Loading...
The URL can be used to link to this page
Your browser does not support the video tag.
Home
My WebLink
About
08.03.26 Board Correspondence - FW_ THEY BUILT THE WILDFIRE FUND ON VICTIMS' ASHES. THEN THEY LOCKED THEM OUT.
.ATTENTION: This message originated from outside Butte County. Please exercise judgment before opening attachments, clicking on links, or replying.. From:Clerk of the Board To:Mutony, Heather Cc:Lee, Lewis Subject:Board Correspondence - FW: THEY BUILT THE WILDFIRE FUND ON VICTIMS" ASHES. THEN THEY LOCKED THEM OUT. Date:Monday, August 3, 2026 4:24:03 PM Attachments:The Wild Fire Fund.mp4 https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack.com%2Ficon%2FPlayIcon%3Fv%3D4%26height%3D32%26fill%3D%2523ffffff%26stroke%3D%2523ffffff%26strokeWidth%3D2 https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack.com%2Ficon%2FLucideHeart%3Fv%3D4%26height%3D36%26fill%3Dnone%26stroke%3D%2523808080%26strokeWidth%3D2 https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack.com%2Ficon%2FLucideComments%3Fv%3D4%26height%3D36%26fill%3Dnone%26stroke%3D%2523808080%26strokeWidth%3D2 https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack.com%2Ficon%2FLucideShare2%3Fv%3D4%26height%3D36%26fill%3Dnone%26stroke%3D%2523808080%26strokeWidth%3D2 https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack.com%2Ficon%2Fnotes__NoteRestackIcon%3Fv%3D4%26height%3D36%26fill%3Dnone%26stroke%3D%2523808080%26strokeWidth%3D2%26strokeLinecap%3Dround%26strokeLinejoin%3Dround https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack.com%2Ficon%2FLucideArrowUpRight%3Fv%3D4%26height%3D36%26fill%3Dnone%26stroke%3D%2523808080%26strokeWidth%3D2 https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4cfe665f-0173-45d3-a122-c8c36a0851bb_1448x1086.png https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-video.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fvideo_upload%2Fpost%2F151187052%2F701cd26d-1506-4f52-965e-c74e21b1e67a%2Ftranscoded-02810.png image001.png Please see Board Correspondence - Lewis LeeAdministrative Technician - ConfidentialButte County Administration25 County Center Drive, Suite 200 • Oroville, CA 95965T: 530.552.3326www.buttecounty.ca.gov | lelee@buttecounty.ca.gov From: lance dreiss <lancedreiss@att.net> Sent: Monday, August 3, 2026 4:02 PM To: Shared Mailbox Clerk of the Board <pcbs@countyofplumas.com>; Assemblymember.Gallagher@assembly.ca.gov; Senator.Dahle@senate.ca.gov; davidhollister@countyofplumas.com; sheriff@countyofplumas.com; District Attorney <District_Attorney@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Nicolereinert@countyofplumas.com; Kitts, Melissa <mkitts@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Soderstrom, Monica <msoderstrom@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Durfee, Peter <PDurfee@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Ronald Owens <ronald@muzzledtruth.com>; Kimmelshue, Tod <TKimmelshue@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Pickett, Andy <APickett@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Connelly, Bill <BConnelly@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Teeter, Doug <DTeeter@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Beaudoin, Jarett <JBeaudoin@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Julie Threet <julie4butte5@gmail.com>; Waugh, Melanie <mwaugh@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Ritter, Tami <TRitter@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Teri DuBose <Teri.DuBose@mail.house.gov>; Clerk of the Board <clerkoftheboard@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Stephens, Brad J. <BStephens@buttecounty.ca.gov> Subject: Fwd: THEY BUILT THE WILDFIRE FUND ON VICTIMS' ASHES. THEN THEY LOCKED THEM OUT. Public Record Decades of political battle and grassroots experience fuel every insight. Stay connected -- become a paid subscriber and keep this hard-hitting truth-telling alive and loud. Watch now THEY BUILT THE WILDFIRE FUND ON VICTIMS' ASHES. THEN THEY LOCKED THEM OUT. The ultimate shell game. Half the settlement was stock survivors never controlled. PG&E booked $1.1 billion in tax benefits as it sold. Six billion is still owed. REINETTE SENUM AUG 3 READ IN APP California created a wildfire fund because of Paradise and Tubbs. The survivors of Paradise and Tubbs cannot touch a dime of it. Ten years later, they are still roughly $6 billion short. AB 2700 goes before Senate Appropriations on August 10. SOUNDING THE HORN: THE CONDUCTOR’S BRIEF: (A fast, clear summary of the key takeaways to keep you informed on the go) · California’s Wildfire Fund was created in response to Tubbs and Camp. Statutory definition of a “covered wildfire” is one ignited on or after July 12, 2019. Every fire that built the political will falls before that