BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 1028
Page 1
Date of Hearing: June 22, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON UTILITIES AND COMMERCE
Mike Gatto, Chair
SB
1028 (Hill) - As Amended May 31, 2016
SENATE VOTE: 39-0
SUBJECT: Electrical corporations: local publicly owned
electric utilities: electrical cooperatives: wildfire
mitigation plans
SUMMARY: Requires California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC)
regulated utilities to file wildfire mitigation plans and
requires the CPUC to vote to approve and audit those plans.
Requires publicly-owned utilities to file wildfire mitigation
plans with their governing boards. Specifically, this bill:
1)Establishes a new chapter in the Public Utilities Code to
address wildfire mitigation and requires each electrical
corporation to construct, maintain and operate its electrical
lines and equipment in a manner that will minimize the risk of
catastrophic wildfire posed by electrical lines and equipment.
2)Requires electrical corporations to annually prepare a
wildfire mitigation plan for the upcoming compliance period,
which would begin roughly at the start of the fall fire
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season.
3)Requires the wildfire mitigation plan to include specified
information, including: accounting of responsible persons for
executing the plan, a description of the preventive strategies
and programs to be adopted by the electrical corporation to
minimize the risk of its electric systems causing catastrophic
wildfires, the metrics that will be used to evaluate the
plan's performance, how it will monitor and audit the plan,
and any other information required by the CPUC.
4)Requires the CPUC to accept, accept provisionally, or reject
the electrical corporation's wildfire mitigation plan as
expeditiously as possible, but no later than 30 days before
the start of the compliance period.
5)Requires the CPUC when it provisionally accepts a plan to
include any limitations or conditions, the timespan the
provisional acceptance will be in force, and other
requirements.
6)Requires the CPUC when rejecting an electrical corporation's
plan to allow them to resubmit a plan within 30 days.
7)Authorizes the CPUC to determine the contents of the
electrical corporation's plan if the CPUC determines they will
not be able to prepare an acceptable plan.
8)Requires the CPUC to conduct audits to determine if the
electrical corporation is satisfactorily complying with its
plan.
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9)Authorizes the CPUC to contract with a third-party to conduct
the audits, evaluate the plans or conduct inspections, and to
require the electrical corporation to reimburse for any
related expenses.
10)Requires each publicly-owned electric utility and electrical
cooperative to construct, maintain, and operate is electrical
lines and equipment in a manner that will minimize the risk of
catastrophic wildfire posed by those electrical lines and
equipment.
11)Requires the governing board of the local publicly-owned
electric utility or electrical cooperative to determine, in
consultation with fire department(s) or relevant agencies,
whether any portion of the geographical area where the
utility's overhead lines and equipment are located poses a
significant risk of catastrophic wildfire from electrical
lines and equipment.
12)Requires the electric utility to present to the board at an
interval to be determined by the board for its approval
wildfire mitigation measures that the utility will undertake
should it determine that a portion of its area is at risk of
catastrophic wildfire.
13)Allows a local publicly-owned electric utility and electrical
cooperative, at the discretion of its governing board, to use
a fire prevention plan approved by a federal agency as a
license condition for constructing, operating, and maintaining
dams, water conduits, reservoirs, power houses, transmission
lines in the areas covered by that plan.
EXISTING LAW:
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1)Provides that the CPUC has regulatory authority over public
utilities, including electric corporations. (California
Constitution, Articles 3 and 4)
2)Requires the CPUC to develop formal procedures to incorporate
safety in a rate case application by an electrical corporation
or gas corporation. (Public Utilities Code Section 750)
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown.
COMMENTS:
1)Author's Statement: "September's Butte Fire-which burned
70,868 acres in Amador and Calaveras Counties, destroyed 818
structures, and caused two fatalities-was caused by contact
between a power line and a tree. California's largest electric
utilities spent considerable sums of ratepayer money on
measures to prevent their infrastructure from sparking
destructive wildfires like those of 2007, but the CPUC has
been bogged down for 7 years in the process to adopt
prescriptive, lowest common denominator safety regulations
that have little bearing on those measures.
"Victoria, Australia took a different approach for wildfire
prevention after their 'Black Saturday' in 2009, when high
winds caused 15 fires, four of which were caused by power
lines-one of which killed 120 people. Victoria's parliament
required electric utilities to file wildfire mitigation plans
and required the regulator to approve and audit those plans.
Victoria's energy regulator completed its regulations years
ago, while the CPUC's proceeding slogs on.
"This bill would require electric utilities to develop
wildfire mitigation plans and require the CPUC to approve
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those plans and audit their implementations-an approach much
more likely to be successful in preventing power line fires."
2)California Wildfire and Electric Systems: In October of 2007,
a series of large wildfires ignited and burned hundreds of
thousands of acres in several counties in Southern California.
The fires displaced nearly one million residents, destroyed
thousands of homes, and took the lives of 10 people and an
additional seven who died from efforts to evacuate or from
other fire-related causes. Among the fires was the Witch Fire,
one of the nation's most damaging, which was ignited by power
lines. More recently, the September 2015 Butte Fire - which
burned over 70,000 acres in Amador and Calaveras Counties,
destroyed 818 structures, and caused two fatalities - may have
been caused by contact between an electric overhead line and a
tree. According to the California Department of Forestry and
Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), power lines were the
second-leading cause of wildfires in 2013. Electrical
equipment can act as an ignition source, including downed
power lines, arcing, and conductor contact with trees.
