AB 361: Nuclear powerplants.

Existing law, the California Emergency Services Act, authorizes local government entities to create disaster councils by ordinance and in turn develop disaster plans specific to their jurisdictions. Existing law, the Radiation Protection Act of 1999, requires local governments to develop and maintain radiological emergency preparedness and response plans to safeguard the public in the emergency planning zone around a nuclear powerplant, and generally makes the Office of Emergency Services responsible for the coordination and integration of all emergency planning programs and response plans created pursuant to the Radiation Protection Act of 1999. The California Emergency Services Act, until July 1, 2019, prescribes a method for funding state and local costs for carrying out these activities that are not reimbursed by federal funds, with the costs borne by utilities operating nuclear powerplants with a generating capacity of 50 megawatts or more.

This bill, operative July 1, 2019, would extend, until August 26, 2025, the method for funding state and local costs for emergency service activities associated with a nuclear powerplant, as described above, with respect to a utility operating a nuclear powerplant with a generating capacity of 50 megawatts or more, thereby extending an amount, as specified, available for disbursement for local costs for the Diablo Canyon site.

Under existing law, 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 the commission, for purposes of establishing rates for any electrical corporation, to disallow expenses reflecting the direct or indirect costs resulting from any unreasonable error or omission relating to the planning, construction, or operation of any portion of the corporations plant which cost, or is estimated to have cost, more than $50,000,000, including any expenses resulting from delays caused by any unreasonable error or omission. For these purposes, planning includes activities related to the initial and subsequent assessments of the need for a plant construction project and includes investigation and interpretation of environmental factors such as seismic conditions.

This bill would require the commission to convene, or continue, until August 26, 2025, an independent peer review panel to conduct an independent review of enhanced seismic studies and surveys of the Diablo Canyon Units 1 and 2 powerplant, including the surrounding areas of the facility and areas of nuclear waste storage.

This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.