(1) Existing law establishes the Wildfire Safety Division and requires the division to perform certain regulatory functions related to the wildfire mitigation plans of electrical corporations. Existing law transferred all functions of the Wildfire Safety Division to the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety effective July 1, 2021.
This bill would repeal the Wildfire Safety Division.
Existing law requires electrical corporations to construct, maintain, and operate their electrical lines and equipment in a manner that will minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfire posed by those electrical lines and equipment.
This bill would require those actions to take into account the time required to implement proposed mitigations and the amount of risk reduced for the cost and risk remaining.
Existing law requires each electrical corporation to annually prepare and submit a wildfire mitigation plan that covers at least a 3-year period and authorizes the office to allow for annual submissions to be updates to the last approved comprehensive wildfire mitigation plan, but requires the electrical corporation to submit a comprehensive wildfire mitigation plan at least once every 3 years for review. Existing law requires wildfire mitigation plans to include, among other things, a list that identifies, describes, and prioritizes all wildfire risks, and drivers for those risks, throughout the electrical corporation's service territory, and a description of the actions the electrical corporation will take to ensure its system will achieve the highest level of safety, reliability, and resiliency, as specified.
This bill instead would require each electrical corporation to submit a wildfire mitigation plan to the office for review at least once every 4 years. The bill would require each electrical corporation, beginning January 1, 2026, to submit a preliminary wildfire mitigation plan to the office at the earliest date of one year before the filing of its general rate case application or concurrent with the filing of its Risk Assessment Mitigation Phase application with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) . The bill would revise those wildfire mitigation plan requirements to, among other things, require the list to also include particular risks and risk drivers associated with the speed with which wildfire risk mitigation measures can and will be deployed by the electrical corporation, and require the presentation of certain cost-efficiency measures adopted by the PUC, as specified.
Existing law requires the office to approve or deny each wildfire mitigation plan and update submitted by an electrical corporation within 3 months of its submission. Existing law establishes procedures for the office to oversee compliance with an approved wildfire mitigation plan. Existing law prohibits the PUC from allowing a large electrical corporation to include in its equity rate base its share of the first $5,000,000,000 expended in aggregate by large electrical corporations on fire risk mitigation capital expenditures included in the electrical corporations' wildfire mitigation plans. Existing law requires the PUC to consider whether the cost of implementing an electrical corporation's wildfire mitigation plan is just and reasonable in the electrical corporation's general rate case application.
This bill instead would require the office to approve or deny a wildfire mitigation plan submitted by an electrical corporation within 9 months of its submission. The bill would additionally prohibit the PUC from allowing a large electrical corporation to include in its equity rate base its share of the $5,000,000,000 that the large electrical corporations collectively first expend on fire risk mitigation capital expenditures approved by the PUC on or after January 1, 2025. The bill would, for a general rate case application filed on or after the effective date of the bill, or that is filed before but not approved by the commission before the effective date of the bill, require an electrical corporation to file the wildfire mitigation plan approved by the office or, if the plan has not been approved by the office, the preliminary wildfire plan filed with the office, and any applicable decision from the office, with the general rate case application. The bill would require an electrical corporation, within 45 days of the PUC's decision on whether the cost of implementing the electrical corporation's wildfire mitigation plan is just and reasonable in the electrical corporation's general rate case or any PUC order modifying that decision, to submit to the office a revised wildfire mitigation plan that conforms to the PUC's revenue authorization. The bill would require the office to approve the revised wildfire mitigation plan within 2 months of submission and would require the electrical corporation to file the approved revised wildfire mitigation plan as an information-only submittal with the PUC. The bill would revise and recast provisions related to the oversight by the office in the implementation of, and the enforcement by the PUC of, the finally approved wildfire mitigation plan.
Existing law requires the PUC to establish an expedited utility distribution infrastructure undergrounding program for large electrical corporations. In order to participate in the program, existing law requires a large electrical corporation to submit to the office a distribution infrastructure undergrounding plan, as provided. Upon approval of the plan by the office, existing law requires the large electrical corporation to submit to the PUC an application requesting review and conditional approval of the plan's costs and other specified information.
This bill would revise the provisions related to the expedited utility distribution infrastructure undergrounding program to, among other things, specify that the approval of a distribution infrastructure undergrounding plan is not a project for purposes of the California Environmental Quality Act, as specified.
Existing law requires the California Wildfire Safety Advisory Board to annually make recommendations to the office on various topics, including the appropriate scope and process for assessing the safety culture of an electrical corporation. Existing law requires the office to annually issue an analysis and recommendation to the PUC on the recommendations provided by the board. Existing law requires the PUC to annually adopt and approve, among other things, a process for the office to conduct annual safety culture assessments for each electrical corporation.