date. · Survivors were recruited to support AB 1054 on the promise it would force PG&E to pay them in full. They were cut out of the fund. They were not paid in full. · Fire Victim Trust funded at $13.5 billion. Half cash. Half PG&E stock. Compensation for losing your home to PG&E was, in part, an equity stake in PG&E. · Roughly 477 million shares held in trust. Survivors controlled neither the timing nor the terms of a single sale. · PG&E ShareCo LLC. Formed March 18, 2021. Wholly-owned subsidiary. Created to facilitate a grantor trust election on the Fire Victim Trust. · Payout stands at roughly 70 cents on the dollar. Over 66,000 claimants. Approximately $6 billion short of what was already determined and agreed. · Then-CEO Bill Johnson committed in sworn written CPUC testimony to fully compensating fire victims. Will Abrams cross-examined him. PG&E’s position today is that it is a new corporation and has moved on. · AB 2700 moves the needle, releases no money. It is a study bill. CPUC report by January 1, 2028 assessing verified shortfalls and recommending mechanisms for utilities to close them. Ratepayers explicitly off the hook. · Carriers look at unpaid victims and unrebuilt towns and make a rational decision to leave California. THIS effects you and me. · If PG&E does not pay, ratepayers and taxpayers do. Same fire. Different pocket. Again. THE ASK: Senate Appropriations hears AB 2700 Monday, August 10. Rally at the Capitol 9:00 AM, hearing 10:00 AM. Call your state senator before then. Sixty seconds. Call script, below. You do not have to be a fire survivor to show up. You only have to be a ratepayer. It is hot here today. Bone dry. The kind of Northern California afternoon where you step outside and feel the air pull the moisture right off your skin, and before you’ve made it to the mailbox, you’re already doing the math on wind direction. Everybody in these foothills does that math. We don’t say it out loud much. We just do it, every afternoon, from June until the rains come. And underneath that math is an assumption. The assumption is that if the worst happens, if the ridge lights up and the town goes, something is waiting on the other side. Homeowner’s insurance. A settlement. A state fund we’ve all been paying into through our premiums and our utility bills. TWO PEOPLE WHO ALREADY LIVED IT I sat down today with Will Abrams and Jill Gottlieb. Will ran through flames with his family in the 2017 Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa. Barely got out. Lost everything they owned, and, as he put it, their sense of safety along with it. Since then, he has taken this fight into the regulatory space, the Legislature, bankruptcy court, and federal district court. Jill, I know personally. She and her husband, Michael, lost their place in Paradise in 2018. I met her right after, when I was vice mayor of Nevada City, and she landed here on a one-week Airbnb with nothing. Share THE FUND THEY BUILT ON THESE PEOPLE, AND THEN CLOSED TO THEM After Tubbs and Camp, PG&E told Sacramento it needed help covering its liabilities. Liabilities are the polite accounting word. What it means is money owed to the people whose homes and lives the company destroyed. The Legislature responded with AB 1054, which created the California Wildfire Fund. Ratepayers pay into it. Shareholders pay into it. It was sold as a balanced compromise. Read the statute, and you will find one line that does all the work. A “covered wildfire” under that law is one ignited on or after July 12, 2019. The 2015 Butte Fire. The 2017 North Bay fires, including Tubbs. The 2017 Thomas Fire. The 2018 Camp Fire. All of them fall before that arbitrary line. Every fire that created the political will for that fund sits outside of it. And Will and Jill and thousands of others were asked to go support the bill anyway. The pitch was that AB 1054 would pressure PG&E to honor its commitments through the bankruptcy, and that this was the fastest road to getting them paid in full. They supported it. They were cut out of it. They were not paid in full. Ten years on, for the Butte Fire families, still not paid. THE SHELL GAME The bankruptcy produced the PG&E Fire Victim Trust, funded at $13.5 billion. Half cash. Half PG&E stock. Stock in the company that burned their houses down. Kid-you-not. What a sleight of hand: The compensation for losing your home to PG&E negligence was, in part, an equity stake in PG&E. You are handeda financial interest in the survival and share price of the entity that destroyed you. But they didn’t even get the stock in any meaningful sense. As Will laid it out, survivors got every negative of holding that stock and none of the benefits. Don’t worry about managing it, they were told; we’ll put it in a trust for you. Which meant nobody could decide when