CA’s long road ahead to build fire-resistant homes

About 4 million Californians live in what Cal Fire categorizes as “high” or “very high” fire danger zones. With the state’s ongoing housing crunch, our penchant to build and rebuild homes in high-risk areas also won’t stop anytime soon.

Following the deadly Los Angeles County wildfires, home hardening — or the process of making homes resistant against fire — is considered by some state lawmakers, insurance companies, housing developers and fire experts as one of the crucial strategies the state should take to avoid the next wildfire catastrophe, writes CalMatters’ Ben Christopher.

One home developer, KB Home, is in the process of building an entire subdivision of fire-resistant homes north of San Diego County. 

But retrofitting old homes is an expensive endeavor, and with no statewide plan in place, fortifying California homes en masse will be an uphill battle for legislators and local governments alike.

Hardening, say, a two-story, 2,000 square-foot single family home could cost between $2,000 to over $100,000, according to the independent research group Headwater Economics. Despite the high price tag, experts argue that compared to losing an entire home by fire, it’s a necessary cost to pay.

• Yana Valachovic, a forest health and fire expert with the University of California: “Fuels management and home hardening are just as important as a remodeled kitchen at this point.”

Some local governments, such as Marin County and the city of Novato, offer grants and incentives to homeowners to harden their dwellings and clear vegetation. Insurance companies also offer minor discounts to homeowners who make certain home-hardening investments or join neighborhood disaster preparedness groups. 

At the state level, California is carrying out a $117 million pilot wildfire mitigation program. Launched in 2019, the program has so far retrofitted 21 homes and has enough funding to harden about 2,000 homes. The pilot is currently set to expire in 2029, though the Legislature is considering a bill to make it permanent.

Lawmakers have also proposed two other related bills: One would redirect some of the tax revenue the state collects from property insurers to go towards a home-hardening grant program; and another that would create a state-run hardening certification program.

Read more here.

Following the death of a 14-year-old who killed himself last year after forming a deep relationship with an online chatbot, California lawmakers are considering two bills that seek to curb the use of artificial intelligence-powered companion bots by children, reports CalMatters’ Khari Johnson.

Senate Bill 243 would require chatbot developers to adopt standards for how to address conversations about self harm. Another measure would require developers to review and label AI systems based on their risk to kids and ban the use of emotionally manipulative chatbots.

A joint report released today by the children’s advocacy group Common Sense Media and the Stanford University School of Medicine found that companion bots mimic what users input, and are quick to engage in racist jokes and sexual roleplay. The assessment also finds that bots can worsen depression, anxiety, feelings of isolation and other mental health issues in young users. 

But some argue that these bills threaten the right to free speech and privacy. The California Chamber of Commerce and the Electronic Frontier Foundation both oppose SB 243. In a letter to one legislator, the foundation said the bill in its current form, which requires age verification, “would not survive First Amendment scrutiny.”

Read more here.

Since his return to the White House, President Donald Trump has issued over 130 executive orders that seek to scale back the reach of the federal government and unbraid the progressive governmental framework set forth by some of his predecessors, writes CalMatters’ Nigel Duara.

For California, that is likely to mean long legal battles ahead as state officials work to defend California’s existing policies against the administration.

Some of Trump’s orders include imposing tariffs, revoking birthright citizenship and limiting voting rights. In March, J. Joel Alicea, a law professor at the Catholic University of America, defended the administration’s actions as “hopeful developments for the rule of law,” because they challenge federal agencies’ ability to insulate themselves from “presidential supervision.”

Meanwhile, the state has set aside $50 million for legal battles against the administration. So far, it has also filed or joined 16 lawsuits, with the latest lawsuit filed Tuesday challenging the administration’s cuts to AmeriCorps.

• California Attorney General Rob Bonta: “The comparison with Trump 1.0 shows that it is high volume, high speed (this time). We’ve brought a lawsuit more than once a week in the first hundred days, and during Trump 1.0 there were about 120 lawsuits over four years. We’re gonna hit around 100 at this rate in two years, so it’s almost double the pace.” 

Read more here.

More on Trump’s first 100 days: CalMatters has teamed up with public media partners across California and Texas for a radio special to mark the first 100 days of Trump’s second term. 100 Days, 2 Americas: Assessing the impact of President Trump’s policies on California and Texas will air on California public radio stations up and down the state today. CalMatters’ Levi Sumagaysay and Carolyn Jones both contributed to this special.

Remember last week when dozens of tenant rights advocates and aggrieved landlords packed into an Assembly committee room to alternately cheer on and decry a bill that would have drastically limited how much landlords can hike the rent on their tenants each year?

We have an update: Never mind.

On Tuesday, Assemblymember Ash Kalra said that he would be withdrawing Assembly Bill 1157 from consideration this year, saying in a press release that “more time is needed to work on the bill.” 

Translation: He didn’t have the votes in the Assembly’s judiciary committee. The San Jose Democrat is the chairperson of that committee, so that really says something about the fervency of opposition to the bill — from landlords, moderate Democrats and possibly even the Assembly Speaker himself.