Senate Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities and Communications

[Background]

Senate Committee on energy utilities communications will begin in 10 seconds. The Senate Committee on energy, utilities and communications will come to order. We are holding our Committee hearing here in the O Street building. Ask all Members to be present in room 1200 so we can establish our quorum.

We are going to hear two bills first, and we are going to start as a Subcommitee because we do not have a. A quorum yet. I'm going to invite Senator Stern first to Prevent to present SB 500.

It's.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Members of this August Subcommitee, this Bill would authorize utilities to satisfy the requirement of the building benchmarking program to provide energy usage data by delivering or otherwise providing aggregated energy usage data to the building's owner account and any alternative system or tool approved by the CEC, instead of solely relying on the federal Energy Star portfolio manager program, which we know has faces federal uncertainty and has basically been transformed into what is an unfunded and unstaffed program that is in need of some kind of replacement.

So this Bill is designed to fill that gap and keep people saving money on their appliances. And I would respectfully ask for aye vote at the appropriate time.

Thank you. Are there any witnesses in support? I see none. Any witnesses in opposition? We take it back to the Committee. Any questions for the author, Senator Archuleta?

Yeah. Thank you. Senator, would you elaborate a little bit if you can, without getting too technical, but the usage data that this Energy Star program will work to reduce energy consumption and again, for the consumer.

Yeah. So when you go buy a washing machine or a stove or fridge, you have a sticker on it, it says Energy Star and it'll usually tell you, this fridge will cost you on average, this much a year, and this other fridge will cost you this much a year.

And so it sort of stacks up for the consumer what you're about to buy and how much it might cost you on your energy Bill. Just some fridges are more efficient or some stoves are more efficient and some aren't. So you might want the bigger fridge that is older or not as efficient.

So that's the kind of data. It's not so much gathering consumer data, it's more how that appliance is going to be used. And that's what the Energy Star program, they have all that sort of, how does this gas stove work under these circumstances?

And if all that information is sort of sequestered in a dead federal program, we have to find some way to.

I guess that pretty much aligns with when you're buying an automobile and you get one that gives you 18 miles a gallon and you go look at the other one and it's 15 miles a gallon and the third one is 21. It gives the consumer the choice. That's it for the long haul.

Yeah, that's the idea.

Not forcing any choice at all, just given the, I'll move the Bill at the appropriate time when we have the, the rest of the Members.

Chair, thank you. Would you like to close?

I would. I think this Bill will save people money and keep California on track to make the energy transition. Respectfully ask your iibo.

Thank you. I will certainly be supporting once we do have a quorum. We appreciate that and we will now move on to our other Bill today.

This is AB825 by Assemblymember Petrie Norris leading the presentation and why don't you come up and present and I may join you up here and turn the gavel over to my to my Vice Chair.

Welcome Assemblymember Petrie-Norris. You may begin when you are ready.

Thank you Madam Vice Chair. And thank you Mr. Chair. I am delighted to join you today to present Assembly Bill 825. AB 825 will be familiar to this Committee.

This Bill before us review represents the proposal that has been developed in collaboration with the Senate, the Assembly, the Governor's Office and stakeholders to enable a west wide electricity market, a proposal which was supported earlier this year by this Committee as Chair Becker's SB540.

The people of California have tasked all of us with solving big problems and navigating difficult challenges. Lowering sky high utility bills, increasing reliability to avoid blackouts, leading the country and the world in the fight for climate action and clean energy. Rarely, rarely, Members, do we have the opportunity to do all of those three things in one vehicle.

And that opportunity is before us in AB825. Studies by the Brattle Group and Stanford have estimated that an expanded Western electricity market could save California ratepayers up to $1.0 billion every year. Along with improving reliability, lowering the risk of blackouts, reducing greenhouse gas emissions both in California and across the West.

