lauren Teixeira argues in her new report, “ Rewiring Risk .” Teixeira, a senior climate and energy analyst at the Breakthrough Institute, joins Rob for today’s episode of Shift Key. They discuss how California found itself in this situation, how it might be fixed, and why the state treats utilities as a sin-eater for wildfire risk. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News. You can find a full transcript of the episode here . Mentioned: Lauren’s report: Rewiring Risk Rethinking Utility Wildfire Risk…
People in this episode
Host: Robinson Meyer
Guest: Lauren Teixeira
Topics covered
- wildfire prevention
- California electricity
- home insurance market
- utility regulation
- climate policy
Keywords
- California
- wildfire prevention
- electricity costs
- home insurance
- utility regulation
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Breakthrough Institute
Books & works: Rewiring Risk
Places: California
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