The Bergeson-Peace Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank Act establishes the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (I-Bank) in the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development. Existing law, among other things, authorizes the I-Bank to make loans, issue bonds, and provide financial assistance for various types of projects that qualify as economic development or public development facilities.
This bill would create the Public Transmission Financing Fund within the State Treasury for the purpose of financing eligible transmission projects, as defined, and projects that are necessary to meet the state's clean energy goals to reduce or offset ratepayer costs associated with the public benefits of transmission projects. The bill would make the moneys in the fund, except as specified, continuously appropriated, without regard to fiscal year, for the support of eligible entities, as defined, and available for expenditure for the above-described purpose. By establishing a continuously appropriated fund, the bill would make an appropriation.
This bill would require the I-Bank to administer the Public Transmission Financing Program to provide financial assistance and financing for eligible transmission projects, sponsored or owned, in whole or in part, by a public transmission sponsor, as defined. The bill would authorize the I-Bank to provide financial assistance under the program to any public transmission sponsor or participating party, as defined, either directly or to a lending or financial institution, in connection with the financing or refinancing of a transmission project owned or financed, in whole or in part, by a public transmission sponsor, in accordance with an agreement or agreements, between the I-Bank and the public transmission sponsor either as a sole lender or in participation or syndication with other lenders. The bill would authorize the I-Bank to issue taxable or tax-exempt bonds, as specified, loan the proceeds to a public transmission sponsor, and deposit the proceeds into the Public Transmission Financing Fund or use the proceeds to refund bonds previously issued, as provided. The bill would prohibit the I-Bank from providing financing or other support for eligible transmission projects that will recover costs through an authorized revenue requirement approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) unless the public transmission sponsor makes specified commitments. The bill would prohibit the I-Bank from financing an eligible transmission project unless certain conditions are met for the construction and maintenance of the transmission project and the transmission project complies with General Order 95 of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) .
Existing law establishes the Wildfire Fund to pay eligible claims arising from a covered wildfire, as provided. Existing law requires the PUC to direct an electrical corporation participating in the Wildfire Fund to collect a nonbypassable charge from the electrical corporation's ratepayers to support the Wildfire Fund.
This bill would require a public transmission sponsor of a transmission project that receives benefits from the Public Transmission Financing Program to participate in the Wildfire Fund, as provided.
The California Consumer Power and Conservation Financing Authority Act creates the California Consumer Power and Conservation Financing Authority. The act authorizes the authority, before January 1, 2007, to establish, finance, purchase, lease, own, operate, acquire, or construct generating facilities and other projects and enterprises, or provide financial assistance for projects or programs by participating parties, to supplement private and public sector power supplies, to ensure a sufficient and reliable supply of electricity for California's consumers at just and reasonable rates, to finance programs for consumers and businesses to invest in cost-effective energy efficient appliances, renewable energy projects, and other programs that will reduce the demand for energy in California, to finance natural gas transportation and storage projects, to achieve an adequate energy reserve capacity in California, and to provide financing for owners of aged, inefficient, electric powerplants to perform necessary retrofits to improve the efficiency and environmental performances of those powerplants.
This bill would authorize the authority to sponsor, finance, purchase, lease, own, operate, acquire, or construct eligible transmission projects. The bill would, for those eligible transmission projects, authorize the authority to either seek a revenue requirement from FERC for any eligible transmission project that will be operated by the Independent System Operator, as provided, or charge private generators, subscribers, and customers contracting for capacity on the eligible transmission project that is not under FERC's jurisdiction, as provided. For a transmission project owned, developed, or financed by the authority, the bill would authorize the authority to take certain actions. The bill would authorize the authority to seek financing assistance from any entity eligible to access the Public Transmission Financing Fund.
Existing law authorizes the authority to incur indebtedness and to issue securities of any kind or class, at public or private sale by the Treasurer, and to renew the same, if the indebtedness is payable solely from revenues. Existing law authorizes the authority to issue bonds, as specified, in an amount not to exceed $5,000,000,000, exclusive of any refunds.
This bill would delete that $5,000,000,000 limit.
Existing law prohibits the authority from financing or approving any new program, enterprise, or project on or after January 1, 2007, unless authority to approve such an activity is granted by statute enacted on or before January 1, 2007.
This bill would repeal that provision.
Existing law vests the PUC with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations.
