The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment.
CEQA requires the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation to prepare and develop, and for the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency to certify and adopt, proposed guidelines for the implementation of CEQA by public agencies that are required to include a list of classes of projects that have been determined not to have a significant effect on the environment and exempts those classes of projects from CEQA, commonly known as categorical exemptions. Pursuant to its authority, the secretary has adopted a categorical exemption for the replacement or reconstruction of existing structures and facilities where the new structure will be located on the same site as the structure replaced and will have substantially the same purpose and capacity as the structure replaced, including, but not limited to, conversion of overhead electric utility distribution system facilities to underground, as provided.
This bill, until the submission of a prescribed plan on how to most effectively invest in undergrounding and insulating overhead electric utility distribution system facilities or transmission system facilities, but no later than July 1, 2027, would exempt from CEQA a project for the conversion of those facilities to underground and the insulation of those facilities, unless the project is located in an environmentally sensitive area, as defined. Because a lead agency would be required to determine if a project qualifies for this exemption, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Under existing law, it is the policy of the state that each electrical corporation continue to operate its electric distribution grid in its service territory and to do so in a safe, reliable, efficient, and cost-effective manner.
This bill would require the commission, until January 1, 2031, to form a working group to study the cost of undergrounding and insulating overhead electric utility distribution system facilities or transmission system facilities, compile wildfire mitigation reports of electric utilities, and provide the Legislature, on or before July 1, 2027, with a plan on how to most effectively invest in undergrounding and insulating those facilities or how to otherwise support electrical corporations, as provided.
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:
SB 797: 65300 GOV
02/21/25 - Introduced: 65300 GOV
03/26/25 - Amended Senate: 65300 GOV