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, as specified. 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 local publicly owned electric utilities and electrical cooperatives to annually prepare wildfire mitigation plans and submit the plans to the California Wildfire Safety Advisory Board, as specified. Existing law requires that each 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, as provided.
This bill would require the commission, on or before January 1, 2027, to update a general order to require each electrical corporation to remove all permanently abandoned facilities, as specified.
This bill would require an electrical corporation, for the description in the wildfire mitigation plan of the preventative strategies and programs to minimize the risk of its electrical lines and equipment causing catastrophic wildfires, to include consideration of areas adjacent to high fire threat areas. The bill would require an electrical corporation's wildfire mitigation plan 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, identify any lapses in communication coordination during recent past emergency response events with local governments, describe opportunities to collaborate with local governments and other steps that can be taken to establish more efficient communication coordination during future emergency responses, consider undergrounding distribution infrastructure when it is being rebuilt, include an accounting of all transmission facilities, including permanently abandoned facilities, and include a plan for how and when each permanently abandoned facility will be removed and the wildfire mitigation measures that are being implemented to prevent hazards, as provided. The bill would also require electrical corporations to conduct annual wildfire preparedness workshops, as provided.
This bill would require local publicly owned electric utilities and electrical cooperatives, for the description in the wildfire mitigation plan of the preventative strategies and programs to minimize the risk of its electrical lines and equipment causing catastrophic wildfires, to include consideration of risks related to the wildland-urban interface. The bill would require a local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative's wildfire mitigation plan to include a description of the processes and procedures by which the local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative coordinates communication with local governments within the service area of the local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative, as specified.
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 requires OES to establish a standardized emergency management system for use by all emergency response agencies. Existing law requires that wildfire mitigation plans include appropriate and feasible procedures for notifying customers who may be impacted by the deenergizing of electrical lines and requires that the procedures direct notification to specified emergency and medical entities, as provided.
This bill would require certain electrical corporations and local publicly owned electric utilities, 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 representatives to work within each state regional operations center, as provided.
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
06/16/25 - Amended Assembly: 8386 PUC, 8387 PUC