This bill would repeal those provisions.
Existing law requires local publicly owned electric utilities and electrical cooperatives to annually prepare and submit to the board, on or before July 1 of each year, wildfire mitigation plans.
This bill instead would require, after January 1, 2026, local publicly owned electric utilities and electrical cooperatives to prepare and submit to the board wildfire mitigation plans at least once every 4 years on a schedule determined by the board.
(2) The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 establishes the State Air Resources Board as the state agency responsible for monitoring and regulating sources emitting greenhouse gases. The act requires the state board to adopt a statewide greenhouse gas emissions limit, as defined, to be achieved by 2020, equivalent to the statewide greenhouse gas emissions level in 1990. The state board is authorized to include market-based compliance mechanisms to comply with the regulations. The implementing regulations adopted by the state board provide for the direct allocation of greenhouse gas allowances to electrical corporations pursuant to a market-based compliance mechanism.
Existing law vests the PUC with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Existing law requires the PUC to continue a program of assistance to low-income electric and gas customers with annual household incomes that are no greater than 200% of the federal poverty guidelines, as specified, which is referred to as the California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE) program. Existing law also requires the PUC to continue a program of assistance to residential customers of the state's 3 largest electrical corporations consisting of households of 3 or more persons with total household annual gross income levels between 200% and 250% of the federal poverty guideline level, which is referred to as the Family Electric Rate Assistance (FERA) program.
Existing law requires the PUC to require certain revenues received by an electrical corporation as a result of the direct allocation of greenhouse gas allowances to be directly credited to the residential, small business, and emissions-intensive trade-exposed retail customers of the electrical corporation, except as specified.
This bill would, on and after January 1, 2026, require the PUC to require a larger credit be allocated to CARE program and FERA program customers, as provided, and would require the credit to be excluded from any calculation of the average effective CARE or FERA program discount. The bill would require the PUC to direct the credit to be divided among, and applied to, customer bills during the months with the highest average electricity demand.
(3) Existing law requires the PUC to establish, on or before September 30, 2024, reasonable average and maximum target energization time periods, as defined, and a procedure for customers to report energization delays to the PUC, as provided.
If an electrical corporation submits an application for recovery of costs and expenses for energization projects and the PUC finds that some or all of the costs and expenses are just and reasonable, this bill would authorize the electrical corporation to request the PUC to issue a financing order to authorize the recovery of those just and reasonable costs and expenses through the issuance of bonds by the electrical corporation that are secured by a rate component, as provided. The bill would prohibit, except as provided, the PUC from allowing a large electrical corporation, as defined, to include in its equity rate base its share of $10,000,000,000 that the large electrical corporations collectively first expend on energization capital expenditures approved by the PUC on or after January 1, 2025. The bill would authorize an electrical corporation's energization capital expenditures and the debt financing costs of these energization capital expenditures to be financed through a financing order for the recovery of costs and expenses for energization projects.
(4) Existing law authorizes the PUC to fix the rates and charges for every public utility and requires that those rates and charges be just and reasonable.
This bill would require the PUC to require all electrical and gas corporations, as part of every general rate case application, to submit an inflation-constrained rate case scenario in which cumulative increases in annual expenditures proposed to be authorized in that proceeding do not exceed the projected federal social security beneficiary cost-of-living adjustment and to compare the inflation-constrained rate case scenario with the primary rate case proposal submitted by the electrical or gas corporation. The bill would authorize the PUC to authorize expenditures in excess of the inflation-constrained rate case scenario if it determines that the corporation has provided clear and convincing evidence that a higher level of expenditures is necessary to ensure the safe and reliable operation of its electric or gas system, and would require the PUC to apply heightened scrutiny to any other request submitted by each electrical corporation and gas corporation that is likely to increase total systemwide expenditures beyond the projected federal social security beneficiary cost-of-living adjustment.
This bill would require the PUC to adopt formal public findings when it approves an electrical rate increase that include an explanation of why the rate increase was approved and what the rate increase will cost on the average customer bill. The bill would require the PUC to annually include those public findings in each customer's monthly bill.
(5) Existing law requires the PUC, by May 1 of each year, to prepare and submit a written report to the Legislature with certain information, including information regarding electrical corporations' utility costs and rate increases.
This bill would require the report to include additional certain information on the transmission assets, distribution assets, and generation assets of each large electrical corporation, including information on the amount or ratebase for those assets with 10 years of historical values and the total amount for return on equity and debt collected in the revenue requirement for those assets.
