Bill > SB894

This bill establishes the California Wildfire Resilience Loan Program, to be administered by the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority (CAEATFA), a state agency that provides financing for projects promoting alternative energy and advanced transportation. The program aims to reduce wildfire losses and improve community resilience by offering financial assistance for projects like home hardening, which involves making homes more resistant to fire, and creating defensible space, which is a buffer zone around a property cleared of flammable materials. The bill also updates existing laws to explicitly include wildfire risk reduction as a public purpose, recognizing the substantial costs and environmental impacts of wildfires and the benefits of investing in mitigation measures. The program will be available to eligible individual property owners throughout the state and can include tools like loan loss reserves and interest rate buy-downs to make these improvements more affordable and accessible, and the CAEATFA can partner with various entities to facilitate participation.