SB982 - Climate disasters: civil actions.

Amended IN Senate April 06, 2026 CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2025–2026 REGULAR SESSION Senate Bill No. 982 Introduced by Senator Wiener (Coauthors: Senators Allen, Gonzalez, McNerney, Reyes, Stern, and Weber Pierson) (Coauthors: Assembly Members Addis, Connolly, Elhawary, Garcia, Hart, and Lee) Lee, and Celeste Rodriguez) February 04, 2026 An act to add Part 3.5 (commencing with Section 3508.5) to Division 4 of the Civil Code, relating to climate disasters. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST SB 982, as amended, Wiener. Climate disasters: civil actions. Existing law gives a person the right of protection from bodily harm and the right to possess and use property. If a person suffers bodily harm or a loss of their property because of the unlawful act or omission of another, existing law authorizes them to recover compensation from the person at fault, which is known as damages. Existing law authorizes the Attorney General to bring various civil actions due to damage or loss. This bill would authorize the Attorney General to bring a civil action against a party responsible specified fossil fuel companies for climate-attributable damage to recover costs and losses suffered by the California FAIR Plan Association, funds borrowed from the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank, or costs to and losses incurred by insurance policyholders arising from a past climate disaster. policyholders. The bill would make responsible parties those companies strictly liable without regard to fault for any relief granted. The bill bill would authorize the court and jury to use market share and alternate liability principles to determine proportionate liability of those companies for the climate-attributable damage, as described. This bill would make it an unlawful business practice for the company or affiliated entity to recover from California consumers, through retail or wholesale prices, charges, fees, surcharges, or any other adjustment to the price of gasoline or other motor fuels, for any costs and expenses incurred in connection with such a civil action, as defined. This bill would create the Attorney General Climate Disaster Fund into which the monetary relief recovered by the Attorney General, excluding restitution, General would be deposited, and would set forth specified uses for the account upon appropriation by the Legislature. The bill would make related findings and declarations. Digest Key Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: NO Bill Text The people of the State of California do enact as follows: SECTION 1. (a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following: (1) Climate disasters have caused widespread harm to this state and its residents, including destruction of homes and property, loss of wages, escalating insurance and rental costs, depletion of public resources, and injuries to Californians’ health, safety, and livelihoods. Financial challenges are mounting for many households as federal disaster assistance is withheld, the costs of rebuilding increase, and insurance companies cease payments to displaced families struggling to return to their residences. (2) Since 2018, California has experienced the largest wildfires in state history, including the deadly and destructive Los Angeles wildfires in January 2025, which resulted in estimated insured residential and commercial property losses of $28,000,000,000 to $40,000,000,000. These climate change-induced change-worsened wildfires have burned millions of acres, destroyed tens of thousands of structures, and upended affordable access to insurance across this state. (3) Insurance premiums for rental and multifamily properties have spiked by over 30 percent and have contributed to increased housing costs in many parts of the state. Landlords pass these costs on directly to tenants in the form of higher rents, which can contribute to housing instability, displacement, and eviction, disproportionately burdening renters and low-income households. (4) Access to affordable insurance is necessary for the stability and financial health of Californians and California businesses, and is a crucial anchor for economic development in the state. Affordable insurance access is threatened by increasing nonrenewals and rapidly rising premiums in many parts of this state. (5) The practice of macrolevel market withdrawals and mass nonrenewals in specific geographic areas has a disparate impact on communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. Taken together, these practices are a form of “climate redlining” that systematically strips intergenerational wealth from the very communities that have contributed the least to the climate crisis. (5) (6) As insurers in this state reduce coverage in wildfire-prone and other high-risk areas, Californians have become increasingly dependent on the California FAIR Plan Association (FAIR Plan). The FAIR Plan, created in 1968 as a temporary safety net, has