Although electric systems do not routinely cause catastrophic
fires, they are known to cause hundreds of small fires every
year. Risks for wildfires have also increased with the
extended drought and bark beetle infestation that has
increased tree mortalities and, as a result, increased the
risk and fuel for wildfires.
3)CPUC Efforts to Address Wildfires: After the 2007 fires
ravaged several areas of the state, in 2008, the CPUC
initiated a rulemaking proceeding to address fires related to
utility poles. The CPUC's efforts have resulted in additional
requirements on utilities to reduce the likelihood of fires
started by or threatening utility facilities, including
improved vegetation management, and requiring the utilities to
develop electric utility fire prevention plans. The first
phase also adopted fire hazard maps of high-risk areas in
Southern California. In May 2015, the CPUC open a new
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rulemaking proceeding to develop and adopt fire-threat maps
and fire-safety regulations (R. 15-05-006). The CPUC tasked
CAL FIRE to oversee and select outside experts to develop a
more refined statewide fire hazard map. As noted in the
Scoping Memo, the fire-threat map will be based on
approximately 150 terabytes of fire-weather data, which will
be used to run millions of fire simulations to build a high
resolution, statewide fire-threat map. The CPUC and CAL FIRE
have conducted workshops to solicit feedback on the draft map.
After a couple of delays, a final map was issued on February
12, 2016. Additionally, the CPUC has announced a safety en
banc related to utility pole safety to occur on April 28,
2016, in Los Angeles. The agenda for the en banc includes
representatives from CAL FIRE, electric utilities,
communications utilities and providers and other stakeholders.
4)Performance-Based Rules vs. Prescriptive Rules: As noted, the
CPUC's rulemaking efforts to address wildfires and electric
systems have been active since 2008, with several phases, in
two separate proceedings. As the author notes, these efforts
have resulted in the adoption of over 70 proposed rule changes
with often prescriptive standards - such as dictating
clearances between power lines and trees. The author advocates
for the need to establish performance or risk-based safety
rules that focus on the identification of hazards and set
goals, providing the utilities flexibility in achieving the
goals. This approach would be akin to the CPUC efforts to
address pipeline safety after the Pacific, Gas and Electric
Company San Bruno fatal explosion. A performance-based
approach, according to the author, would stand in contrast to
the length of time used in assessing individual measures with
the prescriptive approach. However, it would seem reasonable
that the two approaches do not need to be mutually exclusive.
Requiring electrical corporations to develop mitigation plans
and have them appropriately evaluated may both compliment and
be informed by the efforts to establish prescriptive measures.
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5)Ratepayer Impact: This bill allows the CPUC to request
reimbursement from electrical corporations for expenses
related to wildfire mitigation plan oversight. Therefore, this
bill may end up shifting costs of auditing wildfire mitigation
plans onto electric ratepayers. According to the author,
electric utilities already spend a considerable amount of
ratepayer money to prevent wildfires. It is unclear how
ratepayers are protected from additional cost burdens that may
be created by this bill.
6)CPUC Oversight: It should be noted that the CPUC has been
under particular scrutiny from the Legislature for failing to
adequately carry out their current responsibilities and
protect the safety and wellbeing of Californians. The
disasters resulting from poor CPUC regulation over the past
few years are well documented and cover virtually every area
under CPUC jurisdiction: gas line explosion at San Bruno;
power outages of up to six days in the Los Angeles region due
to windstorms; contaminated steam leaks at San Onofre Nuclear
Power Station (SONGS); the gas well leak in Aliso Canyon; and
deaths on rail tracks in the Bay Area. The members of the
Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee should consider
whether or not the CPUC should be entrusted with additional
and important responsibility.
7)Arguments in Support: According to the Rural County
Representatives of California (RCRC), "RCRC member counties
contain much of California's forested lands including more
than 70 percent of the State's national forest lands. Drought,
invasive pests and a need for increased pace and scale of the
management of our State's forests have caused a dramatic
increase in forest fires in California both in terms of
acreage and intensity in recent years, with many of the most
damaging fires occurring in RCRC member counties. RCRC member
counties are also among those experiencing the highest rates
of tree mortality due to invasive pests from recent severe
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drought conditions, which will only worsen wildfire risk over
the next several years because of the resulting dead and dying
trees. The provisions in SB 1028 will help mitigate and
prevent wildfires ignited by electrical lines and equipment in
those areas with exceptionally high rates of tree mortality,
particularly as local governments and private landowners work
with the State and utilities to remove dead and dying trees
from forest lands surrounding rural communities."
8)Related Legislation:
SB 1463 (Moorlach) of 2016: Requires the CPUC, in consultation
with CAL FIRE, to prioritize areas in which communities are at
high risk from the consequences of wildfires in order to
determine areas in which to require enhanced mitigation
measures for wildfire hazards posed by overhead electrical
lines and equipment. This bill also requires the CPUC to
define "enhanced mitigation measures" and to describe how the
agency incorporated the concerns of local governments and/or
fire departments in determining the areas. Pending in the
Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
Northern California Power Agency
Rural County Representatives of California
SB 1028
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Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by:Darion Johnston / U. & C. / (916)
319-2083