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<ns0:Id>20250SB__074297AMD</ns0:Id>
<ns0:VersionNum>97</ns0:VersionNum>
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<ns0:Action>
<ns0:ActionText>INTRODUCED</ns0:ActionText>
<ns0:ActionDate>2025-02-21</ns0:ActionDate>
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<ns0:Action>
<ns0:ActionText>AMENDED_SENATE</ns0:ActionText>
<ns0:ActionDate>2026-01-05</ns0:ActionDate>
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<ns0:ActionText>AMENDED_SENATE</ns0:ActionText>
<ns0:ActionDate>2026-01-15</ns0:ActionDate>
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<ns0:SessionYear>2025</ns0:SessionYear>
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<ns0:MeasureNum>742</ns0:MeasureNum>
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<ns0:AuthorText authorType="LEAD_AUTHOR">Introduced by Senator Pérez</ns0:AuthorText>
<ns0:AuthorText authorType="COAUTHOR_ORIGINATING">(Coauthor: Senator Rubio)</ns0:AuthorText>
<ns0:Authors>
<ns0:Legislator>
<ns0:Contribution>LEAD_AUTHOR</ns0:Contribution>
<ns0:House>SENATE</ns0:House>
<ns0:Name>Pérez</ns0:Name>
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<ns0:Legislator>
<ns0:Contribution>COAUTHOR</ns0:Contribution>
<ns0:House>SENATE</ns0:House>
<ns0:Name>Rubio</ns0:Name>
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<ns0:Title> An act to amend Section 8386 of, to add Section 762.8 to, and to add Chapter 8 (commencing with Section 8395) to Division 4.1 of, the Public Utilities Code, relating to electricity.</ns0:Title>
<ns0:RelatingClause>electricity</ns0:RelatingClause>
<ns0:GeneralSubject>
<ns0:Subject>Electricity: electrical infrastructure: permanently abandoned transmission facilities: emergency response: liaisons.</ns0:Subject>
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<ns0:DigestText>
<html:p>Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. 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, 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.</html:p>
<html:p>This bill would require the commission, on or before January 1, 2028, to update a general order to require each electrical corporation to remove all
permanently abandoned transmission facilities, as specified.</html:p>
<html:p>This bill would require that an electrical corporation’s wildfire mitigation plan also include an accounting of all transmission facilities, including permanently abandoned transmission facilities, and include a plan for how and when each permanently abandoned transmission facility will be removed and the wildfire mitigation measures that are being implemented to prevent hazards, as provided.</html:p>
<html:p>Under existing law, a violation of any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime.</html:p>
<html:p>Because a violation of a commission action implementing this bill’s requirements would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.</html:p>
<html:p>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.</html:p>
<html:p>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
with each local emergency operations center, as provided.</html:p>
<html:p>By imposing new duties on local publicly owned electric utilities, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.</html:p>
<html:p>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.</html:p>
<html:p>This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for specified reasons.</html:p>
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<ns0:VoteRequired>MAJORITY</ns0:VoteRequired>
<ns0:Appropriation>NO</ns0:Appropriation>
<ns0:FiscalCommittee>YES</ns0:FiscalCommittee>
<ns0:LocalProgram>YES</ns0:LocalProgram>
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<ns0:ImmediateEffect>NO</ns0:ImmediateEffect>
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<ns0:Urgency>NO</ns0:Urgency>
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<ns0:Election>NO</ns0:Election>
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<ns0:Preamble>The people of the State of California do enact as follows:</ns0:Preamble>
<ns0:BillSection id="id_85F586EB-AA7B-453B-9FB0-DFEC851619BD">
<ns0:Num>SECTION 1.</ns0:Num>
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Section 762.8 is added to the
<ns0:DocName>Public Utilities Code</ns0:DocName>
, to read:
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<ns0:LawSection id="id_DD2086AA-A68E-4F0D-B272-65B417EA42F6">
<ns0:Num>762.8.</ns0:Num>
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<html:p>
(a)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
On or before January 1, 2028, the commission shall update General Order No. 95, as revised on December 19, 2024, by commission Resolution ESRB-12, to require each electrical corporation to remove all permanently abandoned transmission facilities in order to prevent public nuisances or hazards to life or property.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(b)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
The commission shall ensure all applicable safety requirements,
including wildfire mitigation measures, apply to permanently abandoned and out-of-service transmission facilities until they are removed.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(c)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
This section does not, and the update required pursuant to subdivision (a) shall not, impact an electrical corporation’s right to an easement.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(d)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
For purposes of this section, “permanently abandoned transmission facility” means a
transmission facility that is out of service and the owner cannot demonstrate, with appropriate documentation, an intent to place the facility, or portions of the facility, into service within a time determined by the commission.
