Executive summary: California has imposed safety standards on investor-owned utilities to reduce catastrophic wildfire risk, but the process has been lengthy and regulators have often been reactive. Utilities appear motivated by profit and have not sufficiently internalized risk until disasters strike. Still, standards are significantly more robust today, helped by liability rules, executive pay structures, and benchmarking utilities against one another.
Key points:
Creating and enforcing standards took 5-10+ years after risk was clear and rising; utilities and regulators were insufficiently proactive.
Profit motive has strongly influenced utility actions, even amid reputational and legal liability risks.
Private activists proposed ideas that became foundations of later standards.
Separating the safety regulator from the funding authority has had tradeoffs.
Dependence on utilities reduces leverage to demand safety actions.
Executive pay tied to safety and benchmarking utilities against one another have been influential.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: California has imposed safety standards on investor-owned utilities to reduce catastrophic wildfire risk, but the process has been lengthy and regulators have often been reactive. Utilities appear motivated by profit and have not sufficiently internalized risk until disasters strike. Still, standards are significantly more robust today, helped by liability rules, executive pay structures, and benchmarking utilities against one another.
Key points:
Creating and enforcing standards took 5-10+ years after risk was clear and rising; utilities and regulators were insufficiently proactive.
Profit motive has strongly influenced utility actions, even amid reputational and legal liability risks.
Private activists proposed ideas that became foundations of later standards.
Separating the safety regulator from the funding authority has had tradeoffs.
Dependence on utilities reduces leverage to demand safety actions.
Executive pay tied to safety and benchmarking utilities against one another have been influential.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.