News & Analysis
April 10, 2025
Californians will once again be stuck paying for all the costs of climate disasters, while the Big Oil companies fueling the crisis will pay nothing, after a legislative committee voted down a first-of-its-kind bill that would have created pathways for climate accountability this week.
Senate Bill 222, the Affordable Insurance and Climate Recovery Act, would have empowered insurers and disaster victims to take fossil fuel companies to court to recover the costs of climate disasters, helping to protect homeowners from costly home insurance rate hikes, or having their coverage dropped altogether. It failed to pass California’s Senate Judiciary committee on Tuesday.
“This bill is really about making sure that as these horrific catastrophes happen, that it's not just on taxpayers and victims and policyholders … that are the ones left holding the bag,” Sen. Scott Wiener, the bill’s sponsor, told the committee during a hearing. “[This bill] will make sure that these companies are not off the hook and that they are accountable for the catastrophic harm that they have caused.”
California’s insurance market is “in shambles” following January’s Los Angeles fires, which destroyed more than 16,000 homes and caused more than $250 billion in damages. Experts agree the unprecedented fires were made worse by fossil fuel-driven climate change — an outcome the fossil fuel industry itself predicted as far back as 1954.
"California could have set a nationwide example for how to make Big Oil pay for its role in the insurance crisis and helped protect residents from an uninsurable future,” said Iyla Shornstein, Political Director of the Center for Climate Integrity. “Instead, some lawmakers decided to shield Big Oil from accountability and deprive Californians of tools to recover devastating losses.”
The committee voted down the measure despite powerful first-hand testimony from wildfire survivors who lost their homes and are struggling to rebuild following January’s deadly fires.
“Everything feels financially crushing right now, and that's even with the insurance coverage … that we're lucky to have right now,” Altadena wildfire survivor Moira Morel told the committee. “Disasters like this are going to keep happening, but you can make the financial burden less awful for all of us. Should families continue bearing these costs alone, or should these [oil and gas] companies pay their fair share?”
While California is the canary in the coal mine of the climate-driven home insurance crisis, communities across the country are feeling it. An investigation by the U.S. Senate Budget Committee last year found that climate disasters are impacting insurance markets in states across the country — from New England to Montana to Oklahoma. Insurance companies are dramatically raising rates, refusing to renew home insurance policies, and not issuing new policies — a requirement for most people to purchase a home..
With climate disasters worsening, these financial burdens will only get worse unless lawmakers make Big Oil pay their fair share of the damages they’ve caused.
Image Credit: CALFIRE via flickr