This bill would require the PUC, for any retail bill credits provided to customers of an electrical corporation by a public transmission sponsor pursuant to the above-described provisions, to determine the allocation of the retail bill credits among customer classes and to require the credits to be displayed as a separate line item on the customer bill indicating the source of the credit.
Existing law prohibits an electrical corporation from beginning construction of a line, plant, or system, including a transmission system, without having first obtained from the PUC a certificate that the present or future public convenience and necessity requires or will require the construction.
This bill would require an electrical corporation, in a proceeding evaluating the issuance of a certificate for a proposed transmission project, to identify any public transmission sponsor that can provide public financing and assume a minority ownership interest in the project and evaluate the ratepayer savings that could be achieved through the use of a public transmission sponsor. The bill would require the PUC to direct the electrical corporation to include a public transmission sponsor in the financing and ownership of the proposed transmission project if a sponsor is available and the ratepayer savings would be material. The bill would require the PUC, on or before June 30, 2026, to open a proceeding to evaluate the benefits of using public transmission sponsors to partner with electrical corporations in the development of new transmission projects and to develop a standard methodology for determining ratepayer benefits. The bill would require the PUC, on or before December 31, 2027, to submit a report to the Legislature that includes recommendations for statutory changes to support the successful use of public financing for transmission projects that provides maximum savings to ratepayers.
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 the proposed mitigation and the amount of risk reduced for the cost and risk remaining.
Existing law requires electrical corporations to annually prepare and submit their wildfire mitigation plans to the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety for review and approval. Existing law requires the wildfire mitigation plans to include, among other things, a description of preventive strategies and programs to minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfire, including consideration of dynamic climate change risks, 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 where and how the electrical corporation considered undergrounding electrical distribution lines within those areas of its service territory with the highest wildfire risk, as specified.
This bill would revise those wildfire mitigation plan requirements to, among other things, require electrical corporations to submit their wildfire mitigation plans at least once every 4 years and to submit a preliminary wildfire plan at the earliest date one year before the filing of its general rate case application or concurrent with the filing of its Risk Assessment Mitigation Phase application, require the list identifying wildfire risks and drivers for those risks to also include particular risks and risk drivers associated with the speed in which wildfire risk mitigation measures can and will be deployed by the electrical corporation and a value of cost-per-avoided ignition for each risk or an explanation on why the value could be assigned to a particular risk, and require the presentation of certain cost-effectiveness measures adopted by the commission.
Existing law authorizes an electrical corporation to file an application requesting the PUC to issue a financing order to authorize the recovery of certain costs and expenses, including those related to a catastrophic wildfire and fire risk mitigation capital expenditures, through the issuance of bonds by the electrical corporation that are secured by a rate component, as provided. Existing law, until December 31, 2035, authorizes the PUC to issue the financing order. Existing law requires the PUC to prohibit a large electrical corporation from including in its equity rate base its share for the first $5,000,000,000 expended in aggregate by large electrical corporations on fire risk mitigation capital expenditures, as provided, and authorizes those expenditures to be financed through the financing order.
This bill would, in addition to the amount of fire risk mitigation capital expenditure described above, require the PUC to prohibit a large electrical corporation from including in its equity rate base its share of the first $15,000,000,000 expended in aggregate by large electrical corporations on infrastructure undergrounding projects, as defined. The bill would require an electrical corporation to finance its share of those expenditures through a financing order, as specified.
Existing law requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) and the PUC to submit a joint Reliability Planning Assessment to the Legislature on a quarterly basis. Existing law requires that assessment to report on significant delays or barriers affecting the timely deployment of renewable energy and zero-carbon resources, including, among other things, permitting processes. Existing law also requires the Energy Commission, upon appropriation, to grant certain moneys to qualified counties for the development or revision of rules and policies that facilitate the processing of permits for eligible renewable energy resources, as specified.
This bill would create the Permitting Local Assistance for Clean Energy Program, to be administered by the Energy Commission, to facilitate and expedite the permitting of clean energy projects by local governments through the voluntary participation of project applicants and local permitting authorities. The bill would require the program, among other things, to establish a central pool of subject matter experts or consultants with experience in project siting and permitting that will be available to local permitting authorities upon request of those authorities, to establish a program fee range, as provided, to be paid by the project applicant to the local permitting authority participating in the program that is in lieu of any other applicable fee charged by the local permitting authority, and to establish permitting timelines to be met by the local permitting authority participating program in order to receive additional state moneys through the program, as provided. The bill would specify that a project applicant participating in the program is deemed to be in compliance with all applicable community benefits, labor, and developer agreement requirements imposed by law. The bill would establish the Permitting Local Assistance for Clean Energy Fund in the State Treasury and authorize moneys in the fund, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to be used for purposes of the program, including to support a local permitting authority by providing matching funds to offset the costs associated with local permit review and issuance, including the training or addition of permitting staff.