We already have evidence of cost savings from expanded markets. The existing Western energy imbalance market has already saved California ratepayers an estimated $2.2 billion over the last 10 years. And an expanded day ahead market has even more potential for lowering costs for Californians. The reliability benefits of this proposal are also just common sense.

As we move toward weather dependent renewables to run our grid 24,7 it becomes increasingly necessary for reliability's sake to have an area that is larger than the weather footprint that we're drawing power from.

The wider market will make it easier for California to rely on excess solar from Arizona or wind from Wyoming when the weather in California is reducing our generation. The same Stanford study that I mentioned estimated 40% fewer hours annually where the grid would be stressed and we'd need to call upon emergency resources.

That wider market also helps the entire west reduce its GHG emissions. Detailed modeling of the market shows how California will rely less often on our most inefficient and polluting gas plants, resulting in 58% lower emissions here in California.

California will also be able to export more solar to other states rather than curtailing it, as we often do now on sunny spring days, which will displace the need for generation from gas and coal plants in other states. We can achieve all of these things when we partner with our neighbors to work together for mutual benefit.

As we enter into this regional market, it is right for California to be mindful of the risks and to be thoughtful in how we navigate these risks and to develop a governance structure to guard against potential risks.

And that's why this Bill includes a long list of safeguards to protect California's interests and to ensure that we can continue to control our destiny to make our electricity affordable, reliable and clean.

Those safeguards start with robust requirements for the governance of the market, including a requirement to respect the authority of each state to set its own energy procurement, environmental reliability, and other public interest policies.

Crucially, the rules of the market are designed to protect California's renewable portfolio standard and SB100, our resource adequacy requirements, our integrated resource planning process, and all the other mechanisms that California utilizes to plan ahead to ensure cleaner, reliable power in the future.

The Bill also says that the market cannot begin until 2028, and at that point California will be able to make a decision to join the market as planned.

If the conditions on the ground in 2028 change from where we are today, the PUC and CAISO will be able to make a judgment to decline to join the market at that time. And even once California's utilities have joined this market.

One of the requirements of this Bill is that Members can exit the market without penalties or barriers. The Bill also requires CAISO to maintain the systems and facilities to go back to running a California only market if we do decide to exit the wider market so that the exit option is real, not just theoretical.

And lastly, the Bill also reaffirms the PUC's authority to order utilities to exit. And I know a topic of conversation amongst the Members of this Committee and others in the Senate and the Assembly. I know a priority was to ensure that there was robust legislative oversight.

And so this Bill ensures ongoing legislative oversight by requiring through both annual testimony from CAISO to legislative committees and an annual report to the Legislature from CAISO, which will examine all of the issues of whether or not California is benefiting from this participation in the wider market as legislators will have the opportunity to monitor the market and raise concerns or pass future legislation to make sure that we are getting the benefits that we expect from this regional market.

Colleagues, this is a rare opportunity to bring the west and the country together for common benefits, cost savings, reliability improvements, cleaner air, and a more sustainable future. This proposal is supported by really a tremendously broad array of groups that honestly rarely agree on anything.

The proposal is supported by Cal Chamber and California businesses, as well as numerous environmental groups including EDF, NRDC, Cal Enviro Voters and the Sierra Club. It's supported by utility labor unions and publicly owned utilities, two groups who had concerns about proposals previously introduced in prior regionalization efforts. This proposal is supported by IOUS and CCAs.

It is supported by clean energy developers and big industrial electricity users. I could go on and on, but when this many groups who rarely agree on anything are all lined up in support, I think that we have a proposal before us that is going to deliver real value and real progress for Californians.

So with that, I respectfully request your support today and an aye vote on AB8.25. And I am thrilled to be joined by my co author, your Committee chair, who has spent so much time and so much energy to ensure that we get this proposal right. So thank you so much for your partnership and your leadership, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. I want to thank Chair Petrie Norris for all of her efforts in getting this Bill in good shape into a good place and for all of her leadership.

