AB 1795 Advances Despite Gaps in Testing, Clearance, and Survivor Protections
During the Assembly Insurance Committee hearing on April 22, AB 1795 was presented by Assemblymember Gipson, with Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara as the bill’s sponsor. Gipson and Lara framed the bill as an effort to create California’s first statewide, science-based standards for inspecting, testing, remediating, and clearing smoke-damaged homes after wildfires. However, as currently drafted, the bill does not itself establish those scientific standards. Instead, it largely directs CalEPA to develop future guidance while also creating limitations on who may receive testing, without fully accounting for the characteristics of a specific fire or the actual distance smoke, ash, and hazardous debris may have traveled. Furthermore, it still directs insurers to use “industry trade standards,” which includes IICRC guidelines that allow for sight-and-smell analysis in lieu of lab testing for post-wildfire contamination.
Insurance industry representatives acknowledged that recent committee amendments had improved the bill and reduced some concerns about market impact, but they continued to raise issues around cost, legal standards, and scope, and ultimately remained opposed unless amended. Eaton Fire Residents United also testified in an “oppose unless amended” position, stating that our post-remediation findings show widespread remaining contamination in Eaton Fire standing homes, including lead, asbestos, and other heavy metals, even after professional remediation. EFRU warned that AB 1795 contains gaps insurers could exploit, including reliance on both health-based and trade-industry standards, potential visual-inspection gatekeeping, an inadequate 120-day claim deadline, lack of a savings clause, and a narrowed impact-zone definition that may exclude contaminated homes outside areas adjacent to the fire perimeter.
But unless AB 1795 is amended to allow the science-based testing and clearance standards required under AB 1642, rather than relying on industry trade standards that have often failed to clear homes in the Eaton and Palisades areas, Gipson and Lara’s descriptions of the bill as “health-based,” “science-based,” and “comprehensive” are little more than a veneer for arbitrary limits that protect insurers, not survivors.