The catastrophic wildfires that engulfed Southern California in January 2025—the Pacific Palisades and Eaton fires—have fundamentally altered the socio-economic and structural reality for thousands of residents in the Pacific Palisades, Altadena, Malibu, and the San Gabriel foothills. These fires killed 30 people, destroyed over 16,000 structures and resulted in insured losses exceeding $45 billion.

As we continue the long journey of recovery, we cannot afford to repeat past mistakes by automatically rebuilding fossil gas infrastructure using ratepayer funds—especially when safer, cheaper, and faster electric alternatives already exist. The Rebuild LA S.A.F.E. Coalition proposes a transition defined by the S.A.F.E. (Secure, Affordable, Fast, Electric) framework, which recognizes that any home rebuilt with natural gas would represent a 30-year commitment to hazardous and increasingly expensive and outdated infrastructure. We, the undersigned members and supporters of the Rebuild LA S.A.F.E. Coalition, urge the Governor and the CPUC to halt ratepayer-funded gas incentives in wildfire-impacted areas and to accelerate the deployment of programs that support all-electric rebuilding as the most practical recovery pathway.

Why we must transition now:

**Safety and Resilience: The presence of pressurized methane lines which are prone to rupture during disasters in these high-fire-severity zones introduces a potentially explosive and unnecessary secondary fuel source that increases fire intensity and complicates the safe evacuation of residents and the tactical response of firefighters.

**Public Health: Indoor methane combustion releases toxic compounds like nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and benzene. In many kitchens, just a few minutes of gas stove use can cause indoor levels to surpass the US EPA’s 1-hour standards for outdoor air. Research links gas stove use to 12.7% of all childhood asthma cases in the United States. Benzene has no safe level for human exposure.

**Economic Stability: Building all-electric eliminates expensive gas line trenching, plumbing fees, and complicated permitting issues. Continuing to invest in gas infrastructure risks creating stranded assets that will drive up rates for the remaining customers as the state moves toward carbon neutrality.

**Accountability: Regulators have repeatedly found SoCalGas’s safety culture to be "inadequate" and have censured and fined the utility millions for misusing ratepayer funds for political efforts to lobby against efficiency standards. Additionally, the 2015 SoCalGas Aliso Canyon gas blowout underlines the inherent unmanageability and dangers of the larger gas storage system. The blowout lasted for 118 days, releasing approximately 97,100 tons of methane and 7,300 tons of ethane into the atmosphere and caused the evacuation of over 11,000 Angelenos. This is not an old problem, but a current, existing danger: on January 28, 2026, the Los Angeles Daily News reported that the Aliso Canyon methane storage facility may be leaking again.

Our demands:

1. Avoid Stranded Assets from Ratepayer-Funded Gas Rebuilds in Wildfire Zones: Utilities should not automatically rebuild gas distribution systems in burned areas using ratepayer funds. Any proposed gas reinvestment must demonstrate (through transparent, independently reviewed analysis) that it will lower total customer costs and does not create unreasonable stranded-asset risk.

2. End Gas Incentives in Fire-Recovery Areas: Stop using ratepayer funds to incentivize gas-fired appliances or new gas connections in wildfire-impacted communities. These incentives undermine safety, increase long-term costs, and slow recovery.

3. Release and Deploy RISE Homes Funding Now: Approved but delayed programs like RISE Homes must be fully released and implemented immediately. These funds are essential to making all-electric rebuilding the fastest, safest, and most affordable option for households making decisions right now.

4. Prioritize Resilient Infrastructure: Accelerate the undergrounding of electric lines and the deployment of community microgrids in fire-impacted areas to ensure reliable power during future emergencies, which, in LA County, can include earthquakes and floods as well as wildfires.

As the Los Angeles region faces a global spotlight for the upcoming LA28 Olympic games, rebuilding the Palisades, Altadena, and Malibu communities as models of sustainable, electric resilience is a common-sense step for a forward-looking city and county. Rebuilding with methane/natural gas would be a regression into a hazardous system that is technically, economically, and ethically obsolete. The physical evidence from the SoCalGas Aliso Canyon blowout proves that methane infrastructure is a ticking time bomb, especially in wildfire-prone landscapes. We must seize this moment to build a stronger, safer, cleaner and more resilient Los Angeles County by rebuilding all-electric.