Opinion: Los Angeles, don’t let the biggest culprits get off scot-free

Our beloved hometown. Kids are back to school, N95 masks are distributed, care packages delivered to friends who lost their homes, and go bags are still by the door. 

Every day Angelenos, community organizations, and small businesses – and many of our government leaders like the new crop of progressive L.A. City Council members – are coming together in creative and resilient ways. We’re all pitching in to the GoFundMe pages. We’re stepping up to bear some of the cost as members of a community and society. 

But we can’t crowdsource our survival. L.A. fire GoFundMe pages have raised more than $50 million before a single fossil fuel corporation has paid a dime towards recovery. It’s past time polluters and profiteers pay their fair share. They won’t unless we come together and, through our pain and loss, demand it. 

Wildfires of this magnitude and destruction tearing through Los Angeles in January are not an accident - they are the result of decades of corporate greed that has manufactured a crisis that is devastating millions of people of every race, class and political affiliation, while a handful of people get obscenely wealthy. And right now, they’re getting away with it while we all point fingers at the wrong people and open our own wallets to the unending list of friends in need. 

Where are the TV news cameras tracking down these offenders for comment? Let’s hear from Darren Woods, ExxonMobil’s CEO; Exxon knew about the impact of fossil fuel pollution 47 years ago and decided it didn’t matter. Let’s ask tough questions of Steven Powell, CEO of Southern California Edison; they’ve lobbied against clean energy and delayed upgrades that contributed to the Eaton and Palisades fires. We should be seeing the face of Chris Wright, the fracked gas tycoon who goes before a congressional panel this week to be appointed as our next Secretary of Energy, on our TV screens with the word “looter.”

At $57 billion in damages and growing, this is now one of the most expensive fire disasters in U.S. history. But while California burns and families and businesses lose everything – including in Altadena, one of the havens of Black home ownership in the state –  the fossil fuel companies who created this crisis are making off with record profits.

ExxonMobil and Chevron made $57 billion in profits last year alone, all while exploiting tax loopholes worth hundreds of millions. These same companies spent decades burying climate science and funding disinformation campaigns. They knew this future was coming. They, and the policymakers they put into office, chose it for us.

What’s more, privately owned utility companies – like Southern California Edison, which is under scrutiny for its role in the devastating Eaton fire, and that 70% of Americans rely on to keep our lights on and our homes, schools and businesses temperate – spend the money we pay each month on utility bills to pay for their lobbying against clean, affordable, reliable energy. At every turn, you and I are footing the bill while a small handful of executives make off handsomely.

Our choices in the coming days and months will shape life for generations. Amid the devastation, we can come together as a community to make Angelenos whole and restore them fairly. And we have examples of how to do this. 

After Hurricanes Sandy and Ida, flood survivors came together, organized and won important changes to FEMA and mortgage forbearance. New York and Vermont have shown us a better way, passing groundbreaking climate superfund legislation, requiring major polluters to contribute billions of dollars toward climate damages. California has considered similar legislation, coauthored last year by now-Congresswoman Laura Friedman. For the sake of all Californians, including hard-working Angelenos, we need it re-introduced in the upcoming California legislative session. 

A California Climate Superfund could pay for both recovery and prevention, to make low-income homeowners, renters, small businesses and impacted workforces whole, to build deeply affordable housing away from high-fire-hazard areas, and create good-paying jobs that can make Los Angeles and other parts of the state climate resilient.

Let’s get it done this session. It can’t come soon enough. While you’re checking in with friends, cleaning up or making donations, call your state representative and senator and ask them to coauthor and reintroduce SB-1497, the Polluters Pay Climate Cost Recovery Act of 2024.

The choice is simple: make polluters pay their fair share to build resilient communities, or watch as climate chaos bankrupts our state while fossil fuel executives collect bonuses.

Those who created and profited from this crisis must help pay for its consequences. Our beloved communities can't afford to wait. It’s time to make polluters pay.