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<ns0:Num>SEC. 2.</ns0:Num>
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Section 8386 of the
<ns0:DocName>Public Utilities Code</ns0:DocName>
is amended to read:
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<ns0:Num>8386.</ns0:Num>
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<html:p>
(a)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Each electrical corporation shall construct, maintain, and operate its electrical lines and equipment in a manner that will minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfire posed by those electrical lines and equipment, taking into account both the time required to implement the proposed mitigation and the amount of risk reduced for the cost and risk remaining.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(b)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Each electrical corporation shall submit a wildfire mitigation plan to the office for review at least once every four years. The office shall establish a schedule for the submission of subsequent comprehensive wildfire mitigation plans, which may allow for the staggering of evaluation and performance periods for each electrical corporation.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(c)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
(1)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Beginning January 1, 2027, each electrical corporation shall submit a preliminary wildfire mitigation plan to the office at the earliest date of one year before the filing of its general rate case application or concurrent with the filing of its Risk Assessment Mitigation Phase application with the commission. The wildfire mitigation plan shall cover the same period as the general rate case period.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(2)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Paragraph (1) does not apply to independent transmission owners.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(d)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
The wildfire mitigation plan shall include all of the following:
</html:p>
<html:p>
(1)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
An accounting of the responsibilities of persons responsible for executing the
plan.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(2)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
The objectives of the plan.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(3)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A description of the preventive strategies and programs to be adopted by the electrical corporation to minimize the risk of its electrical lines and equipment causing catastrophic wildfires, including consideration of dynamic climate change risks.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(4)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A description of the metrics the electrical corporation plans to use to measure and track the implementation of the plan and the assumptions that underlie the use of those metrics.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(5)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A discussion of how the application of previously identified metrics to previous plan performances has informed the plan.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(6)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A
description of the electrical corporation’s protocols for disabling reclosers and deenergizing portions of the electrical distribution system that consider the associated impacts on public safety. As part of these protocols, each electrical corporation shall include protocols related to mitigating the public safety impacts of disabling reclosers and deenergizing portions of the electrical distribution system that consider the impacts on all of the following:
</html:p>
<html:p>
(A)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Critical first responders.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(B)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Health and communication infrastructure.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(C)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Customers who receive medical baseline allowances pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 739. The electrical corporation may deploy backup electrical resources or provide financial
assistance for backup electrical resources to a customer receiving a medical baseline allowance for a customer who meets all of the following requirements:
</html:p>
<html:p>
(i)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
The customer relies on life-support equipment that operates on electricity to sustain life.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(ii)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
The customer demonstrates financial need, including through enrollment in the California Alternate Rates for Energy program continued pursuant to Section 739.1.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(iii)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
The customer is not eligible for backup electrical resources provided through medical services, medical insurance, or community resources.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(D)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Subparagraph (C) does not prevent an electrical corporation from deploying backup electrical
resources or providing financial assistance for backup electrical resources under any other authority.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(7)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A description of the electrical corporation’s appropriate and feasible procedures for notifying a customer who may be impacted by the deenergizing of electrical lines, including procedures for those customers receiving medical baseline allowances as described in paragraph (6). The procedures shall direct notification to all public safety offices, critical first responders, health care facilities, and operators of telecommunications infrastructure with premises within the footprint of potential deenergization for a given event. The procedures shall comply with any orders of the commission regarding notifications of deenergization events.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(8)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Identification of circuits that have frequently