I just want to thank Senator Stern for his tremendous leadership and passion on this issue and for really having the energy to help carry us over the finish line here. My co author really covered all the major points. I'll just reiterate three.

Number one, this has been an effort over a decade and it's been an effort to get this right. And with the recent amendments and the oversight that's been put into this Bill, this is that chance to do it and get it right. Number two, this is about cleaner, more reliable and cheaper energy.

The one thing that became very clear to me in this process is we're really in California. There's 40 hours a year. That's really it, about 40 hours a year where the grid is really stressed. And we have an option to just keep building, building, building to meet that peak.

Or we can either do load shifting or we can trade and or trade with our neighbors. And this is really about trading with our neighbors and having a grid that's bigger than the weather, as my co author has stated.

And that's going to allow us to have a cleaner, more reliable and cheaper Grid and third is that coalition.

It's been just a real privilege honestly to work with such a large, sometimes a challenge, but a privilege mainly to work with such a large coalition of as Chair Petrie-Norris mentioned, of labor groups, of environmental groups, of business groups, of load serving entities. Just an incredible coalition that has come behind this to get it right.

And we respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much. Appreciate your testimony. We will now continue with any lead witnesses. Do we have our lead witnesses come up? You both have two minutes each.

Thank you. Madam Chair Members, Hunter Stern with the Coalition of California Utility Employees and the California State Association of Electrical Workers in strong support. We were co sponsors of SB540 proudly and we are proud co sponsors of what's become AB825. And thanks to both of the authors for their strong and hard and long work on this.

So you heard testimony about some inefficiencies, especially with solar excess. Solar curtailment. Curtailment means we are throwing that energy away. This proposal, this Bill will help utilize that energy. It will make it more efficient and, and it'll make it more economic for Californians.

And we are very interested in the economics of this proposal because right now there are tens of thousands of IBEWN union Members out building these projects. Wind and solar and others geothermal. We need the projects built.

We will need all this energy load is increasing significantly and this proposal, this structure, this system, this regional system will ensure that we have the economics, the best economics for solar going forward. We have some headwinds. Chair Petrie-Norris mentioned that we're not, we're not getting a lot of help from the Federal Government right now.

There are changes to the tax credit system that will make the economics of solar worse. And this proposal will help us fix that and ensure that our Members will stay out building those projects. And we look forward to that and we ask for your support.

And I just want to also ensure we've been, IBEW and other unions have been building these projects, solar projects in particular, but other renewable energy projects, for years. The opportunity is there for us to continue to do so.

If we are not part of this grid, this western system, we will be isolated like Texas and we will be out of luck. So please support this Bill. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good evening, Madam Chair, Vice Chair, excuse me, Michael Colvin with Environmental Defense Fund, also a co sponsor of this Bill and very proud to be so alongside NRDC and our labor partners. I wanted to emphasize a couple of things that you've already heard tonight.

The first is this Bill will help us keep the lights on, do so more affordably and do so more reliably, and reducing emissions all at the same time. This isn't a theoretical oh maybe money will be saved down the future. This will actually have a material impact on customers bills.

I did want to highlight a couple of things that have changed in going into AB 825 that I think enhance the information that is going to be coming back to the Legislature with both robust reporting requirements and certain findings that need to be made both by the ISO and by the PUC before we even start joining into a market and then regular updates that need to occur to kind of monitor and sort of check the pulse of how is this all working.

One last thing that I wanted to emphasize was when you look at this sole suite of consumer protections that are baked into this market and compare them to all the others that are out there in all the other different regional markets that are out there, this Bill basically steals all the best ideas and iterates on them and makes them even more enhanced.

This is the most robust set of consumer protections of any organized energy market anywhere in the country. It's something that California should be proud of to be able to join and be a part of. Beyond that, I did want to also just emphasize the point that Mr. Stern was making on curtailed energy, especially curtailed solar energy.

Right now we are spending a lot of money to try and figure out how do we make and hit our SB100 goals, but we're hitting market failures every single day because we're not figuring out how to dispatch these resources properly.

