BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY, UTILITIES AND COMMUNICATIONS
Senator Ben Hueso, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: SB 1463 Hearing Date: 4/5/2016
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|Author: |Moorlach |
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|Version: |3/28/2016 As Amended |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|Nidia Bautista |
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SUBJECT: Electrical lines: mitigation of wildfire risks
DIGEST: This bill would require the California Public
Utilities Commission (CPUC), in consultation with the Department
of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), to use specified
criteria in determining areas that are at high risk from
wildfires and require undergrounding of any replacement,
relocation or construction of transmission, subtransmission, and
distribution systems in those areas.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law:
1.Provides that the CPUC has regulatory authority over public
utilities, including electric corporations. (California
Constitution, Article 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 corporations. (Public Utilities Code §750)
3.Establishes the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones in order
to classify lands in the state with whether a very high fire
hazard is present so that public officials are able to
identify and adopt measures to mitigate against fire risk.
(Government Code §51175)
4.Establishes the California Emergency Services Act and provides
that the state is recognized with responsibility to mitigate
the effects of natural, manmade, or war-caused emergencies
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that result in conditions of disaster or in extreme peril to
life, property, and the resources of the state, generally to
protect the health and safety and preserve the lives and
property of the people of the state. Confers on the Governor
to provide state assistance and emergency programs.
(Government Code §8550)
This bill:
1.Requires CPUC, in consultation with CAL FIRE, when determining
areas in which to require enhanced mitigation measures for
wildfire hazards posed by overhead electrical lines and
equipment, to include all communities that:
a. Have experienced serious consequences from a
wildfire, including, but not limited to, human injury or
fatality or property damage in excess of twenty-five
million dollars.
b. The Governor has declared a state of emergency, or
local emergency, involving the community as a result of a
wildfire pursuant to the California Emergency Services
Act.
c. At least 50 percent of the community is included in
a "very high" or "high" risk zone of the map of the Fire
Hazard Severity Zones in the Local Responsibility Areas
of California, in use of as January 1, 2016, prepared by
CAL FIRE.
SB 1463 (Moorlach) Page 3 of ?
2.Requires enhanced mitigation measures include the
undergrounding of any new construction, replacement, or
required relocation of transmission, subtransmission, and
distribution systems, unless the governing body of the
community, by adoption of an ordinance or resolution,
specifically agrees to other measures.
3.Prohibits an electrical corporation from recovering expenses
related to the mitigation measures solely from the ratepayers
of the community where the measures are implemented.
4.Requires the electrical corporation to recover its expenses in
providing the enhanced mitigation measures as a general
expense item in its rates.
5.Provides that the undergrounding of electrical infrastructure,
other than the enhanced mitigation measures, may continue to
be funded pursuant to Electric Tariff 20A budget allocations
and allows those allocations to be freely transferred between
communities.
Background
Laguna's experience with wildfire. On Friday, July 3, 2015, a
portion of Laguna Canyon area experienced a fire when falling
trees hit a power line on Arroyo Drive which sparked a fire on a
brush covered hillside along Laguna Canyon Road. With light
winds and air support, the fire was knocked down after burning
about 15 acres. Five aircraft and 150 firefighters were
deployed. Based on a local news story, the brush fire prompted
the Mayor to call for an all-out effort to underground utilities
citywide. According to the same Laguna Beach Indy newspaper
SB 1463 (Moorlach) Page 4 of ?
story, residents, motivated by improving views and lowering fire
risk, themselves have footed the bill to bury utility lines in
their own neighborhoods in 40 percent of the city, the public
works department estimates. According to a city statement,
since 2007, at least four fires have been attributed to
above-ground electric utilities and been involved in 46
accidents along Laguna Canyon Road, the city statement says.
Laguna Beach has also experienced one of the nation's costliest
fires. In 1993 an arsonist-caused fire burned 16,000 acres and
destroyed or severely damaged over 400 homes and caused $528
million dollars in damage.
CPUC efforts to address wildfires. 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 ten people and an additional seven
who died from evacuating or from fire related causes. These
fires included the Witch Fire, one of the nation's most
damaging, which was ignited by power lines. After the 2007
fires ravaged several areas of the state, in 2008, the CPUC
initiated 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, as well as, 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 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-treat 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 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.
Mapping fire hazard and risk. The City of Laguna Beach
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submitted comments into the proceeding to express the city's
objections to the map, particularly because the map places the
city under the lowest margins of the Utility Fire Threat index.
