California Gov. Gavin Newsom cited the risk from earthquakes while vetoing a bill on Sept. 13 that would have allowed hospitals to seek deadline extensions for seismic safety compliance.
The governor highlighted the 6.6 Sylmar earthquake in the San Fernando Valley in 1971, which caused the collapse of multiple hospitals and left communities without access to emergency care, as a primary reason for rejecting the proposal.
Following the earthquake, California’s Legislature passed the Alfred E. Alquist Hospital Seismic Safety Act—enacted in 1973—that required all newly constructed hospitals to be built with safeguards that would allow them to operate in the event of a disaster.
The law requires hospitals to improve safety protections for electricity, elevators, water, oxygen, sewage, and other needs—including bracing laboratories, radiology departments, and pharmaceutical supplies.
In 1994, lawmakers extended the requirement and ordered all hospitals, even those built prior to 1973, to improve their infrastructure to protect them from earthquake damage.
“As such, California hospitals have known for 30 years that they face a 2030 deadline to be fully compliant,” Newsom said.
“This is critically important. In the aftermath of an earthquake, not only would these hospitals be unable to provide emergency care to victims, but they would also require emergency response efforts to be diverted to rapidly evacuate and transfer patients to other facilities.”
He pointed to data from the U.S. Geological Survey, which found a 72 percent chance of a 6.7 magnitude occurring in Northern California by 2043. Given the risk, he said that any deadline extensions “should be limited in scope, granted on a case-by-case basis“ and ”in combination with strong accountability and enforcement mechanisms.”
“This bill’s proposal to allow any hospital a five-year compliance extension is too long,” Newsom said. “I encourage any hospitals at risk of non-compliance with the 2030 deadline to prioritize remaining work.”
The author of SB 1432 said hospitals are managing “financial and operational challenges” and need more time to comply with the deadline.
“Over the past few decades, nearly all hospitals have spent billions to ensure their buildings will remain standing after a major earthquake, protecting patients and workers,” Caballero said in an Aug. 19 legislative analysis. “Without an extension, access to care will be jeopardized as hospitals struggle to meet the 2030 seismic compliance deadline.”
The legislative analysis listed nearly 100 organizations—including the California Hospital Association, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, and the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce—as supporting the bill.
“California hospitals are among the safest buildings in the communities they serve,” the hospital association said in the analysis. “While hospitals are working to comply with these operational requirements, many will simply not make the 2030 deadline, and California must do all it can to ensure patients have uninterrupted access to health care.”
Eleven organizations—including the Engineers and Scientists of California, the Professional Engineers in California Government, and the California Nurses Association—opposed SB 1432.
Fiscally, the bill would have cost the state at least $12.6 million over the next four fiscal years, the Assembly Appropriations Committee concluded in its analysis published in August. Additional cost pressures in the untold millions of dollars were anticipated over the next ten years to manage compliance oversight.
SB 1432 cleared the Legislature and all respective fiscal and policy committees without a single vote in opposition, though several lawmakers abstained.
