Wildfires and insurance — issues linked to climate change — took center stage in California’s gubernatorial debate Tuesday night, along with the price of gas.
Here are some of the candidates’ defining statements, starting from the left side of the stage:
Tony Thurmond
The Democratic State Superintendent of Public Instruction addressed the state’s wildfire insurance crisis, where private insurers are dropping policies as climate change causes more and more devastating fires. The state allows insurers to raise rates in exchange for writing more policies, but so far its backup FAIR plan, which aims to provide coverage when other companies won’t, has been on the rise.
Thurmond said he would withhold tax credits, subsidies, and benefits from non-cooperative insurers, although the moderator and other candidates have raised questions about the legality of this strategy.
“The governor can certainly work with the insurance commissioner to say there should be no rate increases until the insurance industry is actually writing the policies. He has failed California in our greatest need. He took the money for premiums and then when people needed support rebuilding their homes, he said, ‘Oh, we’re not going to help you.’ Then they got a rate increase. “I’m sorry, where I come from, you don’t get a raise when you do bad work.”
chad bianco
The Republican Riverside County Sheriff said insurers are leaving California not because of climate change, but because the state has failed to pass and enforce vegetation management and defensible space policies that would reduce wildfire risk.
“It wasn’t global warming, stop believing in it. It was a failed environmental policy that doesn’t allow fire departments to put defensible space around our homes or to clear construction that’s been built in our mountains and our hills for 30 years that obliterate a city. (Insurers) specifically said we were going to lose a city, and our governor said ‘We don’t care.’ And so the insurance companies went away.
Inadequate brush clearance has contributed to other fires in the state, although no factor Experts specifically cite the Los Angeles fires.
Tom Steyer
The Democratic billionaire hedge fund founder, who is presenting himself as the climate candidate in the race, promoted his campaign to make oil companies pay for climate change damages, including rising insurance rates and homes lost in wildfires.
“In environmentalism, I have three real rules. Number one is the polluter pays. It’s absolutely critical that if people pollute and harm the environment and harm their neighbors, they pay. Two, we have to incorporate environmental justice into every single environmental rule. And the third is that we have to start deploying all the clean energy stuff that is now affordable and put us back in front of the world in leading it.
“There’s a guy who’s got corporations behind him, including Big Oil, who are spending millions of dollars to stop me. The electricity monopoly, PG&E, are spending millions of dollars to stop me, because I’m the guy on this platform who is an agent of change.”
steve hilton
The former Republican Fox News commentator said insurers should be allowed to raise rates commensurate with actual wildfire risk. He also advocated “modern forest management” to remove fuels from forests as a way to protect against wildfires, reduce carbon emissions from fires, and revive the state’s timber industry.
“We can create jobs and opportunities in rural California and reduce carbon emissions in the process, because we won’t have large wildfires.”
Asked if he supported the transition to electrification, he promoted natural gas: “Yes, but let’s be smart about electricity. Right now, we have a fleet of gas-powered power stations that are running at 10 to 15% of their capacity, even though we have abundant natural gas in California that we can use to generate cheap, reliable electricity that lowers the cost of electric bills for consumers and businesses. Will do.”
According to the US Energy Information AdministrationCalifornia’s natural gas production provides less than one-tenth of the state’s consumption.
xavier becerra
The former Health and Human Services secretary said he would call a state of emergency as governor to ask wildfire insurers to freeze rates and come to the table.
“This affordability crisis is affecting every family, and we have to act as if this was a glass-breaking moment…Rate payers have to understand what their risk is, so they understand why they’re going to pay what they’re going to pay for their home insurance. But an insurance company has to be open and transparent about the pricing of its policies so people can afford it.”
Moderator Julie Watts said California home insurance rates are lower than the national average and questioned the legality of the moratorium.
katie porter
The former Democratic Orange County congresswoman was asked whether California should keep its refineries. Two of them closed last year, reducing the state’s refining capacity by 20 percent and forcing California to rely more on imports.
He said the state should keep the remaining refineries open, but also must ramp up green energy to meet the state’s growing electricity demand: “Right now we need to keep all of our energy sources online. That’s just the reality we’re in. … Right now those refineries, they’re running, they’re running, they’re creating good jobs. Let’s keep them there. But I want to be really clear … the people who work in those refineries, and the people who Those living in Kern County also face some problems.The worst of them is pollution and low life expectancy.
He also supported the idea of state dollars covering insurance for insurers, known as reinsurance.
matt great
The Democratic San Jose mayor called for suspending the state’s 61 cents-per-gallon gas tax, used to fund road repairs, bridges and public transportation. The state is projecting a revenue shortfall of $216.4 billion over the next decade due to rising fuel economy and electric vehicles. Other Democratic candidates support keeping the tax; Mahan has instead proposed a flat fee on all vehicles.
He said: “I’m the only candidate on this platform who has promised to suspend the gas tax and then reform it. It’s the most regressive tax in California. Working people, rural people, wealthy EV owners are spending three times more on maintaining our roads.”
On the wildfire insurance crisis he said: “The government in Sacramento imposed so many restrictions, including taking more than a year to approve any rate changes, preventing insurance companies from using climate data to project future costs, that they stopped writing new policies. The answer is to bring them back, force them to compete, allow them to take fairly priced risks, and then hold the government accountable for maintaining our wild lands, “To reduce the risk of all vegetation and wildfires so that we don’t have such devastating fires.”
Antonio Villaraigosa
The former Democratic LA mayor expressed his concern over the preparedness of the state’s infrastructure to support the transition to electric vehicles.
“We need an all-of-the-above strategy that understands that we have to transition from oil and gas to renewables. But here’s an example: the 2035 mandate (to ban gas-powered car sales). We built 167,000 charging stations over the last 10 years. We need 2 million more to achieve that mandate, and if we build them, we don’t have a grid. So we need to build the grid instead of arguing about it.” Should we formulate whether we need it or not?
