AB 1774: Electrical corporations: wildfire mitigation plans: expenditures.

Existing law requires an electrical corporation to submit to the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety a wildfire mitigation plan at least once every 4 years for review. Existing law requires the office to approve or deny each wildfire mitigation plan within 9 months of its submission. Existing law requires the Public Utilities Commission to assess a penalty on an electrical corporation that fails to substantially comply with its wildfire mitigation plan.

Existing law prohibits a large electrical corporation from including in its equity rate base its share for the first $5,000,000,000 expended in aggregate by large electrical corporations on fire risk mitigation capital expenditure, as provided, and authorizes those expenditures to be financed through a financing order, as described. Existing law requires the commission, in addition to the $5,000,000,000, to prohibit a large electrical corporation from including in its equity rate base its share of the first $6,000,000,000 expended in aggregate by large electrical corporations on fire risk mitigation capital expenditures approved by the commission on or after January 1, 2026, and authorizes the electrical corporations share of the fire risk mitigation capital expenditures and the debt financing cost of these fire risk mitigation capital expenditures to be financed through a financing order, as provided.

This bill would require the commission, before an electrical corporation is authorized to recover, collect, or expend ratepayer funds for new or ongoing wildfire mitigation programs, to require an independent audit of the electrical corporations wildfire mitigation expenditures incurred during the preceding 5 calendar years, as provided. The bill would require that the audit be conducted by an independent third-party auditor. The bill would require the commission to prescribe books, records, and accounting procedures for wildfire mitigation programs that support and enable the independent audit. The bill would require the commission to take certain actions, including disallowing recovery of the wildfire mitigation expenditures, if the commission determines that those expenditures are unreasonable, imprudent, or improperly incurred.

Under existing law, a violation of an order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime.

Because a violation of a commission action implementing the bills requirements would be a crime, this 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.