Meanwhile, there are our neighbors around the west are saying we want access to this, but we're not giving them that market signal and enough time to be able to act.

When we say that we are reducing curtailment, what we're really saying is we're trying to figure out how can we optimize the dispatch of all these resources that we've worked so hard to build in a way that benefits everybody and that's the benefit of what this market's going to be able to try and do.

So with that, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much to Chair Petrie-Norris, to Chair Becker, to Senator Stern, for all of your leadership on this important issue. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you so much. We're going to we're going to take a moment right now to establish a quorum. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

Senator Becker. Here. Becker, here. Ochoa Bogh. Here. Ochoa Bogh, here. Allen. Here. Allen, here. Archuleta. Here. Archuleta, here. Arreguin. Here. Arreguin, here. Ashby. Here. Ashby, here. Caballero, Dahle, Gonzalez, Grove Hurtado, Limon. McNerney. Here. McNerney, here. Rubio. Stern. Here. Stern, here. Strickland. Here. Strickland, here. Wahab.

Wonderful. Can now formally continue as a Committee and okay, so now we're going to continue with any witnesses in support of AB825 here in room 1200. Please come up to the microphone. State your name, the organization, and your position on the Bill, please.

Thank you very much. Janice Bundy Jones with the Independent Energy Producers of Reliable and Clean Energy. We urge an aye vote.

Madam Chair, Members. Brian White on behalf of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. We are strongly in support of the Bill and appreciate the authors for their strong leadership in this. Thank you.

Good evening. Victoria Rome with NRDC Natural Resources Defense Council also a co sponsor and thank you all for your leadership and support.

Jenna Price on behalf of the American Clean Power and strong support.

Delaney Hunter on behalf of EDF Power Solutions, EDP Renewables, Pacific Power, Portland General Electric and the Solar Energy Industries Association in strong support.

Good evening. Dylan Hoffman on behalf of Technet and strong support. Thanks.

Good evening. Robert Moutrie from the aforementioned California Chamber Of Commerce and strong support. Thank you.

Madam Chair. Chris McKayley on behalf of Silicon Valley. Clean Energy in support.

Amy Costa on behalf of San Diego Community Power and strong support.

Melissa Romero, California Environmental Voters, strong support.

Thank you. Mark Fenstermaker on behalf of Peninsula Clean Energy in support.

Matt Klavenstein on behalf of SMUD, Clean Energy Alliance, and Amazon in support.

Good evening. Rebecca Marcus on behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists and strong support. Thank you.

Good evening. Vince Wertmajo with MCE California's First CCA in strong support.

Hello. Emily Pappas on behalf of Cal CCA in support.

Erin Niemela on behalf of Pioneer Community Energy also in support.

Good evening. Andrew Antwee here today on behalf of Advanced Energy United. Been on this journey for the better part of a decade. Glad to be here. Thank you. Support.

Clean Energy Buyers Association in support. Thank you.

Joe Zanci, San Diego Gas Electric in support.

Love to see the smiles. This is a good thing.

Jacob Evans of Sierra Club California in support.

Shanta Paikian on behalf of Elevate California in support.

Brady Van England here on behalf of Southern California Edison. And strong support.

Good evening. Jason Eckert on behalf of the California Municipal Utilities Association and the Balancing Authority Of Northern California also in support.

Good evening. Larissa Mercado on behalf of Amazon and Clean Power Alliance and I have the proxy for Data Center Coalition and Rivian in support.

Thank you. Buenas Tardes, Melissa Cosio with Pacific Gas and Electric and STRUCK. Support. Thank you the Chairs for the work on this issue.

Good evening. Audra Hartmann on behalf of the California Large Energy Consumers Association in support.

Chairs and Members. Alicia Prieco on behalf of San Jose Clean Energy in support.

Shane Levine, Northern California Power Agency and support. Thank you.

