13-06-2025
The extreme weather survivors taking lessons from gun violence survivors
SURVIVOR STORY: There's a new climate advocacy group in town and it's taking inspiration from an unusual source on how to make disasters personal — the anti-gun violence movement.
Extreme Weather Survivors, a network sponsored by the non-profit Tides Center that aims to connect and advocate for people after a natural disaster, kicked off last year and hit its stride following the Los Angeles firestorm. One of its co-founders and co-executive directors is Chris Kocher, the founding director of the survivor network at Everytown and Moms Demand Action, which have advocated for gun control and launched unsparing media campaigns centered on personal accounts from victims.
This spring, Extreme Weather Survivors launched a five-figure ad buy with personal testimonies from people who lost homes in the fires appealing to Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, who approved an emergency rate hike for State Farm following the fires. They celebrated a win on Thursday when Lara broadened an investigation into the insurer for what he called a 'troubling pattern' of mishandling claims.
In Sacramento, the group co-sponsored SB 222, a bill by Sen. Scott Wiener to let individuals and insurers sue oil companies to recoup the costs of rebuilding after disasters super-charged by global warming, and invited survivors to share their own stories in a press conference and hearing on the bill (which stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee in April).
It's also backing a bill by Sen. Ben Allen to require insurance companies pay entire claims after disasters without requiring claimants to submit an itemized account of lost items. Known as 'The List,' the arduous demand is a dreaded aspect to the claims process that creates a major obstacle to receiving compensation.
As the group is now gearing up for a summer of extreme heat and wildfires, POLITICO chatted with Kocher about his organizing strategy and the politics of disaster recovery.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How are you applying organizing principles from the anti-gun violence movement here? What are parallels and differences?
People are interested in making purpose of their pain, and they want to help other people who are going to go through it. When you have something like this has happened, and you have the feeling of control that is taken away, and you're choosing to be part of that advocacy effort to make this less likely to happen to someone else, it's a really important part of giving people back that sense of control and that the positive psychology behind that.
Some of the differences is that when you have lost your home, which is the vast majority of people who we work with, just the sheer number of things to do, the permits, the dealing with toxicology reports, smoke damage, whether to rebuild or so, there's just a long, long list of things to do, and it means that time is the most valuable source that you have. Whereas with, I would say, at Everytown, the majority of people that we worked with had lost a loved one, and there was a lot of time people had after burying their loved ones. We're, for that reason, really making sure that our programs are as easy to join and be part of as possible.
How did you pick the name and how are you thinking of climate change politics these days?
We really felt like extreme weather is how people are experiencing it and people understand that this is a place for anyone who has been impacted to find their soft landing and to begin to rebuild and recover. I think there's a lot just to help more Americans understand this is the reality of climate change and this is how people are experiencing climate change right now, and helping people understand just how long and devastating that road to recovery is is an important part of the work as well.
What's been your playbook in California?
We really jumped in and within 48 hours had launched our Slack space, where we have more than 1000 folks who have survived LA fires in there with disaster recovery experts and mental health experts and other past fire survivors. We really came into this with the idea of helping people connect to people who have been through this before. It can be a really important part of making that steep climb from rebuilding a little bit less steep and a little bit less awful.
The advocacy is something that some people are interested in, and some people aren't, and that's okay, and we support either way. What we're seeing is about half the people that are joining the organization and coming into the Slack space are interested in getting involved and sharing their story for advocacy.
What's most surprised you?
When we started this, I didn't expect that insurance was going to be the number one or number two thing that we heard from every single person that we talked to. They didn't understand it. They didn't have enough insurance when they needed it. It wasn't what they thought they had. They didn't know how to obtain the proceeds that they were entitled to. This is how they are experiencing this, as a kitchen table economic issue.
What's next? Do you see this network getting involved in political races?
It's not happening right now, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen in the future. I worked at Everytown alongside my team with Lucy McBath, who's now in Congress in Georgia, and Tom Sullivan, who's now run for state and won state office. I'm trying to help support people in reclaiming their power and reclaiming their story, and I think running for office is definitely a natural evolution of that.
Legislation is a really important part of recovery, and a part of our work to make sure that we are legislating policy that puts survivors at the center of recovery, and I think that's something that will happen across the country.
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THE DELTA BETWEEN THEM: The Senate and the Assembly officially passed their budget plan on Friday morning with key differences from the one Gov. Gavin Newsom put forth last month.
One big one: Lawmakers rejected — for now at least — Newsom's proposal to fast-track a controversial project to reroute water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to farms and cities south. It's a win for elected officials in the Delta region and environmental groups concerned the project will harm the local environment and communities. Instead, lawmakers said they'll consider it later in the legislative session.
Backers of the proposal, including business and water interests, construction unions and some Los Angeles-area Democrats, are eyeing upcoming budget negotiations between legislative leaders and Newsom, hopeful that the governor's plan will win out as the two sides look to hammer out a deal by a July 1 deadline. — CvK
TARIFF TUMULT: If you're hoping the Trump administration's tariff pause will make back-to-school shopping easier, you're probably out of luck.
Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said at a media briefing Friday that cargo arriving at the country's busiest port dropped 9 percent in May compared to last year. He expects a modest uptick over the next few months, but overall trade flow is expected to be lower than in previous years, as businesses remain skittish because of 30 percent tariffs Trump currently has imposed on Chinese goods and the threat of higher tariffs in the future.
'We'll likely see higher prices and fewer selections for both the back-to-school and Halloween season,' Seroka said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told lawmakers Wednesday that the administration is 'highly likely' to push back a July 8 deadline the president set to impose reciprocal tariffs on countries that don't strike new trade deals with the U.S. Seroka cautioned, however, that unspecific assurances like Bessant's only 'adds to the complexity that we're all trying to deal with.'
Seroka warned that the global trade upheaval is being acutely felt in the Los Angeles area. Real estate developers have told him that tariffs on Chinese steel, appliances and building materials have caused the prices to rebuild homes and businesses destroyed in the LA wildfires to 'skyrocket.'
And he said a study of 25 shifts for dockworkers conducted at the end of May found that 'for every two workers who showed up for work, one went home without a job.' — AN
MAKE THEM RAKE AGAIN: The wildfire work of California's National Guard got a shoutout in the U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer's order seeking to stop their deployment by President Donald Trump to Los Angeles, which later got overturned by a federal appeals court.
Trump's deployment has redirected 300 National Guard soldiers from their usual assignment fighting fires to the streets of Los Angeles. Newsom has seized on the firefighting work left behind to criticize Trump for undermining one of his own stated priorities to improve California's forest management. — CvK
IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR: Former California Air Resources Board chair Mary Nichols thinks California officials overplayed their hand when negotiating with automakers to keep them on board with the state's electric vehicle mandate, writes California Climate's editor Debra Kahn in her column this week.
'Many people were acting on the assumption that it was going to be the Democrats continuing in power,' Nichols told Debra. 'So the state felt like they had all the cards in their hand, and then after the election, it was pretty hard to reset the conversation.'
Read more from their chat about lessons learned in Debra's column this week.
— Trump's immigration raids on California farms are threatening the nation's food supply.
— The Trump administration wants to make it easier for companies to get autonomous vehicles on the road, a potential boon for Tesla.
— California officials closed commercial Dungeness crab fishing along the Northern California coast after a young humpback whale got caught in a fishing line.
