AB 1513: Electrical corporations: financing orders: wildfire mitigation expenses.

Existing law authorizes the Public Utilities Commission to fix the rates and charges for every public utility, and requires that those rates and charges be just and reasonable. Existing law authorizes an electrical corporation to file an application requesting the commission to issue a financing order to authorize the recovery of costs and expenses related to a catastrophic wildfire, including fire risk mitigation capital expenditures, through the issuance of bonds by the electrical corporation that are secured by a rate component, as provided.

This bill would, in addition to capital expenditures related to wildfires, authorize the use of bonds secured by a rate component for recovery of wildfire mitigation efforts, operational and maintenance expenses related to an electrical corporations wildfire mitigation plan, wildfire risk mitigation costs, and vegetation management costs and expenses.

Existing law requires the commission, upon application, to issue the financing order if: (1) the recovery costs to be reimbursed have been found to be just and reasonable, or are allocated to ratepayers as specified; (2) the issuance of the recovery bonds, including all material terms and conditions, is just and reasonable; (3) the issuance of the recovery bonds is consistent with the public interest; and (4) the recovery of the recovery costs through a fixed recovery charge that is assessed as a rate component, to the maximum extent possible, reduces the rate on a present value basis that consumers within the electrical corporations service territory would pay as compared to the use of traditional utility financing mechanisms, as specified.

This bill would, in regards to the determination that the issuance of the financing order recovery bonds is consistent with the public interest in (3) above, require the commission commission, when considering whether a proposed financing order provides both short-term and long-term economic benefits in the public interest, to presume that the financing order provides short-term economic benefits to ratepayers in furtherance of the public interest if the commission has authorized an amortization period in excess of 12 months, as specified.