Existing law requires the PUC to review and accept, modify, or reject a procurement plan for each electrical corporation in accordance with specified requirements and objectives. Existing law requires the electrical corporation, among other things, to include a showing in the procurement plan that the electrical corporation will first meet its unmet resource needs through all available energy efficiency and demand reduction resources that are cost effective, reliable, and feasible. In determining the availability of cost-effective, reliable, and feasible demand reduction resources, existing law requires the PUC to consider the findings regarding technically and economically achievable demand reduction in a specified study, as provided.
This bill would establish the Statewide Demand Side Management Program Review Task Force within the Energy Commission and would require the task force to identify all energy efficiency and demand response programs and evaluate the efficacy of those programs in advancing certain objectives. The bill would require the task force, on or before July 1, 2026, to establish simple and objective rules to clarify when projects are eligible for energy efficiency and demand response investments and would require agencies and program administrators of those programs, on or before January 1, 2027, to update program rules to reflect those simple and objective rules after a period of public comment. The bill would require the task force, on or before July 31, 2026, to recommend program consolidation or closure of programs that do not advance those objectives, as provided, and would require the agencies and program administrators, on or before January 1, 2027, to consolidate or close programs recommended after a period of public comment and appeal.
This bill would require the PUC, in determining the availability of cost-effective, reliable, and feasible energy efficiency and demand reduction resources in an electrical corporation's procurement plan, to implement the recommendations made by the task force.
Existing law generally requires an operator of a subsurface installation to become a member of, participate in, and share in the costs of, a regional notification center. Existing law requires a record of all notifications by an excavator or operator to the regional notification center to be maintained for a period of not less than 3 years and available for inspection, as specified. Existing law requires an operator to maintain certain records on subsurface installations. Existing law establishes prescribed notification procedures for an excavator who discovers or damages a subsurface installation. Existing law requires a regional notification center to quarterly provide notification records to the California Underground Facilities Safe Excavation Board and to provide notifications of damage to the board within 5 business days of receipt at the regional notification center.
This bill would require a regional notification center to facilitate the exchange of planning and design information for electrical infrastructure undergrounding projects, as defined, and would require operators of a subsurface installation to participate in this exchange, as provided. The bill would require a regional notification center, upon request, to notify a California Native American tribe of proposed excavations within the geographic area with which the tribe is traditionally and culturally affiliated. The bill would require the California Underground Facilities Safe Excavation Board to report to the Legislature on the advantages, barriers, and funding options for the development of an internet web-based planning and design platform for accomplishing the exchange of planning and design information and for allowing tribes to view plans for projects and to communicate with plan submitters.
Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or an order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the PUC is a crime.
Because certain of the above provisions would be part of the act and a violation of an action of the PUC implementing the bill's requirements would be a crime, this 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 a specified reason.

Statutes affected:
AB 825: 369.5 PUC
02/19/25 - Introduced: 369.5 PUC
04/21/25 - Amended Assembly: 3310 PUC, 3310 PUC, 3380.1 PUC, 3380.1 PUC, 3380.2 PUC, 3380.2 PUC, 3384 PUC, 3384 PUC, 369.5 PUC
05/23/25 - Amended Assembly: 3310 PUC, 3380.1 PUC, 3380.2 PUC, 3384 PUC
05/29/25 - Amended Assembly: 4216.1 GOV, 4216.1 GOV, 454.5 PUC, 454.5 PUC, 750 PUC, 750 PUC, 850 PUC, 850 PUC, 3310 PUC, 3380.1 PUC, 3380.2 PUC, 3384 PUC, 8386 PUC, 8386 PUC, 8386.3 PUC, 8386.3 PUC
06/02/25 - Amended Assembly: 4216.1 GOV, 454.5 PUC, 750 PUC, 850 PUC, 3310 PUC, 3380.1 PUC, 3380.2 PUC, 3384 PUC, 8386 PUC, 8386.3 PUC