BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1650
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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
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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