This bill would require the commission to post on its internet website the authorized and the actual return on equity amounts and the authorized and the actual mix of debt and equity capital for each large electrical corporation, as defined, with 10 years of historical values.
(6) Existing law requires the PUC, on a triennial basis, to submit a report to the Legislature on the energy efficiency and conservation programs it oversees.
This bill would instead require the PUC to submit a report to the Legislature on the demand-side management programs it oversees or that are paid for by ratepayers of community choice aggregators, electrical corporations, or gas corporations. The bill would revise the information required to be included in the report.
(7) Existing law requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) to administer the Electric Program Investment Charge Fund for research, development, and demonstration program that will benefit electricity ratepayers.
This bill would require the Energy Commission, in consultation with the PUC, to develop and implement the Policy-Oriented and Wildfire Electric Reimbursement (POWER) Program to reduce the costs to ratepayers by providing reimbursement to electric utilities for expenditures driven by public policy goals that provide a benefit to the general public, as provided. The bill would establish the POWER Fund in the State Treasury and would require that moneys in the fund, upon appropriation by the Legislature, be expended by the Energy Commission for purposes of the program. The bill would require the commission, when developing and implementing the POWER Program, to do specified things, including establish guidance and criteria for allocating reimbursements from the fund that require, among other things, that the proportion of any expenditures by an electrical corporation that are reimbursed pursuant to the POWER Program are excluded from the electrical corporation's ratebase and any asset funded by those reimbursed expenditures be funded without return on equity, as provided. The bill would require the Energy Commission to annually report to the Legislature actual utility bill impacts in order to ensure the mechanism is helping to reduce electric utility costs for ratepayers. The bill would limit the amount of moneys appropriated for the program that may be used for administrative and overhead costs each year to the lesser of 3% or $5,000,000.
(8) Existing law vests the Energy Commission with the exclusive jurisdiction to certify the construction of certain eligible facilities, as defined, including a discretionary project, as specified, for which the applicant has certified that a capital investment of at least $250,000,000 will be made over a period of 5 years. Existing law prohibits a person from constructing such a facility unless that person obtains a certificate from the commission, as provided. Existing law authorizes a person proposing an eligible facility to file an application no later than June 30, 2029, for certification with the commission to certify a site and related facility, as provided.
This bill would lower the above-described amount to $100,000,000. The bill would extend the date that a person proposing an eligible facility is authorized to apply by to June 30, 2034.
Existing law requires an application for a site and related facility to be in a form prescribed by the Energy Commission, contain specified information, and be further supported by other information as the Energy Commission may require. Existing law requires the Energy Commission to review the application and make a determination of completeness within 30 days of the submission of the application, and authorizes the executive director of the Energy Commission to require the applicant to submit additional information, documents, or data determined to be reasonably necessary to prepare the environmental impact report for the application, as provided.
This bill would explicitly authorize the Energy Commission to require certain supporting information. The bill would require the application to include evidence that the applicant has sufficient real property rights to the proposed location to currently access, build, and operate the proposed facility. The bill would require that any further requests by the executive director for additional information in response to additional information provided by the applicant be made within 30 days of receipt of that information.
For sites and related facilities located in the geographic jurisdiction of the California Coastal Commission or the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, existing law requires the Energy Commission to consult with the applicable agency to coordinate processing and sequencing of the applications to expedite the permitting process of those agencies, as specified.
This bill would require the Energy Commission, the California Coastal Commission, and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission to develop a plan that ensures timely and effective consultation between them, as provided.
Existing law requires each person proposing to construct a thermal powerplant or electric transmission line to submit to the Energy Commission a notice of intention to file an application for the certification of the site and related facility or facilities, requires the approval of the notice by the Energy Commission to be based upon specified findings, and requires an application for certification of the site and related facility to be filed with the Energy Commission. Existing law requires, for the consideration of an application and the issuance of a certification, the Energy Commission to comply with the requirements to prepare a written decision after a public hearing on an application that includes specified things, including findings regarding the conformity of the proposed site and related facilities with standards adopted by the Energy Commission, as provided, and applies these requirements to an application for an eligible facility, as provided. Existing law prohibits the Energy Commission from certifying a facility contained in the application when it finds that the facility does not conform to any applicable state, local, or regional standards, ordinances, or laws, as specified, unless the Energy Commission determines that the facility is required for public convenience and necessity and that there are not more prudent and feasible means of achieving public convenience and necessity.
This bill would remove findings regarding the conformity of the proposed site and related facilities with standards adopted by the Energy Commission from that application requirement for an eligible facility. This bill would apply the above prohibition to an application for an eligible facility, as provided.
Existing law prohib