Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations, while local publicly owned electric utilities are under the direction of their governing boards. Existing law requires electrical corporations, electrical cooperatives, and local publicly owned electric utilities 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. Existing law requires electrical corporations to annually prepare and submit wildfire mitigation plans to the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety for review and approval. Existing law also requires a local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative to annually prepare a wildfire mitigation plan and submit the plan to the California Wildfire Safety Advisory Board, as specified. Existing law requires that a wildfire mitigation plan include, among other things, a description of the preventive strategies and programs to minimize the risk of its electrical lines and equipment causing catastrophic wildfires, and protocols for disabling reclosers and deenergizing portions of the electrical distribution system that consider the associated impacts on public safety, as provided.
This bill would, for the description in the wildfire mitigation plan of the preventive strategies and programs to minimize the risk of its electrical lines and equipment causing catastrophic wildfires, require electrical corporations, electrical cooperatives, and local publicly owned electric utilities to include consideration of areas adjacent to high fire threat areas. For an electrical corporation's wildfire mitigation plan, the bill would require the protocols for disabling reclosers and deenergizing portions of the electrical distribution system to consider the impacts on the opportunity for residents within a household who are not the customer of record to subscribe to receive notifications related to deenergization events and communication with public safety partners that have the ability to coordinate with electrical corporations to provide broader messaging to affected communities. The bill would also require that an electrical corporation's wildfire mitigation plan include, for areas affected by wildfires that require electrical distribution infrastructure to be rebuilt by an electrical corporation, consideration of undergrounding distribution infrastructure if it is determined to be cost effective compared to other wildfire mitigation strategies. The bill would require a wildfire mitigation plan to include an identification of any lapses in communication coordination during recent past emergency response events with local governments, as specified, and a description of any opportunities to collaborate with local governments, and other steps that can be taken to establish more efficient communication coordination during future emergency responses, as provided. The bill would require electrical corporations, electrical cooperatives, and local publicly owned electric utilities to conduct annual wildfire preparedness workshops in collaboration with and open to any local fire departments in their service areas to provide updates on the latest adopted wildfire mitigation plans, discuss any lapses in, and opportunities to increase efficiency of, communication coordination during emergency responses, and gather input for inclusion in the development of the next annual submission of their wildfire mitigation plans, as provided.
Existing law prohibits the commission 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, as provided.
This bill would additionally prohibit the commission from allowing a large electrical corporation to include in its equity rate base its share of a specified amount that the large electrical corporations collectively first expend on fire risk mitigation capital expenditures approved by the commission on or after January 1, 2025, as provided.
Existing law, the California Emergency Services Act, establishes, within the office of the Governor, the Office of Emergency Services (OES) under the supervision of the Director of Emergency Services. Existing law makes OES responsible for addressing natural, technological, or man-made disasters and emergencies, including activities necessary to prevent, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the effects of emergencies and disasters to people and property. Existing law requires OES to establish a standardized emergency management system for use by all emergency response agencies. Existing law requires a wildfire mitigation plan to include appropriate and feasible procedures for notifying a customer who may be impacted by the deenergizing of electrical lines and requires that the procedures direct notification to all public safety offices, critical first responders, health care facilities, and operators of telecommunications infrastructure, as provided. The commission has adopted specified guidelines that orders specified utilities to, among other things, ensure the public is able to access precise locality information of potential and active de-energization events, and that utility emergency operations center staff must receive annual emergency management training, as specified.
This bill would require all electrical corporations and local publicly owned electric utilities that have service areas that overlap with the boundaries of a state regional emergency operations center, in cooperation with OES, and other emergency service agencies, to establish procedures for the coordination of efforts between electrical corporations and local publicly owned electric utilities and their representatives and those of emergency response agencies. The bill would require these electrical corporations and local publicly owned electric utilities to assign a representative to work within each state regional operations center that has boundaries that overlap with the electrical corporation's or local publicly owned electric utility's service area. The bill would require the representative to complete the appropriate Standardized Emergency Management System training.
Under existing law, a violation of any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime.
Because a violation of a commission action implementing certain of this bill's requirements would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
Additionally, by imposing new duties on local publicly owned electric utilities, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for specified reasons.

Statutes affected:
03/26/25 - Amended Senate: 8386 PUC, 8386 PUC, 8387 PUC, 8387 PUC, 8388.5 PUC, 8388.5 PUC
05/05/25 - Amended Senate: 8386 PUC, 8387 PUC, 8388.5 PUC