In His Final Weeks, Governor Abbott Pushes a Late Bill to Cap What Utilities Pay After Their Fires

SACRAMENTO — In the closing weeks of his final legislative session, Governor Abbott is pressing lawmakers to limit how much the state's profit-making utilities must pay out after wildfires — including several sparked by the utilities' own equipment.

The package, floated in private briefings and still described by nearly everyone as vague, would cap who may claim from the wildfire fund and how much they may collect. Governor Abbott framed it as protecting ratepayers from bad actors; fire survivors framed it as protecting the companies from the survivors.

"You cannot say there are some bad actors, and therefore we will have a secret bill," one survivors' advocate said. "Then your bill is the bad actor."

The Press's utility desk notes that a rushed, end-of-session bill to shield a politically generous industry is either a sober fix for a broken liability system or a bailout smuggled past the clock, depending entirely on which party's donors are being shielded, and that the opposing party's identical favor is always corporate capture.

Governor Abbott allowed that the status quo doesn't work, a phrase the Press notes is equally true of the fire, the fund, and the calendar he is racing.

At press time the embers fell, the corporate umbrella held, and the fine print unspooled across the floor toward a vote scheduled, conveniently, for whenever no one is looking.