BILL ANALYSIS Ó ----------------------------------------------------------------- |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 1463| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- VETO Bill No: SB 1463 Author: Moorlach (R) Amended: 6/30/16 Vote: 21 SENATE ENERGY, U. & C. COMMITTEE: 9-0, 4/5/16 AYES: Hueso, Morrell, Cannella, Hertzberg, Hill, Lara, Leyva, McGuire, Pavley NO VOTE RECORDED: Gaines, Wolk SENATE NATURAL RES. & WATER COMMITTEE: 9-0, 4/12/16 AYES: Pavley, Stone, Allen, Hertzberg, Hueso, Jackson, Monning, Vidak, Wolk SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 7-0, 5/27/16 AYES: Lara, Bates, Beall, Hill, McGuire, Mendoza, Nielsen SENATE FLOOR: 38-0, 5/31/16 AYES: Allen, Anderson, Bates, Beall, Berryhill, Block, Cannella, De León, Fuller, Gaines, Galgiani, Glazer, Hall, Hancock, Hernandez, Hertzberg, Hill, Hueso, Huff, Jackson, Lara, Leno, Leyva, Liu, McGuire, Mendoza, Mitchell, Monning, Moorlach, Morrell, Nguyen, Nielsen, Pan, Pavley, Roth, Stone, Vidak, Wolk NO VOTE RECORDED: Runner, Wieckowski SENATE FLOOR: 39-0, 8/25/16 AYES: Allen, Anderson, Bates, Beall, Berryhill, Block, Cannella, De León, Fuller, Gaines, Galgiani, Glazer, Hall, Hancock, Hernandez, Hertzberg, Hill, Hueso, Huff, Jackson, Lara, Leno, Leyva, Liu, McGuire, Mendoza, Mitchell, Monning, Moorlach, Morrell, Nguyen, Nielsen, Pan, Pavley, Roth, Stone, Vidak, Wolk, Wieckowski ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 75-0, 8/18/16 - See last page for vote SB 1463 Page 2 SUBJECT: Electrical lines: mitigation of wildfire risks SOURCE: City of Laguna Beach DIGEST: This bill requires the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), in consultation with the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), to prioritize areas in which communities are subject to conditions that increase fire hazards associated with overhead utility facilities when determining areas which it will 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 geographic communities. ANALYSIS: Existing law: 1)Provides that the CPUC has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electric corporations. (California Constitution, Article 3 and 4) 2)States it is the intent of the Legislature that the CPUC assess the consequences of its decisions, including economic effects, and assess and mitigate the impacts of its decision on customer, public, and employee safety, as part of each ratemaking, rulemaking, or other proceeding, and that this be accomplished using existing resources. (Public Utilities Code §321.1) 3)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) SB 1463 Page 3 4)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) 5)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 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, to prioritize areas in which communities are subject to conditions that increase fire hazards associated with overhead utility facilities when determining areas which it will require enhanced mitigation measures for wildfire hazards posed by overhead electrical lines and equipment. 2)Requires the CPUC, consistent with Public Utilities Code Section 321.1, to develop a definition of "enhanced mitigation measures" for purposes of its fire-threat maps and fire-safety regulations as included in Rulemaking 15-05-006. 3)Requires the CPUC to include a description of how the agency incorporated the concerns of local governments and/or fire departments in its findings supporting a decision to approve the boundaries for the communities prioritized. SB 1463 Page 4 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 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. 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. Other notable wildfires were caused by power lines, including Grass Valley Fire, the Malibu Canyon Fire, the Rice Fire, the Sedgewick Fire, and the Witch Fire. 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 SB 1463 Page 5 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 opened 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 of this year, known as Fire Map 1, which will be used as the foundation for the development of Fire Map 2 to delineate High-Fire Threat District boundaries. Mapping fire hazard and risk. The City of Laguna Beach submitted comments into the proceeding to express the City's objections to Fire Map 1, 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 needs correcting to 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 of Laguna 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 to argue that communities, such as Laguna Beach, are not at risk for wildfire and should, therefore, not receive any mitigation efforts. SB 1463. This bill requires the CPUC, in consultation with CAL FIRE, in R.15-05-006, or another appropriate proceeding to prioritize areas in which communities are subject to conditions that increase fire hazards associated with overhead utility facilities generally and at specific locations and develop a definition of "enhanced mitigation measures." This bill also SB 1463 Page 6 requires any findings supporting a decision to approve the boundaries for specified areas to describe how the CPUC incorporated the concerns of local governments, fire departments, or both in determining those boundaries. Related Legislation SB 1028 (Hill, 2016) requires CPUC-regulated utilities to file wildfire mitigation plans and requires the CPUC to vote to review and comment on those plans. The bill also requires publicly-owned utilities to file wildfire mitigation plans with their governing boards. The bill is currently pending consideration by the full Assembly. FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.:YesLocal: No According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee: Increased costs of $582,000 (State Responsibility Area fund or General Fund) over two years for CAL FIRE to assist in the design and development of the revised Fire Threat Map and the development of enhanced mitigation measures. Minor costs to the CPUC (Public Utilities Commission Utilities Reimbursement Account). SUPPORT: (Verified8/19/16) City of Laguna Beach (source) City of Aliso Viejo City of Irvine City of Malibu City of Newport SB 1463 Page 7 Orange County Fire Chiefs Association Rural County Representatives of California OPPOSITION: (Verified8/19/16) None received ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT: According to the sponsor, the City of Laguna Beach, 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. GOVERNOR'S VETO MESSAGE: "To the Members of the California State Senate: I am returning Senate Bill 1463 without my signature. This bill requires the Public Utilities Commission to prioritize areas that have increased fire hazard associated with overhead utility facilities. Since May of last year, the Commission and CalFire have been doing just that through the existing proceeding on SB 1463 Page 8 fire-threat maps and fire-safety regulations. This deliberative process should continue and the issues this bill seeks to address should be raised in that forum. ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 75-0, 8/18/16 AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Arambula, Atkins, Baker, Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke, Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Dahle, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Lackey, Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte, O'Donnell, Olsen, Patterson, Quirk, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Rendon NO VOTE RECORDED: Dababneh, Frazier, Roger Hernández, Holden, Kim Prepared by: Nidia Bautista / E., U., & C. / (916) 651-4107 11/18/16 14:42:45 **** END ****