“The utilities have spent months lobbying Sacramento legislators to change a system known as inverse condemnation, which holds them liable for wildfire damage tied to their equipment even in cases where the company did nothing wrong. The ads urge viewers to support the BRITE Coalition, a group pushing to reform the state’s liability rules concerning fires triggered by utility equipment. All three of the state’s large investor-owned utilities — Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. — are members. PG&E touts BRITE as a broad-based effort. The utility, California’s largest, views the wildfire liability fight as part of a much larger issue: how the state will pay for the damage wrought by climate change. Massive wildfires, the company argues, have become more common in recent years because global warming and the recent drought have killed an estimated 130 million trees in the state.”
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