to sell. Nobody could decide when to exit. Roughly 477 million shares sat in the Trust, and the sales happened on a schedule that was not theirs. Then…… On March 18, 2021, PG&E formed a new affiliate called PG&E ShareCo LLC. A wholly-owned subsidiary of PG&E Corporation. Its stated purpose, in PG&E’s own regulatory disclosures, was to hold shares to be exchanged with the Fire Victim Trust so that PG&E Corporation could make a grantor trust election for federal, state, and local income tax purposes. You can read what that election accomplished in PG&E’s own SEC filings:PG&E Corporation recognizes income tax benefits, and the corresponding deferred tax asset, as the Fire Victim Trust sells shares. The mechanism built to compensate the victims generates a tax benefit for the company that made them victims. This is not a leaked memo. The affiliate disclosure sits on PG&E's own website. The tax numbers sit in an SEC filing. They told us. They told us in the two places nobody reads. The result: victims have been paid at roughly 70 cents on the dollar against claims they already agreed to. More than $13.7 billion out the door to over 66,000 claimants, and still around $6 billion short of what was determined they were owed. Not what they asked for. What was determined. What they signed. Upgrade to paid THE TIME VALUE OF EVERYTHING THEY LOST There is a concept Will walked me through; the game PG&E has been playing with victims who have already lost everything…. Time value of money. A dollar today is worth more than a dollar in ten years. But turn it around and look at it from inside a burn scar. You are told you will be paid, eventually, in installments, stretched across a decade. During that decade, you cannot invest it. You cannot earn from it. You cannot rebuild with it. You cannot put a roof over your kids with it. You cannot plan with it. You are literally stuck, and for years. Meanwhile, the institutional investors sitting on the other side of the table, largely hedge funds, absolutely understand what that decade is worth. They understand it precisely. That delay is not a bug in the machine. For somebody, that delay is the product. Will’s group is hearing from survivors carrying medical debt they now expect to pass to their children. People living on the land, houseless, because they never got enough to rebuild. WHAT WILL ABRAMS SAY HE FOUND WHEN HE LOOKED AT THE LAWYERS Then there is the boondoggle known as litigation financing. The money lets plaintiffs’ firms open offices in disaster-struck towns and sign up clients at scale. Will says the reporting traces some of that financing back through intermediaries to utility investor interests. In other words, when the people funding your attorney have interests directly adverse to yours, that is a problem. Then we have derivative cases. As part of the settlement structure, PG&E’s own claims against third parties, vegetation management contractors, and consultants it scapegoated for its fires, were assigned into the Trust. Those cases were then made available to the same injury attorneys representing the victims. Hundreds of millions of dollars in a separate revenue stream, available to the same firms advising clients on whether to accept a half-cash, half-stock plan. And Jill told me flatly that she was never presented with any alternative. She was told: the plan is $13.5 billion, half cash, half stock, vote yes or wait years. She only learned recently substantially larger all-cash offer existed at the time. Her attorneys never told her of this other all-cash offer. These attorneys are supposed to be the counterweight. When the counterweight is on the same payroll, you don’t get a negotiation. You get a ruthless performance. THE PART THAT SHOULD HAVE ENDED THE ARGUMENT In June 2020, PG&E pleaded guilty in Butte County Superior Court to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of unlawfully starting a fire. Eighty-four. Following PG&E’s bankruptcy, the posture is: we’re a new corporation, we’ve moved on, take your scraps, not our problem. And how is that new corporation doing? PG&E Corporation reported full-year 2025 revenue of $24.9 billion and $2.593 billion in incomeavailable to common shareholders. Non-GAAP core earnings of $3.3 billion. A five-year capital plan of $63 billion. There is $2.6 billion for the shareholders and a $6 billion hole where the victims’ money should be. They tell you fire victims are their priority. As I said to Will during the interview, you are their priority, and the priority is “to screw you over.” WHAT AB 2700 ACTUALLY IS To be clear, AB 2700 does not release a single dollar. It is a study bill. Authored by Assemblyman James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, whose district includes Paradise. It would require the California