expanded by more than 500 percent in less than a decade, growing from around 126,000 policies in 2018 to more than 700,000 policies in the fall of 2025. As of September 2025, the FAIR Plan was insuring nearly $700,000,000,000 in property across this state, a 52-percent increase from 2024 and a 317-percent increase from 2021. (6) (7) In February 2025, the Insurance Commissioner approved a $1,000,000,000 FAIR Plan assessment against member insurers, the first assessment in more than 30 years. (7) (8) The costs of direct and anticipated assessments to cover climate-related losses diminish insurer profitability and prompt insurers to limit new business, decline renewals, or withdraw from this state. When those costs are passed through to policyholders, coverage becomes less affordable, driving even more Californians into the FAIR Plan or leaving them underinsured or uninsured. (8) (9) Climate disasters, fueled by the deceptive conduct of responsible parties, disasters are making insurance coverage harder to obtain and less affordable, which negatively impacts credit and housing markets. The loss or unaffordability of coverage impedes access to mortgage financing, which in turn depresses property values, heightens the risk of defaults and foreclosures, and slows the rate of new housing development, further exacerbating this state’s critical housing shortage. (10) The climate disasters underlying the insurance crisis in California are the result of a decades-long, coordinated campaign of deception launched and orchestrated by major fossil fuel companies. These companies knew that their products would cause global warming and increase the frequency and severity of climate disasters. Despite this knowledge, the fossil fuel companies concealed and misrepresented the associated risks, sowed confusion through deliberate public campaigns to undermine climate science, and failed to warn the public of the dangers created and exacerbated by their products. (11) Fossil fuel companies have operated in California for more than a century, generating billions in profits from California resources and markets. From extraction through distribution and sale, they are indispensable commercial actors through which fossil fuel products reach the state’s consumers. Because no major pipelines connect California to other crude oil production and refining regions, fossil fuel companies exert significant ownership and control over product formulation, supply volume, pricing, and the information provided to consumers and state regulators about their fossil fuel products. (12) Fossil fuel companies have derived, and will continue to derive, substantial financial benefit from the excavation, production, and sale of their products in California, including revenue from retail gasoline and diesel sales, wholesale fuel distribution, natural gas distribution, and petrochemical product sales. In the years during which California experienced some of its most severe climate disasters, fossil fuel companies reported record profits globally and in California markets. (9) (13) The costs of climate disasters and forecasts of future climate disaster costs are leading factors affecting insurance instability in this state. In a recent filing requesting increased FAIR Plan rates, projected catastrophic wildfire risk was responsible for more than 50 percent of the requested rate increase. (10) The climate disasters underlying the insurance crisis in California are the result of a decades-long, coordinated campaign of deception launched and orchestrated by major fossil fuel companies. These companies knew that their products would cause global warming and increase the frequency and severity of climate disasters. Despite this knowledge, the fossil fuel companies concealed and misrepresented the associated risks, sowed confusion, and failed to warn the public of the dangers created and exacerbated by their products. (11) Climate disasters and the resulting harms experienced throughout this state are a direct consequence of fossil fuel companies’ acts and omissions. (b) It is the intent of the Legislature to establish express statutory mechanisms to authorize the Attorney General to obtain relief for climate-attributable damage occurring on or after January 1, 2016, from responsible parties, covered entities, as defined in this act. These express statutory mechanisms are in addition to, and supplement, existing legal authority retained by the Attorney General. SEC. 2. Part 3.5 (commencing with Section 3508.5) is added to Division 4 of the Civil Code, to read: PART 3.5. Climate Disaster Actions 3508.5. (a) “Affiliated entity” includes a parent or subsidiary corporation and a related business means any entity under common ownership or control, control with another entity, if the relationship is financial in nature, including through consolidated financial reporting or the enhancement of profitability for the parent entity. (b) “Climate-attributable damage” means harm occurring in this state to real or personal property, tangible