Money Stuff: PG&E Pays the Cost of Fires

If your house burns down, who pays to rebuild it? Well, it depends on whose fault it is, doesn’t it? If it burns down because you were lighting firecrackers in your living room, the answer is probably “you do,” though check your insurance coverage. If it burns down because some feckless billionaire broke in and lit firecrackers in your living room, the answer is probably “he does,” though I guess check your and his insurance coverages.

But what if it burns down because you moved into a fire-prone woodland area as part of a broader population shift into the woods, and because a series of societal decisions over decades have led to man-made global warming that has severely exacerbated that fire risk, and then a tree fell on a power line and ignited the woods and burned your house down? Whose fault is that? Yours, a little, for moving to a fire-prone area; and society’s, a lot, for the global warming; and the power company’s, a certain amount, for running power lines near trees and not cutting the trees down. But in California the answer is actually pretty simple (not legal advice!): Regardless of what you think about the metaphysics of fault, the power company pays for it. “California law makes utilities responsible for any fire started by their equipment, even if they weren’t negligent.”