The City of Laguna Beach stated that the map has limitations and
correcting what appears to be the exclusion of key criteria that
artificially eliminates developed communities from high wildfire
risk categories, including housing density and local fire
history. The City points to a 2008 CAL FIRE Fire Hazard
Severity Zone Development map which designates 90 percent of the
City in a very high fire hazard severity zone. They also
submitted comments to request the CPUC explain how the map will
be used prior to adoption, so as to ensure utilities won't point
to the map and argued that communities, such as Laguna Beach,
are not at risk for wildfire.
As noted in the CPUC Scoping Memo after the initial map was
developed for Southern California, the task of developing a
state-of-the science fire-threat map has proven to be a
difficult challenge. Unfortunately, refining a map can be even
more difficult for the Legislature to do in the absence of
weighing other criteria that has been considered by CAL FIRE and
its experts. While the City of Laguna Beach's concerns may be
well-founded, it is difficult to determine whether the bill's
proposed criteria is an appropriate approach. For example, it's
unclear whether $25 million in property damage is an appropriate
threshold. Moreover, it is difficult to determine whether
usurping the CPUC/CAL FIRE mapping process is warranted.
Additionally, this bill proposes to rely on the 2008 CAL FIRE
map permanently, while never allowing for the use of an updated
map. Furthermore, the 2008 CAL FIRE map states it is not
intended for setting project priorities, nor was it constructed
to consider utility facilities.
Who pays? This bill, as proposed, would prescribe
undergrounding of any new construction, replacement, or required
relocation of utility transmission, subtransmission and
distribution systems in the high risk areas as the only eligible
enhanced mitigation measure, unless a city or county vote for a
different measure. While undergrounding these utility facilities
may help mitigate against fire risk, unfortunately, it comes at
a steep cost - a minimum of six times the cost of overhead
systems and likely more for transmission systems. Additionally,
the bill does not consider other mitigation measures, such as
concrete or steel poles which may be less prone to fire, as well
as, other measures that may be more cost-effective. Even more
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problematic, the bill as crafted would place the costs for
undergrounding the electric systems on all electric ratepayers
within the service territory and prohibit recovering these costs
exclusively from the community receiving the underground
facilities. Therefore, all ratepayers in a given utility would
experience increased rates to cover the costs of undergrounding
a given community's electric systems. The additional language
in the bill regarding the Electric Tariff Rule 20A could result
in funds paid by a given community to be transferred to another
community - even outside the service territory of the utility.
In an effort to address the concerns of the City of Laguna Beach
while protecting the interests of ratepayers, the author and
committee may wish to amend the bill to remove the requirements
to: define high risk areas, including the proposed criteria;
prescribe undergrounding for these areas as the enhanced
mitigation measures; require that costs for undergrounding are
bourne by all utility ratepayers; and authorize the transfer of
funds from one community's Rule 20 Electric Tariff to another.
Instead the bill would require the CPUC to describe how it
incorporated the concerns of local governments, fire
departments, or both in determining the boundaries in the fire
hazards map.
Double-referred. Should this bill be approved by this
committee, it has been referred to the Senate Committee on
Natural Resources and Water.
Prior/Related Legislation
SB 1028 (Hill) would require CPUC-regulated utilities to file
wildfire mitigation plans and requires the CPUC to vote to
approve and audit those plans. The bill also requires
publicly-owned utilities to file wildfire mitigation plans with
their governing boards. This bill is scheduled to be heard in
this committee.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.: Yes Local: Yes
SUPPORT:
City of Laguna Beach (Source)
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OPPOSITION:
California Cable & Telecommunications Association
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT: SB 1463 instructs the CPUC on best use
of fire hazard information in developing future heightened
utility fire mitigation standards for at-risk communities
throughout the state. On February 2, 2016, the CPUC served the
final version of Fire Map 1. The City of Laguna Beach was
placed within the low-risk margins of the Utility Fire Threat
Index. The City is concerned that the map may be used by
utilities to justify providing a less-safe level of service than
would otherwise be requires if the City remained in a high risk
zone. SB 1463 would resolve this issue by requiring the CPUC to
take into consideration areas in which communities are at risk
from the consequences of wildfires not just those areas where
certain environmental hazards are present.
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION: The California Cable &
Telecommunications Association expresses opposition to the bill
requirements to underground electrical lines and or equipment
because it would increase costs to the communications industry,
create new safety risks and be unfair to all ratepayers. The
opponents argue that while electric utility corporations would
be reimbursed for the costs of undergrounding, communications
companies are not reimbursed and could be required to cover the
entire costs of undergrounding facilities - including non-cable
utility facilities - where Cable seeks to attach under the
current right-of-way access rules. Such an obligation would
increase the cost of broadband deployment and impeded investment
in the impacted areas. They also argue that repair times for
undergrounded infrastructure can take weeks to find, excavate,
then fix, compared to an overhead line where the repair may be
more readily apparent.
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