State Senate approves 'Golden State Commitment' Wildfire Package

The California State Senate on Tuesday advanced the Golden State Commitment package, which proponents said will protect Californians from devastating wildfires.

The package of 13 bills is a comprehensive legislative effort to strengthen California's wildfire response and recovery efforts, help stabilize the state's insurance market, streamline rebuilding after disasters and make communities more wildfire safe.

The package, which has bipartisan support, was announced in early February in direct response to the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires, which destroyed over 16,000 structures and tragically took 29 lives.

As California continues to face a year-round fire season, with wildfires becoming more devastating and destructive, the Senate is moving with speed to strengthen California's defenses against future disasters and help Californians rebuild their homes and lives after a disaster.

The Golden State Commitment legislative package will do the following.

Wildfire recovery measures:

* Speed-up residential rebuilds.

Provide property tax relief, post-disaster.

Protect consumers from price gouging.

Expand insurance protections for small businesses.

Expand protections for homeowners, tenants and mobile home residents.

Expedite the rebuilding of health facilities.

Strengthen penalties against looters and those who impersonate public safety personnel.

Provide desperately needed resources for impacted school districts.

Fire prevention and response measures:

* Transition all 3,000 seasonal Cal Fire firefighters to full-time, permanent status.

Establish an insurance community hardening commission that will ensure more fire safe communities and ensure that homeowners can secure traditional homeowners insurance.

Advance new policies that require fire-safe landscaping, setbacks, and inspections in high fire hazard zones.

"The devastating LA fires were a stark reminder of the harsh new reality we are living in here in the Golden State. With an unrelenting year-round fire season, we must do more to make our communities safe from wildfires, and this comprehensive package of 13 pieces of legislation does just that," Pro Tem Mike McGuire said. "This package of bills, with bipartisan support, will help California prepare for and prevent the next wildfire and help stabilize communities in the aftermath of a disaster. This hardworking group of Senators came together in our state's time of need and moved with speed to advance this bold legislative package that will make California more fire safe and resilient for years to come."

One of the key pieces of the Golden State Commitment is the Fight for Firefighters Act authored by Senate President pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-North Coast), which passed the Senate on a 39-0 vote.

The Fight for Firefighters Act, SB 581, would allow the state to phase out seasonal firefighters and transition those 3,000 firefighters to full time status.

The Golden State Commitment package includes bills authored by Pro Tem McGuire and Senators Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), Bob Archuleta (D-Pico Rivera), Jesse Arreguín (D-Berkeley), Angelique Ashby (D-Sacramento), Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park), Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas), Dave Cortese (D-San Jose), Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles), John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara), Jerry McNerney (D-Stockton), Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), Laura Richardson (D-San Pedro), Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park), Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles), Henry Stern (D-Los Angeles), Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana), and Aisha Wahab (D-Silicon Valley).

A full description of the package with bill numbers follows.

GOLDEN STATE COMMITMENT WILDFIRE PACKAGE

SB 36: Price gouging (Senators Umberg and Smallwood-Cuevas)

Curb price gouging by adding civil remedies and penalties to protect victims displaced by a state or local emergency. Stronger enforcement of price gouging for housing, lodging, or rental violations by authorizing Attorney General warrant authority, and requires online housing platforms to provide evidence of price gouging to law enforcement.

SB 610: Expand protections for homeowners, tenants and mobilehome residents in the wake of an emergency (Senators Pérez, Allen and Wahab)

Require the State to convene mortgage companies to provide temporary mortgage loan forbearance relief for homeowners. Allow tenants to recover a proportion of their paid rent if the tenancy agreement terminates due to a wildfire. Establish a temporary rent control for mobile homes in areas subject to a state of an emergency. Allow mobile home owners the right to return to a unit after a wildfire, as specified. Extends court timelines for unlawful detainer cases

in areas subject to a state of an emergency.

SB 581: Fight For Firefighters Act of 2025 (Senate President pro Tempore McGuire and Senators Grayson, Allen and Pérez )

Transitions all 3,000/9 month seasonal Cal Fire firefighters to year-round permanent positions. This bipartisan legislation will fully staff all 356 Cal Fire fire engines and all heli attack bases 365 days per year while keeping Cal Fire wildfire vegetation management crews working for a full 12 months.