been deenergized pursuant to a deenergization event to mitigate the risk of wildfire and the measures taken, or planned to be taken, by the electrical corporation to reduce the need for, and impact of, future deenergization of those circuits, including, but not limited to, the estimated annual decline in circuit deenergization and deenergization impact on customers, and replacing, hardening, or undergrounding any portion of the circuit or of upstream transmission or distribution lines.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(9)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Plans for vegetation management.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(10)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Plans for inspections of the electrical corporation’s electrical infrastructure.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(11)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A description of the electrical corporation’s protocols for the deenergization of the electrical
corporation’s transmission infrastructure, for instances when the deenergization may impact customers who, or entities that, are dependent upon the infrastructure. The protocols shall comply with any order of the commission regarding deenergization events.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(12)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A list that identifies, describes, and prioritizes all wildfire risks, and drivers for those risks, throughout the electrical corporation’s service territory, including all relevant wildfire risk and risk mitigation information that is required by the commission’s risk-based decisionmaking framework established in commission Application 15-05-002 or Rulemaking 20-07-013, or subsequent safety model assessment proceedings, and the Risk Assessment Mitigation Phase filings. The list shall include, but not be limited to, all of the following:
</html:p>
<html:p>
(A)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Risks and risk drivers associated with design, construction, operations, and maintenance of the electrical corporation’s equipment and facilities.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(B)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Particular risks and risk drivers associated with topographic and climatological risk factors throughout the different parts of the electrical corporation’s service territory.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(C)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Particular risks and risk drivers associated with the speed with which wildfire risk mitigation measures can and will be deployed by an electrical corporation within its service territory.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(D)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
An estimate of cost-per-avoided ignition for each risk, or an explanation on why such a value could not be assigned to a particular risk.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(13)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A description of how the plan accounts for the wildfire risk identified in the electrical corporation’s Risk Assessment Mitigation Phase filing, if applicable.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(14)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A description of the actions the electrical corporation will take to ensure its system will achieve the highest level of safety, reliability, and resiliency, taking into account the cost and time required to achieve those benefits, and to ensure that its system is prepared for a major event, including hardening and modernizing its infrastructure with improved engineering, system design, standards, equipment, and facilities, such as undergrounding, insulating of distribution wires, and replacing poles. The electrical corporation shall present the cost-efficiency measures adopted by the commission, calculated consistently with the direction provided by the
commission’s most recent risk-based decisionmaking framework proceeding, for at least two reasonable mitigation alternatives for a given identified wildfire risk.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(15)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A description of where and how the electrical corporation considered undergrounding electrical distribution lines within those areas of its service territory identified to have the highest wildfire risk in a commission fire threat map.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(16)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A showing that the electrical corporation has an adequately sized and trained workforce to promptly restore service after a major event, taking into account employees of other utilities pursuant to mutual aid agreements and employees of entities that have entered into contracts with the electrical corporation.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(17)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Identification of any geographic area in the electrical corporation’s service territory that is a higher wildfire threat than is currently identified in a commission fire threat map, and where the commission should consider expanding the high fire threat district based on new information or changes in the environment.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(18)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A methodology for identifying and presenting enterprisewide safety risk and wildfire-related risk that is consistent with the methodology used by other electrical corporations unless the commission determines otherwise.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(19)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A description of how the plan is consistent with the electrical corporation’s disaster and emergency preparedness plan prepared pursuant to Section 768.6, including both of the following:
</html:p>
<html:p>
