Newsom says he has ‘open mind’ on special session, after PG&E announces cuts

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Hello and welcome back to Capitol Confidential! 

Lawmakers are back in their home districts now that the legislative session is done and dusted, shifting gears to campaigning before the November election. 

Now it’s a waiting game to see how the bills they have spent months pushing through the Legislature will fare under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pen. 

At an event in Summerville, South Carolina, on Thursday, where he is campaigning for Democrats in down-ballot races, Newsom told the Chronicle’s Sophia Bollag he had an "open mind" about calling a special session, following the collapse of weeks of negotiations with the Legislature over wildfire liability reform. 

"As needed, if necessary, if the conditions present themselves," he said. 

But he also said he wouldn't call one if it would be "a waste of everyone's time and energy."

Less than 24 hours after Assembly Democrats announced they will not move forward with the wildfire liability compromise bill SB492, the state’s largest investor-owned utility said it is making significant reductions in response.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said on Wednesday it will defer $2 billion in connections to new renewable-energy projects and housing developments, among other investments.

CEO Patti Poppe told the Chronicle the cuts are “a result of inaction” from the Legislature, and represent about 15% of the utility’s planned investments for 2027. She said the move will reduce the amount of money the company must borrow, preventing potential higher costs for ratepayers, but warned it will mean disruptive impacts for the company’s larger customers.

Some consumer advocates said the utility’s announcement felt politically motivated, coming a day after legislators officially killed a pared-down version of a wide-reaching proposal from the governor seeking to limit the liability utilities face when they’re found to have started wildfires. 

Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, lead author of the wildfire compromise bill, was not available for comment Wednesday. His office told the Chronicle the senator was not informed in advance of PG&E’s decision to pull back on investments. 

Assembly Member Cottie Petrie-Norris, D-Irvine, the bill’s coauthor and chair of the Assembly’s Utilities and Energy Committee, declined to comment on PG&E’s announcement, saying she is focused on next steps and preparing for future wildfire hearings. 

Petrie-Norris and Assembly Member Lisa Calderon, D-Whittier (Los Angeles County), pledged in the hours after the Assembly torpedoed the bill to hold public hearings on the wildfire reforms, after complaints from many lawmakers that the rushed deal did not provide enough time for constituent feedback.

Democratic leadership has been mum on the announcement, while the possibility of a legislative session – which only the governor can call – remains up in the air.

“I think it would make a huge difference if they tackled it in special session and it would make a direct impact on this work, because if they wait until this time next year, there's no change,” Poppe said when asked about the possibility of a special session rather than waiting for the next legislative session. “This $2 billion is definitely not going to be available to maintain these project timelines as the customers originally had hoped.”

On Wednesday, the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog called on the California Public Utilities Commission to examine whether PG&E should be forced to refund customers on the basis that it was deferring already-planned work.

“PG&E appears to be engaged in a ‘capital strike,’ where it withholds paid-for-services in exchange for a political result,” the group wrote in a letter to the regulator.

The agency has been tasked by the governor with reporting out the expected impacts of the deal’s collapse on the utility companies’ finances by Nov. 1. 

When a home survives a wildfire, but is left covered with lead and asbestos-laden ash, what does it take to make it safe to live in again? California could become the first state in the nation to officially answer that question, as the Chronicle’s Megan Fan Munce and Susie Nielson reported this week.

On Monday night, the Legislature passed two bills that ask state agencies to study, create and enforce science-based standards for remediating homes that survive wildfires but are left contaminated by soot, ash and debris. Scientists studying the Eaton and Palisades fires have found lead, asbestos, arsenic and even rarer pollutants, like beryllium, inside of surviving homes.

Experts have said the toxicity of the two fires was unprecedented, but also a sign of what's to come in the future as California wildfires continue to encroach into urban areas, burning not just trees and bushes but solar panels and electric vehicles.

AB1642 by Assembly Member John Harabedian, D-Pasadena, asks the California Department of Toxic Substances Control to pursue regulatory standards for how to detect and remove lead, asbestos and other common contaminants found in wildfire debris.

Its companion bill, AB1795 by Assembly Member Mike Gipson, D-Carson, would mandate that insurance companies pay the cost of chemical testing and temporary living expenses for homes in ZIP codes that are fully or partially within the designated fire perimeter. Insurers would also be required to assume any smoke, ash, soot and char found in homes were caused by the wildfire itself unless the insurer can prove otherwise.

Across the U.S., only Colorado has pursued similar standards, said Amy Bach, executive director of the consumer advocacy group United Policyholders. While those are still in the works, California could work faster and become the first state in the nation to regulate how to deal with smoke damage and when insurers have to pay for it, Bach said.

Both insurance industry representatives and wildfire survivors supported the bills' passage, saying it's important to have objective, science-backed standards for how to deal with the increasing toxicity of wildfire smoke.

AB1881, a bill by Assembly Member James Ramos, D-Highland, passed this week and is now subject to Newsom’s final weigh-in. 

The bill, called the California Indian Freedom Act of 2026, would give the state’s Indigenous community members more say over their ancestral lands. It would establish enforceable protections for Native Americans to visit historically sacred sites that are on state land, and would require government agencies receive consent from affected tribes before pursuing activities that might disrupt Indigenous land access and practices. It also would allow tribes to sue for violations of the law.

A coalition of businesses, water agencies and local governments, led by the California Chamber of Commerce, opposed the measure, saying it would essentially give Native American communities unprecedented veto power over projects on state land. These could range from constructing buildings, improving roads, doing fire prevention work and developing new parks, they argue.

Indigenous Justice sponsored the bill, which is also supported by the California Rural Indian Health Board, the California Tribal Business Alliance and the Coalition of California State Tribes, among other organizations. 

“In a just world, there would be no need for this bill,” Ramos said in a press release Sunday. “Yet the State of California and the federal government have historically attempted to force assimilation on Native Americans. It’s a long litany of grievous wrongs that aimed at exterminating the state’s First People and erasing their language, their culture and their spiritual traditions and traditions.”

A legislative package by Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside, presented as one of California’s marquee responses to efforts by President Donald Trump and national Republicans to restrict voting access, is on Newsom’s desk.

Last week legislators passed SB1164, which would broadly prohibit state and local agencies from doing anything that makes it harder for eligible Californians to vote or that would dilute the vote of protected minority groups. It would also clarify the authority of the attorney general and secretary of state to weigh in before local governments change their election processes – something that presumably would have impacted local measures imposing massive restrictions on voting in Huntington Beach and Shasta County.

And on the last day of the regular session this week, its companion bill SB1360 also received the green light. It would expand requirements for counties to provide ballots and voting information in foreign languages.

The package, with SB1164 in particular, is a substantial overhaul of the state’s landmark voting rights protections. The California Voting Rights Act was passed by the Legislature in 2001, and when signed into law by then-Gov. Gray Davis, became the nation’s first state-specific voting rights act, focused on protecting minority groups from vote dilution.

Xavier Becerra made a rare appearance in Sacramento last month to endorse the two bills. 

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