Public Utilities Commission, by January 1, 2028, to produce a report assessing the verified restitution shortfalls for victims of utility-caused wildfires ignited before July 12, 2019, and to recommend mechanisms for the utilities to close those shortfalls. Recommendations may not shift the cost to ratepayers. Deferred dividends, bonds, investor sources, and utility sources. Not you. The CPUC’s recommendations then go back to the Legislature, which would have to write the actual law. That is the entire ask. Count the shortfall. Recommend how the responsible party covers it. It passed the Assembly 76 to 0. Not one no vote. It cleared the Senate Energy Committee unanimously, with Chair Ben Allen, whose district was affected by the January 2025 Los Angeles fires, speaking in support. As of the last committee analysis I’ve seen, not a single organization is registered in formal opposition. PG&E is officially “neutral.” Unanimous. No opposition. And it still went to the Senate suspense file, where bills go to die quietly with nobody’s fingerprints on them. That is the whole game. They don’t beat you. They outlast you. They come back next year and the year after that until you are too tired to show up. Will told me flat out that he and Jill are not going to be worn out. I would love it if you could help prove them right. WHY THIS IS YOUR PROBLEM EVEN IF YOU NEVER SEE A FLAME Are you a homeowner? Do you need insurance? Do you have electricity? Then this is your bill. Look at what has happened to the California insurance market. Carriers look at a landscape where victims never got paid, homes never got rebuilt, communities never came back, and they make a rational business decision to leave. The refusal to pay victims is not separate from the insurance crisis. It is upstream of it. And the money owed does not evaporate. If PG&E doesn’t pay it, it lands on ratepayers or taxpayers. That is you, again, from the otherpocket. How many times do you intend to pay for the same fire? For now, the whole thing is riding on one committee hearing. WHAT TO DO BEFORE MONDAY AB 2700 is heard in Senate Appropriations on Monday, August 10. · Rally at the Capitol, 9:00 AM. Hearing at 10:00 AM. If you can get to Sacramento, get to Sacramento. You do not have to be a fire survivor. Show up as a ratepayer. Show up as a neighbor. · Call your state senator today. Short script below. Sixty seconds. Staff count the calls. · Share this. Most Californians have no idea any of this happened. FIND THEM: Utility Wildfire Survivor Coalition (Facebook) · Wildfire Victim Settlement Group (Facebook) · wildfiresurvivor.org FIND YOUR SENATOR: findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov THE CALL SCRIPT: “Hi, my name is [NAME], and I’m a constituent in [CITY/ZIP]. I’m calling to ask the Senator to support AB 2700, the wildfire victim restitution bill, in Senate Appropriations on August 10. It passed the Assembly 76 to 0 with no registered opposition. It only asks the CPUC to count what utility wildfire victims are still owed and recommend how the utilities cover it, with no cost to ratepayers. Survivors of the Butte, Tubbs, Thomas, and Camp fires are still roughly $6 billion short, ten years later. Please don’t let this die on suspense. Thank you.” If it goes to voicemail, leave it anyway. Leave your name and your zip. They burned down towns. They pleaded guilty to 84 counts. They promised under oath to make it right. Now they want to walk. Don’t let them. OTHER RELATED POSTS: Begin forwarded message: From: Reinette Senum's Foghorn Express <reinettesenumsfoghornexpress+beyond-the-edge@substack.com> Date: August 3, 2026 at 2:39:53 PM PDT To: lancedreiss@att.net Subject: THEY BUILT THE WILDFIRE FUND ON VICTIMS' ASHES. THEN THEY LOCKED THEM OUT. Reply-To: Reinette Senum's Foghorn Express <reply+3gub36&kcryl&&573b1261bd8dd07754682eb69c3f2d84d161012916381727e0e9d8e451e5db66@mg1.substack.com> Watch now (54 mins) | The ultimate shell game. Half the settlement was stock survivors never controlled. PG&E booked $1.1 billion in tax benefits as it sold. Six billion is still owed.͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Decades of political battle and grassroots experience fuel every insight. Stay connected -- become a paid subscriber and keep this hard-hitting The Wild Fire Fund.mp4 Watch now THEY BUILT THE WILDFIRE FUND ON VICTIMS' ASHES. THEN THEY LOCKED THEM OUT. The ultimate shell game. Half the settlement was stock survivors never controlled. PG&E booked $1.1 billion in tax benefits as it sold. Six billion is still owed. REINETTE SENUM AUG 3 READ IN APP California created a wildfire fund because of Paradise and Tubbs. The survivors of Paradise and Tubbs cannot touch a dime of it. Ten years later, they are still roughly $6 billion short. AB 2700 goes before Senate Appropriations on August 10. SOUNDING THE HORN: THE CONDUCTOR’S BRIEF: (A fast, clear summary of the key takeaways to keep you informed on the go) California’s Wildfire Fund was created in response to Tubbs and Camp. Statutory definition of a “covered wildfire” is one ignited on or after July 12, 2019. Every fire that built the political will falls before that date. Survivors were recruited to support AB 1054 on the promise it would force PG&E to pay them in full. They were cut out of the fund. They were not paid in full. Fire Victim Trust funded at $13.5 billion. Half cash. Half PG&E stock. Compensation for losing your home to PG&E was, in part, an equity stake in PG&E. Roughly 477 million shares held in trust. Survivors controlled neither the timing nor the terms of a single sale. PG&E ShareCo LLC. Formed March 18, 2021. Wholly-owned subsidiary. Created to facilitate a grantor trust election on the Fire Victim Trust. Payout stands at roughly 70 cents on the dollar. Over 66,000 claimants. Approximately $6 billion short of what was already determined and agreed. Then-CEO Bill Johnson committed in sworn written CPUC testimony to fully compensating fire victims. Will Abrams cross-examined him. PG&E’s position today is that it is a new corporation and has moved on. AB 2700 moves the needle, releases no money. It is a study bill. CPUC report by January 1, 2028 assessing verified shortfalls and recommending mechanisms for utilities to close them. Ratepayers explicitly off the hook. Carriers look at unpaid victims and unrebuilt towns and make a rational decision to leave California. THIS effects you and me. If PG&E does not pay, ratepayers and taxpayers do. Same fire. Different pocket. Again. THE ASK: Senate Appropriations hears AB 2700 Monday, August 10. Rally at the Capitol 9:00 AM, hearing 10:00 AM. Call your state senator before then. Sixty seconds. Call script, below. You do not have to be a fire survivor to show up. You only have to be a ratepayer. It is hot here today. Bone dry. The kind of Northern California afternoon where you step outside and feel the air pull the moisture right off your skin, and before you’ve made it to the mailbox, you’re already doing the math on wind direction. Everybody in these foothills does that math. We don’t say it out loud much. We just do it, every afternoon, from June until the rains come. And underneath that math is an assumption. The assumption is that if the worst happens, if the ridge lights up and the town goes, something is waiting on the other side. Homeowner’s insurance. A settlement. A state fund we’ve all been paying into through our premiums and our utility bills. TWO PEOPLE WHO ALREADY LIVED IT I sat down today with Will Abrams and Jill Gottlieb. Will ran through flames with his family in the 2017 Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa. Barely got out. Lost everything they owned, and, as he put it, their sense of safety along with it. Since then, he has taken this fight into the regulatory space, the Legislature, bankruptcy court, and federal district court. Jill, I know personally. She and her husband, Michael, lost their place in Paradise in 2018. I met her right after, when I was vice mayor of Nevada City, and she landed here on a one-week Airbnb with nothing. Share THE FUND THEY BUILT ON THESE PEOPLE, AND THEN CLOSED TO THEM After Tubbs and Camp, PG&E told Sacramento it needed help covering its liabilities. Liabilities are the polite accounting word. What it means is money owed to the people whose homes and lives the company destroyed. The Legislature responded with AB 1054, which created the California Wildfire Fund. Ratepayers pay into it. Shareholders pay into it. It was sold as a balanced compromise. Read the statute, and you will find one line that does all the work. A “covered wildfire” under that law is one ignited on or after July 12, 2019. The 2015 Butte Fire. The 2017 North Bay fires, including Tubbs. The 2017 Thomas Fire. The 2018 Camp Fire. All of them fall before that arbitrary line. Every fire that created the political will for that fund sits outside of it. And Will and Jill and thousands of others were asked to go support the bill anyway. The pitch was that AB 1054 would pressure PG&E to honor its commitments through the bankruptcy, and that this was the fastest road to getting them paid in full. They supported it. They were cut out of it. They were not paid in full. Ten years on, for the Butte Fire families, still not paid. THE SHELL GAME The bankruptcy produced the PG&E Fire Victim Trust, funded at $13.5 billion. Half cash. Half PG&E stock. Stock in the company that burned their houses down. Kid-you-not. What a sleight of hand: The compensation for losing your home to PG&E negligence was, in part, an equity stake in PG&E. Youare handed a financial