(A)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Plans to prepare for, and to restore service after, a wildfire, including workforce mobilization and prepositioning equipment and employees.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(B)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Plans for community outreach and public awareness before, during, and after a wildfire, including language notification in English, Spanish, and the top three primary languages used in the state other than English or Spanish, as determined by the commission based on the United States Census data.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(20)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A statement of how the electrical corporation will restore service after a wildfire.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(21)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Protocols for compliance with requirements adopted by the commission regarding activities to support customers during and after a wildfire, outage reporting, support for
low-income customers, billing adjustments, deposit waivers, extended payment plans, suspension of disconnection and nonpayment fees, repair processing and timing, access to electrical corporation representatives, and emergency communications.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(22)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A description of the processes and procedures the electrical corporation will use to do all of the following:
</html:p>
<html:p>
(A)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Monitor and audit the implementation of the plan.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(B)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Identify any deficiencies in the plan or the plan’s implementation and correct those deficiencies.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(C)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Monitor and audit the effectiveness of electrical line and equipment inspections, including inspections performed by contractors, carried out under
the plan and other applicable statutes and commission rules.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(23)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
(A)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
An accounting of all transmission facilities, including a list of facilities that are in service, facilities that are out of service, and permanently abandoned transmission facilities. For permanently abandoned transmission facilities, the accounting shall include a plan for how and when each facility will be removed and the wildfire mitigation measures that are being implemented to prevent hazards, including, but not limited to, induction.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(B)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
For purposes of this paragraph,
“permanently abandoned transmission facilities” has the same meaning as defined in Section 762.8.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(24)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Any other information that the office may require.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(e)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
The office shall post all wildfire mitigation plans submitted pursuant to this section on the office’s internet website beginning July 1, 2021, for no less than two months before the office’s decision regarding approval of the plan. The office shall accept comments on each plan from the public, other local and state agencies, and interested parties, and verify that the plan complies with all applicable rules, regulations, and standards, as appropriate.
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<ns0:Num>SEC. 3.</ns0:Num>
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Chapter 8 (commencing with Section 8395) is added to Division 4.1 of the
<ns0:DocName>Public Utilities Code</ns0:DocName>
, to read:
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<ns0:LawHeading id="id_DFCD5EBA-4ACE-4132-954C-F3764A74E4F9" type="CHAPTER">
<ns0:Num>8.</ns0:Num>
<ns0:LawHeadingVersion id="id_0249C316-2BE8-44F4-B866-3E879B29AE41">
<ns0:LawHeadingText>Emergency Operations</ns0:LawHeadingText>
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<ns0:LawSection id="id_AD9C08EF-E155-4187-B6A1-6C9BB2F72C0E">
<ns0:Num>8395.</ns0:Num>
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<html:p>
(a)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
All electrical corporations, consistent with Section 768.6, and local publicly owned electric utilities that have a service area that overlaps with the boundaries of a local emergency operations center, in cooperation with the Office of Emergency Services and other emergency service agencies, shall 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.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(b)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
All electrical corporations and local publicly owned electric utilities subject to subdivision (a) shall assign a liaison representative to work with each local emergency operations center that has boundaries that overlap with the electrical corporation’s or local publicly owned electric utility’s service area. The representative shall complete the Standardized Emergency Management System and National Incident Management System trainings sufficient to enable them to assist activated emergency operations centers, to the
fullest extent possible.
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<ns0:Num>SEC. 4.</ns0:Num>
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<html:p>
No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to Section 6 of Article XIII
<html:span class="ThinSpace"/>
B of the California Constitution because a local agency or school district has the authority to levy service charges, fees, or assessments sufficient to pay for the program or level of service mandated by this act or because costs that may be incurred by a local agency or school district will be incurred because this act creates a new crime or infraction, eliminates a crime or infraction, or changes the penalty for a crime or infraction, within the meaning of Section 17556 of the Government
Code, or changes the definition of a crime within the meaning of Section 6 of Article XIII
<html:span class="ThinSpace"/>
B of the California Constitution.
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