Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #34 – Michael Wara, Part I

This Thursday’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast features Stanford University’s Michael Wara talking with David Spence about his research on California’s wildfire policies. This week’s podcast episode is the first part of a two-part series on “PG&E’s Wildfire Liability and Bankruptcy: Who Pays?”

This episode focused on wildfire causes, liability, and victims. David and Michael talk about why Northern California has been so vulnerable to fires in recent years, including how fire prevention practices have differed from those in Southern California. They also discuss why utilities have been shutting off power to avoid fires and how customers have responded to the risk that their power supply will be cut off.

Michael appears frequently in the media as an expert on PG&E, wildfires, and liability. Just last week he released a new NBER working paper on “The Changing Risk and Burden of Wildfire in the US.” If you’d like more background on wildfire law and policy, I can recommend two articles by Karen Bradshaw of Arizona State: a 2010 piece titled “A Modern Overview of Wildfire Law” and a 2015 piece on stakeholder collaborations in wildfire policy.

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