SB 256

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, and a description of the appropriate and feasible procedures for notifying a customer who may be impacted by the deenergizing of electrical lines, 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. The bill would require an electrical corporation, for areas affected by wildfire that require electrical distribution infrastructure to be rebuilt, to consider the undergrounding of electrical distribution infrastructure if it is determined to be cost effective compared to other wildfire mitigation strategies. 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 risks related to the wildland-urban interface. The bill would require an electrical corporation, for the description in the wildfire mitigation plan of the electrical corporation’s appropriate and feasible procedures for notifying a customer who may be impacted by the deenergizing of electrical lines, to include consideration of enabling residents within a household who are not the customer of record to subscribe to receive notifications related to deenergization events and of communications with public safety partners, as provided. The bill would require that an electrical corporation’s wildfire mitigation plan also include a description of the processes and procedures that the electrical corporation use to coordinate communications with local governments within the service area of the electric corporation, and 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. 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, 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. 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 liaison representatives to work within each local 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.