VX News is the editorial voice of the annual VerdeXchange Conference, featuring in-depth interviews with industry leaders and policymakers driving innovation in clean energy, water, transportation, and climate policy.
Assemblymember Harabedian: Legislative Responses to Eaton Fire’s Devastation
Assemblymember John Harabedian, whose district includes Altadena, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre, has spent much of his first term turning the Eaton Fire's hard lessons into legislation. Speaking with VX News after the close of session, Harabedian reflects on AB 1642, his newly signed bill setting first-in-the-nation standards for testing and clearing smoke-damaged homes, and on why the Assembly let SB 492 die rather than declare "mission accomplished." The Assemblymember also explains why he has changed his mind on undergrounding, and names the one question he says every candidate for insurance commissioner must answer.
Future of Regional Mobility: LABC Sustainability Summit
VX News publishes transcript of "Future of Regional Mobility: Game Plan for a Sustainable LA," the closing panel of the Los Angeles Business Council's 20th Annual Sustainability Summit hosted on October 1. Moderated by Phil Recht, partner at Mayer Brown, the panel brought together Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts, Metro Chief Planning Officer Ray Sosa, Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka, Tom Ashley of Voltera and George Kivork of Archer. They examined how the region can expand transit, goods movement and emerging mobility while decarbonizing transportation, with the 2028 Olympics as a near-term test and a longer horizon beyond. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Wade Crowfoot & Newsom on 30x30: “This Is Not an Intellectual Exercise”
VX News here features a conversation between California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot and Governor Gavin Newsom, with 100 days left in his term, at the 30x30 Partnership 2026 Summit, held September 29 under Renzo Piano’s living roof at the California Academy of Sciences.
California's Energy Future & Wildfire Risk: Edison International CEO Pedro Pizarro
VX News here features a conversation between Nat Bullard, co-founder of Halcyon and host of the Nameplate podcast, and Pedro Pizarro, president and CEO of Edison International, recorded for Nameplate's debut episode. Pizarro, who marked a decade as Edison International's chief executive on October 1, traces the company's 140-year arc from the Big Creek hydroelectric project to today's wires-focused Southern California Edison.
L.A. County CAO (fmr) David Janssen on Measure G: ‘We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know’
In 2028, Los Angeles County voters will elect the county's first executive, the centerpiece of Measure G, the charter amendment that narrowly passed in November 2024. Few people understand the job being redesigned better than David Janssen, who ran the county bureaucracy as chief administrative officer from 1996 to 2007 after 13 years in San Diego County's CAO office. TPR reached out and asked him “What problem the LA County Reform is purportedly meant to solve; whether Measure G, the skeleton reform offered, is likely to solve it; and, whether any charter reform can solve the reform challenges described.”
Powering The Digital Economy: LABC Sustainability Summit 2026
VX News shares a transcript of "Powering the Digital Economy," a panel held October 1 at the Los Angeles Business Council's 20th Annual Sustainability Summit. Moderated by Karen Skelton, founder and CEO of Skelton Strategies, the panel brought together Johnny Casana of Amazon Web Services, Rahul Kalaskar of AES, Ryan Pfaff of EDF power solutions North America, Jonathan Port of Permacity Foundation and Parag Soni of Prologis. They examined how California can capture data center investment under the seven data center bills Gov. Newsom signed September 21, including SB 886 and AB 2383 on cost allocation and SB 887 on CEQA review.
Newsom vetoes insurance-claim bills: Is it ‘petty’ politics?
Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed SB 877 and SB 878, two insurance-claims bills by Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena) sponsored by Every Fire Survivors Network and Consumer Watchdog. The bills would have required insurers to show policyholders how claim payments are calculated and imposed deadlines, with penalties, for paying claims. Nearly two years after the Eaton and Palisades fires, many survivors are still working through claims disputes. The vetoes show that California's post-disaster insurance reform remains a negotiation among the Department of Insurance, the carriers and an organized survivor constituency, and it is now likely to fall to the next governor. VX News shares CalMatters reporter Levi Sumagaysay's account of the vetoes and the response from legislators and advocates.
California Needs Water. El Niño Might Bring Too Much.
California enters what forecasters expect to be one of the strongest El Niños on record. The season will test a decade of state investment in stormwater capture and groundwater recharge, after Governor Newsom declared an early state of emergency. VX News here republishes The New York Times reporting on whether the state can bank a potential deluge underground rather than lose it to the Pacific, as recharge has fallen sharply since 2023 and groundwater storage remains 8.1 million acre-feet below 2019 levels. Read the article here.
California Legislature passes balcony solar bill
VX News here excerpts a Canary Media report by Alison F. Takemura on the Legislature's passage of the Plug and Play Solar Act (SB 868, Wiener), which would let Californians install plug-in solar kits up to 1,200 watts without the utility interconnection process required of rooftop arrays. The bill awaits Newsom's action by September 30. Takemura notes two constraints: no product has yet met the UL 3700 certification the bill requires, and a sunset restores utility sign-off in 2030. Find the original, here.
Wildfire Survivor Network’s Joy Chen on: Recovery & Accountability
Twenty months after the Eaton Fire, a pickleball WhatsApp group from the Altadena Town & Country Club has become one of the more consequential forces in California utility and insurance policy. The Every Fire Survivor's Network (EFSN)now speaks for more than 10,000 Eaton and Palisades survivors, and its executive director, Joy Chen – a former Los Angeles deputy mayor and Fortune 500 executive recruiter – spent the summer in Sacramento arguing that California does not have a wildfire liability problem so much as a fire causation problem.