Pursuant to existing law, the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection is responsible for fire protection in state responsibility areas, as well as the administration of the state's private and public forests, and the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Existing law authorizes the commission to fix the rates and charges for every public utility and requires that those rates and charges be just and reasonable. Existing law requires each electrical corporation, local publicly owned electric utility, and electrical cooperative to construct, maintain, and operate its electrical lines and equipment in a manner that will minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfire posed by those electrical lines and equipment. Existing law requires each electrical corporation to annually prepare a wildfire mitigation plan and to
submit its plan to the commission for review and approval, as specified. Existing law requires that an electrical corporation’s wildfire mitigation plan include plans for vegetation management. Existing law requires the commission, at the time it approves each plan, to authorize the utility to establish a memorandum account to track costs incurred to implement the plan. Following approval, the commission is required to oversee compliance with the plans.
Existing law requires the commission and the department to enter into a memorandum of understanding to cooperatively develop consistent approaches and share data related to fire prevention, safety, vegetation management, and energy distribution systems and to share results from various fire prevention activities, including relevant inspections and fire ignition data.
Beginning January 1, 2021, this bill would require an electrical corporation to notify the department after
it has completed all or a substantial portion of the vegetation management requirements in its wildfire mitigation plan. Upon receiving notice from the electrical corporation, the bill would require the department to promptly audit the work performed by, or on behalf of, the electrical corporation and to specify any failure of the electrical corporation to fully comply with the vegetation management requirements in its wildfire mitigation plan. The bill would provide that an electrical corporation would have a reasonable time to correct and eliminate any deficiency specified in the audit. The bill would require the department, after the time to correct and eliminate any deficiency specified in the audit expires, and no less than annually, to report to the electrical corporation and the commission specifically describing any failure of the electrical corporation to substantially comply with the vegetation management requirements in its wildfire mitigation plan and to make the report publicly available. The
bill would require each electrical corporation to reimburse the department for its cost to carry out these functions with respect to that electrical corporation’s electrical lines and other exposed energized overhead conductors and equipment.
The willful or negligent failure to perform any of these electrical corporation obligations would be a misdemeanor.
This bill would require the commission to establish a two-way balancing account for each electrical corporation for all costs incurred by the electrical corporation for vegetation management, prohibit the electrical corporation from diverting any revenue from the account to any activity other than vegetation management, and prohibit the electrical corporation from earning any profit on any revenue from the account. The bill would require the
commission to ensure that an electrical corporation fully recovers all costs incurred to comply with the requirements that would be adopted pursuant to the bill and all other reasonable vegetation management activity.
Under existing law, a violation of any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime.
Because a violation of an order or decision of the commission implementing its requirements would be a crime, and because a willful or negligent failure to comply with the trim list requirements described above would be a crime, the this bill would impose a state-mandated local program by creating new crimes.
The California Constitution
requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.