SB 1011: Energy: Utility Infrastructure AI Safety, Oversight, and Workforce Protection Act.

Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) with regulatory jurisdiction over public utilities, including electrical corporations and gas corporations (privately owned utilities), while local publicly owned electric utilities and local publicly owned gas utilities (publicly owned utilities) are under the direction of their governing boards. Existing law requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) to oversee the implementation of certain programs, including the California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program, by local publicly owned electric utilities. Under existing law, a violation of an order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the PUC is a crime.

This bill would require the PUC, for a privately owned utility, and the Energy Commission, for a publicly owned utility, to oversee the implementation of a specified program to regulate automated decision systems in connection with certain utility functions. The bill would require privately owned utilities and publicly owned utilities (covered utilities) that employ automated decision systems in the mapping, design, configuration, operation, maintenance, or oversight of electrical or gas infrastructure to maintain a structured process by which qualified personnel are able to modify or override the output of the automated decision systems and to take other specified actions. The bill would prohibit a covered utility from deploying a high-risk automated decision system in its live operational environment unless it files with the PUC or Energy Commission, as appropriate, a safety plan containing certain information, and would require the high-risk automated decision system to operate in staging mode, as provided, before full operational deployment. The bill would require a high-risk automated decision system that creates, modifies, updates, or purports to correct system records to meet certain requirements. The bill would require a covered utility to report to the PUC or Energy Commission, as appropriate, within 24 hours of discovering any event in which a high-risk automated decision system contributed to or caused certain consequences, including a service interruption or outage affecting more than 500 customers, and would require the covered utility, within 30 days of the event, to submit a root-cause report to the PUC or Energy Commission, as appropriate, that includes certain information. The bill would require a covered utility to continuously monitor its high-risk automated decision systems and to submit an annual report to the PUC or Energy Commission, as appropriate, with certain information. The bill would require a covered utility to provide at least 180 days advance notice, as provided, to affected labor organizations and employees in impacted employee classifications before introducing any technological change involving automated decision systems that materially affects job duties, classifications, staffing levels, or training, and to develop retraining programs, as specified. The bill would prohibit a covered utility from implementing a high-risk automated decision system in its operations that results in the layoff of certain employees unless the covered utility has first exhausted any feasible retraining, redeployment, or reclassification options. The bill would subject a privately owned utility violating its requirements to enforcement pursuant to specified laws. Because the bill would subject a privately owned utility to those specified laws, and because a violation of a PUC action implementing the bills requirement would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would require a publicly owned utility to annually certify to its governing board and the Energy Commission its compliance with the bills requirements and regulations, guidelines, or procedures adopted to implement the bills requirements. By imposing additional duties on local publicly owned electric utilities and local publicly owned gas utilities, 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 specified reasons.