interest in the survival and share price of the entity that destroyed you. But they didn’t even get the stock in any meaningful sense. As Will laid it out, survivors got every negative of holding that stock and none of the benefits. Don’t worry about managing it, they were told; we’ll put it in a trust for you. Which meant nobody could decide when to sell. Nobody could decide when to exit. Roughly 477 million shares sat in the Trust, and the sales happened on a schedule that was not theirs. Then…… On March 18, 2021, PG&E formed a new affiliate called PG&E ShareCo LLC. A wholly-owned subsidiary of PG&E Corporation. Its stated purpose, in PG&E’s own regulatory disclosures, was to hold shares to be exchanged with the Fire Victim Trust so that PG&E Corporation could make a grantor trust election for federal, state, and local income tax purposes. You can read what that election accomplished in PG&E’s own SEC filings: PG&E Corporation recognizes income tax benefits, and the corresponding deferred tax asset, as the Fire Victim Trust sells shares. The mechanism built to compensate the victims generates a tax benefit for the company that made them victims. This is not a leaked memo. The affiliate disclosure sits on PG&E's own website. The tax numbers sit in an SEC filing. They told us. They told us in the two places nobody reads. The result: victims have been paid at roughly 70 cents on the dollar against claims they already agreed to. More than $13.7 billion out the door to over 66,000 claimants, and still around $6 billion short of what was determined they were owed. Not what they asked for. What was determined. What they signed. Upgrade to paid THE TIME VALUE OF EVERYTHING THEY LOST There is a concept Will walked me through; the game PG&E has been playing with victims who have already lost everything…. Time value of money. A dollar today is worth more than a dollar in ten years. But turn it around and look at it from inside a burn scar. You are told you will be paid, eventually, in installments, stretched across a decade. During that decade, you cannot invest it. You cannot earn from it. You cannot rebuild with it. You cannot put a roof over your kids with it. You cannot plan with it. You are literally stuck, and for years. Meanwhile, the institutional investors sitting on the other side of the table, largely hedge funds, absolutely understand what that decade is worth. They understand it precisely. That delay is not a bug in the machine. For somebody, that delay is the product. Will’s group is hearing from survivors carrying medical debt they now expect to pass to their children. People living on the land, houseless, because they never got enough to rebuild. WHAT WILL ABRAMS SAY HE FOUND WHEN HE LOOKED AT THE LAWYERS Then there is the boondoggle known as litigation financing. The money lets plaintiffs’ firms open offices in disaster-struck towns and sign up clients at scale. Will says the reporting traces some of that financing back through intermediaries to utility investor interests. In other words, when the people funding your attorney have interests directly adverse to yours, that is a problem. Then we have derivative cases. As part of the settlement structure, PG&E’s own claims against third parties, vegetation management contractors, and consultants it scapegoated for its fires, were assigned into the Trust. Those cases were then made available to the same injury attorneys representing the victims. Hundreds of millions of dollars in a separate revenue stream, available to the same firms advising clients on whether to accept a half-cash, half- stock plan. And Jill told me flatly that she was never presented with any alternative. She was told: the plan is $13.5 billion, half cash, half stock, vote yes or wait years. She only learned recently substantially larger all-cash offer existed at the time. Her attorneys never told her of this other all-cash offer. These attorneys are supposed to be the counterweight. When the counterweight is on the same payroll, you don’t get a negotiation. You get a ruthless performance. THE PART THAT SHOULD HAVE ENDED THE ARGUMENT In June 2020, PG&E pleaded guilty in Butte County Superior Court to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of unlawfully starting a fire. Following PG&E’s bankruptcy, the posture is: we’re a new corporation, we’ve moved on, take your scraps, not our problem. And how is that new corporation doing? PG&E Corporation reported full-year 2025 revenue of $24.9 billion and $2.593 billion inincome available to common shareholders. Non-GAAP core earnings of $3.3 billion. A five-year capital plan of $63 billion. There is $2.6 billion for the shareholders and a $6 billion hole where the victims’ money should be. They tell you fire victims are their priority. As I said to Will