BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                  AB 1650
                                                                  Page  1

          CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
          AB 1650 (Portantino)
          As Amended  August 24, 2012
          Majority vote
           
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          |ASSEMBLY:  |78-0 |(May 30, 2012)  |SENATE: |38-0 |(August 28,    |
          |           |     |                |        |     |2012)          |
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          Original Committee Reference:    U. & C.

          SUMMARY  :  Requires the California Public Utilities Commission 
          (PUC) to establish standards for disaster and emergency 
          preparedness plans within an existing procedure.  Specifically, 
           this bill  :  

          1)Requires regulated electric and gas utilities to develop, 
            adopt, and update an emergency and disaster preparedness plan 
            every two years.

          2)Requires regulated electric and gas utilities to meet with 
            cities and counties in their service areas when updating 
            utility emergency and disaster preparedness plan.

          3)Requires utilities to preposition personnel in advance of 
            anticipated severe weather.

           The Senate amendments  remove a state-mandated local program to 
          require every county and city, county, or city and county within 
          the electrical corporation's service area to designate a point 
          of contact for the electrical corporation to consult with on 
          emergency and disaster preparedness plans. Amendments also 
          remove a mandate to require a county participating in a meeting 
          to inform each city within the county of the time and place of 
          the meeting.  A technical amendment changes the proposed Public 
          Utilities Code Section for the bill's provisions from Section 
          769 to Section 768.6.

           AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY  , this bill is substantially similar to 
          the version passed by the Senate.

           FISCAL EFFECT  :  According to the Senate Appropriations 
          Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible state costs.
           








                                                                 AB 1650
                                                                  Page  2

          COMMENTS  :  According to the author, "current law does not 
          require electric utilities to prepare emergency preparedness 
          plans and to meet with local counties or cities to discuss plans 
          for emergencies. In December of last year there was a wind 
          disaster that caused major damage throughout the San Gabriel 
          Valley.  This damage included the loss of electricity to tens of 
          thousands of utility customers, many for well over a week in 
          duration.  Utility customers and local governments were largely 
          kept uninformed as to the status of the power outage and were 
          thus unable to plan for alternate housing or local 
          infrastructure needs.  There was an inappropriate lack of 
          communication about an unprecedented wind storm and its 
          resultant damage."

           Background  :  The PUC currently enforces General Order 166 
          requiring electric utilities to annually file updated emergency 
          response plans, including notifying state and local governments 
          of its annual emergency response exercise.  The General Order 
          defines that a Major Outage "occurs when 10 percent of the 
          electric utility's serviceable customers experience a 
          simultaneous, non-momentary interruption of service.  For 
          utilities with less than 150,000 customers within California, a 
          major outage occurs when 50 percent of the electric utility's 
          serviceable customers experience a simultaneous, non-momentary 
          interruption of service."

          General Order 166 does require training and planning for 
          deployment of personnel in anticipation of an event that may 
          result in a major outage, however it does not currently require 
          deployment in the event of anticipated severe weather.  In 
          mathematical terms, the Southern California windstorm outage did 
          not meet the definition of a major outage, therefore the 
          emergency response plans were not required to be deployed.  

           Windstorm outages  :  Although there were no serious adverse 
          consequences, in both this Southern California windstorm outage 
          and the widespread outage that occurred in the Pacific Southwest 
          region in September 2011, drinking water supplies were impaired 
          due to lack of electricity at pumping stations.  In San Diego, 
          California, bottled water supplies were distributed as a public 
          health safeguard due to a sewage spill in the vicinity of 
          drinking water suppliers (the water supply was later tested and 
          found to be safe).  PUC does not currently require emergency 
          response plans for regulated water utilities. 









                                                                  AB 1650
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           Analysis Prepared by  :    DaVina Flemings / U. & C. / (916) 
          319-2083  


                                                               FN: 0005778