California rejects wildfire liability cap; utility stocks plunge — SkimNews
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- California Legislature rejected Gov. Newsom's SB 492 proposal to cap utility wildfire liability, preserving the right of wildfire survivors, local governments, and insurers to pursue claims against utilities without a damages cap
- PG&E Corp. stock fell 20% and Edison International dropped 23% on Monday — Edison's largest single-day decline in more than 25 years — with prices still unrecovered as of Tuesday morning
- Bank of America downgraded Edison International from "buy" to "neutral" in a Tuesday research note, cutting its price objective to $51 from $81, citing elevated wildfire risk and a year of policy uncertainty ahead
- SB 868 legalizes portable "balcony solar" devices in California, while AB 1738 legalizes remote inspections for home energy projects up to 15 kW, including heat pump water heaters, solar, and storage systems
- SB 1168 directs the California Public Utilities Commission to assess whether data centers pay a fair share of transmission and distribution costs, and AB 1813 revives the state's community solar program with a 5 MW project cap aimed at boosting low-income participation
- SB 913 and SB 905 push the CPUC to let aggregated distributed energy resources qualify as resource adequacy capacity and to track grid utilization — steps the industry says could scale virtual power plants
- PG&E and Edison International warned in a joint letter that the legislature's rejection of liability reform puts California "at risk of constrained investment, higher utility bills, less spending, and fewer jobs"
Why it matters: PG&E and Edison International jointly serve the vast majority of California's electric customers, and both warned the legislature they need tens of billions in annual private investment to harden the grid against wildfire risk. With the liability cap rejected and BofA already lopping 37% off Edison's price target, the cost of that uncertainty now lands squarely on ratepayers and shareholders — while community solar, balcony solar, and virtual power plant bills quietly open new doors for distributed energy.
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