during the interview, you are their priority, and the priority is “to screw you over.” WHAT AB 2700 ACTUALLY IS To be clear, AB 2700 does not release a single dollar. It is a study bill. Authored by Assemblyman James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, whose district includes Paradise. It would require the California Public Utilities Commission, by January 1, 2028, to produce a report assessing the verified restitution shortfalls for victims of utility-caused wildfires ignited before July 12, 2019, and to recommend mechanisms for the utilities to close those shortfalls. Recommendations may not shift the cost to ratepayers. Deferred dividends, bonds, investor sources, and utility sources. Not you. The CPUC’s recommendations then go back to the Legislature, which would have to write the actual law. That is the entire ask. Count the shortfall. Recommend how the responsible party covers it. It passed the Assembly 76 to 0. Not one no vote. It cleared the Senate Energy Committee unanimously, with Chair Ben Allen, whose district was affected by the January 2025 Los Angeles fires, speaking in support. As of the last committee analysis I’ve seen, not a single organization is registered in formal opposition. PG&E is officially “neutral.” Unanimous. No opposition. And it still went to the Senate suspense file, where bills go to die quietly with nobody’s fingerprints on them. That is the whole game. They don’t beat you. They outlast you. They come back next year and the year after that until you are too tired to show up. Will told me flat out that he and Jill are not going to be worn out. I would love it if you could help prove them right. WHY THIS IS YOUR PROBLEM EVEN IF YOU NEVER SEE A FLAME Are you a homeowner? Do you need insurance? Do you have electricity? Then this is your bill. Look at what has happened to the California insurance market. Carriers look at a landscape where victims never got paid, homes never got rebuilt, communities never came back, and they make a rational business decision to leave. The refusal to pay victims is not separate from the insurance crisis. It is upstream of it. And the money owed does not evaporate. If PG&E doesn’t pay it, it lands on ratepayers or taxpayers. That is you, again, from theother pocket. How many times do you intend to pay for the same fire? For now, the whole thing is riding on one committee hearing. WHAT TO DO BEFORE MONDAY AB 2700 is heard in Senate Appropriations on Monday, August 10. Rally at the Capitol, 9:00 AM. Hearing at 10:00 AM. If you can get to Sacramento, get to Sacramento. You do not have to be a fire survivor. Show up as a ratepayer. Show up as a neighbor. Call your state senator today. Short script below. Sixty seconds. Staff count the calls. Share this. Most Californians have no idea any of this happened. FIND THEM: Utility Wildfire Survivor Coalition (Facebook) · Wildfire Victim Settlement Group (Facebook) · wildfiresurvivor.org FIND YOUR SENATOR: findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov THE CALL SCRIPT: “Hi, my name is [NAME], and I’m a constituent in [CITY/ZIP]. I’m calling to ask the Senator to support AB 2700, the wildfire victim restitution bill, in Senate Appropriations on August 10. It passed the Assembly 76 to 0 with no registered opposition. It only asks the CPUC to count what utility wildfire victims are still owed and recommend how the utilities cover it, with no cost to ratepayers. Survivors of the Butte, Tubbs, Thomas, and Camp fires are still roughly $6 billion short, ten years later. Please don’t let this die on suspense. Thank you.” If it goes to voicemail, leave it anyway. Leave your name and your zip. They burned down towns. They pleaded guilty to 84 counts. They promised under oath to make it right. Now they want to walk. Don’t let them. OTHER RELATED POSTS: Share Tip Jar! If you find these interviews and articles informative, please become a paid subscriber for under 17¢ a day. I don’t believe in paywalls, but this is how I make a living, so any support is appreciated. If you prefer not to use your credit card, checks can be sent to Reinette Senum, PO Box 1972, Nevada City, CA. Jump aboard Reinette Senum’s Foghorn Express, the no-nonsense publication with over 28,000+ curious and community-driven readers. Hop on for free or go premium to support fearless, eye-opening stories. Upgrade to paid You’re riding the waves of the Foghorn Express as a free subscriber. This isn’t just noise -- it’s decades of real political and grassroots activism behind every message. To fully support the fight for truth and local power, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. Your assistance keeps the horn sounding loud and clear. Upgrade to paid LIKE COMMENT RESTACK © 2026 Reinette Senum PO Box 1972, Nevada City, CA 95959 Unsubscribe