Electricity: wildfire mitigation.

Existing law establishes the Wildfire Safety Division and requires the division to perform certain regulatory functions related to wildfire mitigation plans of electrical corporations. Existing law transferred all functions of the Wildfire Safety Division to the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety effective July 1, 2021. This bill would repeal the Wildfire Safety Division. Existing law requires electrical corporations to construct, maintain, and operate their electrical lines and equipment in a manner that will minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfire posed by those electrical lines and equipment. This bill would require those actions to take into account the time required to implement proposed mitigations and the amount of risk reduced for the cost and risk remaining. Existing law requires each electrical corporation to annually prepare and submit a wildfire mitigation plan that covers at least a 3-year period and authorizes the office to allow for annual submissions to be updates to the last approved comprehensive wildfire mitigation plan, but requires the electrical corporation to submit a comprehensive wildfire mitigation plan at least once every 3 years for review. Existing law requires wildfire mitigation plans to include, among other things, a list that identifies, describes, and prioritizes all wildfire risks, and drivers for those risks, throughout the electrical corporation's service territory, and a description of the actions the electrical corporation will take to ensure its system will achieve the highest level of safety, reliability, and resiliency, as specified. This bill instead would require each electrical corporation to submit a wildfire mitigation plan to the office for review at least once every 4 years. The bill would require each electrical corporation, beginning January 1, 2026, to submit a preliminary wildfire mitigation plan to the office at the earliest date of one year before the filing of its general rate case application or concurrent with the filing of its Risk Assessment Mitigation Phase application with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) . The bill would revise those wildfire mitigation plan requirements to, among other things, require the list to also include particular risks and risk drivers associated with the speed with which wildfire risk mitigation measures can and will be deployed by the electrical corporation, and require the presentation of certain cost-efficiency measures adopted by the PUC, as specified. Existing law requires the office to approve or deny each wildfire mitigation plan and update submitted by an electrical corporation within 3 months of its submission. Existing law establishes procedures for the office to oversee compliance with an approved wildfire mitigation plan. Existing law requires the PUC to consider whether the cost of implementing an electrical corporation's wildfire mitigation plan is just and reasonable in the electrical corporation's general rate case application. This bill instead would require the office to approve or deny a wildfire mitigation plan submitted by an electrical corporation within 9 months of its submission. The bill would, for a general rate case application filed after January 1, 2027, require an electrical corporation to file the wildfire mitigation plan approved by the office or, if the plan has not been approved by the office, the preliminary wildfire plan filed with the office, and any applicable decision from the office, with the general rate case application. The bill would require an electrical corporation, within 45 days of the PUC's decision on whether the cost of implementing the electrical corporation's wildfire mitigation plan is just and reasonable in the electrical corporation's general rate case or any PUC order modifying that decision, to submit to the office a revised wildfire mitigation plan that conforms to the PUC's revenue authorization. The bill would require the office to approve the revised wildfire mitigation plan within 2 months of submission and would require the electrical corporation to file the approved revised wildfire mitigation plan as an information-only submittal with the PUC. The bill would revise and recast provisions related to the oversight by the office in the implementation of, and the enforcement by the PUC of, the finally approved wildfire mitigation plan. Existing law requires the PUC to establish an expedited utility distribution infrastructure undergrounding program for large electrical corporations. In order to participate in the program, existing law requires a large electrical corporation to submit to the office a distribution infrastructure undergrounding plan, as provided. Upon approval of the plan by the office, existing law requires the large electrical corporation to submit to the PUC an application requesting review and conditional approval of the plan's costs and other specified information. This bill would revise the provisions related to the expedited utility distribution infrastructure undergrounding program to, among other things, specify that the approval of a distribution infrastructure undergrounding plan is not a project for purposes of the California Environmental Quality Act, as specified. Existing law requires the California Wildfire Safety Advisory Board to annually make recommendations to the office on various topics, including the appropriate scope and process for assessing the safety culture of an electrical corporation. Existing law requires the office to annually issue an analysis and recommendation to the PUC on the recommendations provided by the board. Existing law requires the PUC to annually adopt and approve, among other things, a process for the office to conduct annual safety culture assessments for each electrical corporation. This bill would repeal those provisions. Existing law requires local publicly owned electric utilities and electrical cooperatives to annually prepare and submit to the board, on or before July 1 of each year, wildfire mitigation plans. This bill instead would require, after January 1, 2026, local publicly owned electric utilities and electrical cooperatives to prepare and submit to the board wildfire mitigation plans at least once every 4 years on a schedule determined by the board. Under existing law, a violation of an order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the PUC is a crime. Because a violation of a PUC action implementing the requirements of this bill would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. 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.