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.
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’s future water supplies depend on the outcomes of four intertwined battles
With the Colorado River nearing a breaking point and the state weighing mandatory San Joaquin River curtailments, California faces a pivotal stretch in water policy. VX News here republishes CalMatters columnist Dan Walters' commentary on four intertwined fights over the Colorado River, Sites Reservoir, the Delta Conveyance tunnel and San Joaquin diversions, and how they will determine the state's water allocation for decades. See original article here.
Two cities burned in LA fires settle YIMBY lawsuit
VX News here excerpts a CalMatters’ Ben Christopher feature that reports: homeowners in Malibu and Pasadena, who saw their neighborhoods burn in the Eaton and Palisades fires last year, will soon be able to build up to four units on their properties now that the two fire-scarred cities have settled a lawsuit brought by pro-development activists. In the settlement: both Malibu and Altadena agreed to repeal their local anti-duplex ordinances suspending SB 9 in post-fire very high fire hazard severity zones and accept all pending and future applications filed under the law. That five-year-old housing law makes it easier for single-family home owners to divide up their parcels and build duplexes on each lot, potentially allowing as many as four small units where local rules once allowed only one. Find the CalMatters original, here.