assets, or economic interests connected to a climate disaster. (c) “Climate disaster” means an extreme weather event, including a wildfire, heatwave, drought, windstorm, hurricane, flood, tornado, or other storm, provided that event for which climate change was a substantial factor in contributing to the event’s frequency, severity, location, timing, or extent. “Climate disaster” includes, but is not limited to, a wildfire, heat wave, drought, windstorm, hurricane, flood, tornado, or other storm. (d) “Fossil fuel product” includes crude petroleum oil and all other hydrocarbons, regardless of gravity, that are produced at the wellhead in liquid form by ordinary production methods, including natural, manufactured, mixed, and byproduct hydrocarbon gas, refined crude oil, crude tops, topped crude, processed crude, processed crude petroleum, residue from crude petroleum, cracking stock, uncracked fuel oil, fuel oil, treated crude oil, residuum, gas oil, casinghead gasoline, natural gas gasoline, kerosene, benzine, wash oil, waste oil, blended gasoline, lubricating oil, and blends or mixtures of oil with one or more liquid products or byproducts derived from oil or gas. (e) (1) “Responsible party” (d) (1) “Covered entity” means a firm, corporation, company, partnership, society, joint stock company, or any other affiliated entity that meets all of the following criteria: (A) Has an aggregate market capitalization or worldwide annual revenue across the parent entity and all affiliated entities of at least five hundred million dollars ($500,000,000), determined by an average capitalization or revenue over the preceding three years. (B) Has been or is engaged in the extraction, production, manufacture, or sale at wholesale of covered fossil fuel products. (C) Does or did business in this state, was registered to do business in this state, was appointed an agent of this state, or otherwise had sufficient contacts with this state to be subject to this state’s jurisdiction. (2) “Responsible party” “Covered entity” does not include tribal or state government, a political subdivision of tribal or state government, or an employee of the tribal or state government on the basis of acts or omissions in the course of official duties. (e) (1) “Covered fossil fuel product” includes crude petroleum oil and all other hydrocarbons, regardless of gravity, that are produced at the wellhead in liquid form by ordinary production methods, including natural, manufactured, mixed, and byproduct hydrocarbon gas, refined crude oil, crude tops, topped crude, processed crude, processed crude petroleum, residue from crude petroleum, cracking stock, uncracked fuel oil, fuel oil, treated crude oil, residuum, gas oil, casinghead gasoline, natural gas gasoline, kerosene, benzine, wash oil, waste oil, blended gasoline, lubricating oil, and blends or mixtures of oil with one or more liquid products or byproducts derived from oil or gas. (2) A “covered fossil fuel product” does not include “used oil” or “recycled oil products,” as those terms are used under Article 13 (commencing with Section 25250) of Chapter 6.5 of Division 20 of the Health and Safety Code or Article 9 (commencing with Section 3460) of Chapter 1 of Division 3 of the Public Resources Code. 3508.5.1. (a) The Attorney General may bring a civil action in the name of the people of the State of California, as parens patriae, against a responsible party covered entity for recovery of climate-attributable damage, including any of the following: (1) Recovery of costs and losses suffered incurred by the California FAIR Plan Association from climate-attributable damage, Association, including recovery of an assessment imposed on member insurers of the California FAIR Plan Association, pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 10094 of the Insurance Code, or funds borrowed, the FAIR Plan Association borrows, plus interest on that debt amount, from the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank, pursuant to Section 63049.75 of the Government Code, for the portion of the costs of claims resulting from a climate disaster. Code. (2) Recovery of costs to and losses incurred by insurance policyholders arising from a past climate disaster, policyholders, including real property measures to obtain or maintain insurance coverage at fair market value, an increase in insurance premiums, a higher cost of coverage through a nonadmitted insurer, an insurer withdrawal from the market, a reduction in coverage availability, or cessation of the issuance of new residential property insurance policies. (b) In a civil action against a responsible party covered entity under this part, the attorney general Attorney General may recover or obtain any of the following relief: (1) All climate-attributable damage described in subdivision (a). (2) Restitution. (3) Disgorgement. (4) (2) Court costs, litigation expenses, and reasonable attorney’s fees. (5) (3) Any other relief that the [Text truncated for display. Full text available on Congress.gov.]