SB 663: Provide property tax relief following the 2025 Southern California fires (Senators Allen, McNerney and Pérez)

Ensure damaged or destroyed properties maintain their welfare property tax exemption. Extend the timeline for a taxpayer to file a misfortune and calamity claim, which provides property tax relief. Extend from five years to eight years the period of time for taxpayers to rebuild after a wildfire without property tax reassessment.

SB 625: Speed-Up residential rebuilds following a state of emergency (Senators Wahab and Richardson)

Require local governments to provide streamlined ministerial approval of housing developments damaged in a declared emergency.

SB 616: Insurance Community Hardening Commission (Senators Rubio, Cortese and Stern)

Develop an Insurance Community Hardening Commission to create a consistent data-driven statewide minimum fire standards for mitigation across high fire risk communities. By centralizing these wildfire mitigations into one standard, it will make it easier for homeowners, developers, and builders to comply with all the mitigations, make it easier for homeowners to get insurance, and make structures more wildfire safe.

SB 547: Commercial insurance nonrenewal moratorium (Senators Pérez and Rubio)

Expand the current one year insurance non-renewal moratorium for residential policies within the perimeters or adjoining ZIP codes of wildfires to also include commercial policies, providing critical protection for small businesses and condominiums after wildfires.

SB 676: Extend California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) streamlining for LA fires and other disasters (Sen. Limón)

Extend the same CEQA streamlining already established on major infrastructure projects to projects rebuilding communities after disastrous LA wildfires. This could reduce months or years off any CEQA review that does apply to projects that may take months or years to be planned for and rebuilt. This will apply streamlining both prospectively and retroactively.

SB 582: Rebuilding health facilities, assisted living and child care facilities and other licensed facilities (Sen. Stern)

Will assist state licensed facilities on their path to recovery and rebuilding by streamlining licensing processes and providing departments with the authority to waive licensing fees and other licensing requirements.

SB 571: Strengthen penalties against bad actors during a state of emergency (Senators Archuleta and Arreguín)

Increase penalties for impersonating firefighters and other first responders, and for looting in a fire evacuation area. Ensure that an aggravated arson sentencing enhancement attaches to damage amounts at the time of the crime.

SB 629: Keeping communities safe from wildfires (Sen. Durazo)

Require local governments to designate areas that burn in a wildfire as within very high fire zones. Mandate annual inspection of properties subject to defensible space maintenance requirements. Requires Cal Fire to account for the potential of urban wildfire at the next update of the fire hazard maps.

SB 326: California Wildfire Mitigation Strategic Planning Act (Senators Becker and Laird)

Require the Office of the State Fire Marshal to prepare a wildfire risk mitigation planning framework every three years to quantitatively evaluate wildfire risk mitigation actions, establish a wildfire risk baseline and forecast every three years on a statewide level and by county, and submit a wildfire mitigation scenarios report every year.

SB 641: Consumer protection and business recovery (Sen. Ashby)

Protect consumers by establishing timelines and certifications for appropriate debris removal and keep property owners and disaster area survivors safe from predatory practices by prohibiting a person from making an unsolicited purchase offer in a disaster area.

Protect licensed professionals by waiving various licensure requirements when impacted by a wildfire or natural disasters, including but not limited to continuing education, fees and renewal deadlines.

BUDGET PROPOSALS

Fire relief aid for displaced persons: Establish a one-time disaster relief fund for families and individuals who are impacted by the fires but unable to obtain assistance from other funding streams, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Supporting displaced TK-12 students: Provide average daily attendance funding to schools who lost students due to the wildfire disaster. Provide disaster relief to basic aid school districts that are enrolling displaced students. This relief will ensure a quality education for students during a difficult, transitional period.

Support for impacted California community colleges: Community colleges affected by wildfires may experience funding reductions due to declining enrollment. To ensure financial stability as these institutions recover, enrollment protections will be provided to maintain consistent funding.