Eaton Fire Survivors Urge Lawmakers to Audit Utility Wildfire Spending

The California Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee has passed Assembly Bill 1774 on April 8, 2026, with a 11-0 vote. The legislation would require independent audits of Wildfire Mitigation Plan spending by for-profit electric companies before additional spending can be approved.

The move follows pressure from survivors of the Eaton fire, who testified before the committee on April 8, 2026. These survivors are calling for greater accountability and transparency regarding how Southern California Edison and other major for-profit utilities spend funds designated for wildfire prevention.

The Eaton Fire and Utility Accountability

The push for the legislation is tied to the January 7, 2025, Eaton fire in Altadena, which resulted in 19 deaths and the destruction of thousands of homes and structures. Southern California Edison has stated it believes a century-old transmission line, which had not carried power since 1971, may have briefly re-energized on that night and ignited the blaze.

An investigation by the Los Angeles Times revealed that Southern California Edison failed to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on transmission system upgrades and maintenance that it had previously told regulators were necessary to keep the system safe. Despite this, the utility had already begun charging customers for these costs.

Californians funded the wildfire prevention. And we survivors paid the price when that work was not done.

Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network

Chen, who represents more than 10,000 survivors of the Eaton and Palisades fires, told the commission that many victims have still not returned to their homes while continuing to pay some of the highest electricity bills in the country to the utility whose equipment is suspected of starting the fire.

Audit Findings and Legislative Goals

The proposed bill, introduced by Assemblymember Boerner, aims to end what Boerner described as the rubberstamping of wildfire mitigation plans. The lawmaker argued that the current process leads to a lack of accountability and overspending with little actual prevention.

Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, provided testimony regarding the limited history of such audits. Court discussed the results of the only three audits of utility wildfire spending in modern history, which indicated that utilities were unable to show how $2 billion was spent.

Further context regarding past oversight was provided by the Los Angeles Times, noting that a 2019-2020 audit found $2.5 billion that could not be traced. Despite these findings, regulators had allowed utilities to continue spending billions more without requiring refunds to customers or demanding strict accountability.

The legislation seeks to ensure that ratepayers are not burdened with costs for safety work that is never completed, particularly as the Wildfire Fund is seen by some as a guarantee that utilities are compensated by ratepayers for costs and claims even when the utilities are at fault.