Kathleen Stacks with Western Freedom. Thank you all for your support and all of your work on this. Strong, strong support.

Doss Williams with Central Coast Community Energy. In support.

Chair, Members. Naes Olive on behalf of Net Zero California and strong support. Really appreciate the work of the Chairs. Thank you so much.

Good evening. Annabel Hopkins on behalf of the Public Advocate's office in support.

Melissa Cortese on behalf of the California Wind Energy Association. We actually don't have an official position. However, the concerns that we raised in previous versions have been addressed in this Bill and and want to thank both the author and Senator Becker for all of their work. Thank you.

And Michael Bocadoro on behalf of the Agricultural Energy Consumers Association in support.

Meredith Alexander on behalf of the California Coalition of Large Energy Users, a new ratepayer group in strong support. Thank you.

Thank you so much for all the witnesses in support. Seeing no other witnesses in support. We're going to continue with our lead witnesses in opposition. Do we have any lead witnesses in opposition? Please come up to the microphone. You have two minutes.

Thank you. I'm Mark Toney, Executive Director of TURN. Really appreciate all of the work that all of the authors have put into this.

That is why TURN regretfully opposes 825 because last minute changes eliminated reasonable safeguards that had been included in SB 540 at the request of TURN. AB 825 authorizes state controlled California ISO to shift control of wholesale energy markets to an independent entity that's accountable only to the Federal Government.

It lacks critical protections to prevent new regional market from being utilized by the Federal Government in ways that will raise energy costs, force California consumers to subsidize out of state coal fire power plants, and undermine the development of new renewable energy resources.

The Bill fails to guarantee the right of California to withdraw from a flawed regional energy market if consumers or clean energy policies are harmed. We ask the Legislature to consider rejecting this perilous approach and start again in 2026 on a Bill that fairly balances the risks and rewards of participating in the new regional market. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Seeing no other lead witnesses in opposition. We're going to continue with any lead witnesses in opposition here in room 1200. In opposition. Yeah. So name, position or name organization, and your position in the Bill.

Good evening, Chair and Members. Kim Stone of Stone Advocacy. And very respectful opposition on behalf of Consumer Watchdog. And I've also been asked to register the opposition of Protect Our Communities Foundation, Public Citizen, and the Center for Biological Diversity. Have a nice evening.

Ryan Spencer, on behalf of the Environmental Work Group and respectful opposition. Thank you.

Dave Shukla here for the Long Beach Alliance for Clean Energy and the Indivisible Green Team. Respectful opposition.

Thank you very much. Seeing no other witnesses in opposition, we're going to bring it back to the dais. Any comments or questions by our Members? Move the Bill. We have a motion. Oh, Senator McNerney.

Thank you, Chair. I thank the witnesses. I know a lot went into this. It seems almost too good to be true. I don't know what the downside is yet, but the question of the right of California to exit the program has been a problem. Could you sort of just give us. An update of where we are on that at this point?

Well, thank you, Senator, for the question. And I just want to emphasize that the proposal before us includes both rigorous oversight as well as an exit plan should the concerns that have been raised by the opposition actually materialize.

And so I think that the proposal before us really balances the opportunity for incredible savings, as we heard, for the acceleration of clean energy resources. I think that we have an opportunity to kind of both deliver energy that's cleaner, that is cheaper, and that is more reliable.

If that turns out, if that turns out not to be the case, we have exit triggers that will enable California to leave. And as I said in my opening comments, we'll also ensure that CAISO continues to be positioned to operate a California only market. So that exit scenario is not just theoretical.

It there really will be a true fallback option in the case that this proposal is not as successful as I think. You know, I think it will be. The Senator thinks it will be, and many stakeholders think it will be.

Yeah, just emphasize withdrawal at any time for any reason.

Okay, perfect. Do we have any other comments, questions, Senator Stern?

Yeah, I want to get in between this and the passage of this legislation, but it's been a long time coming. I want to thank everyone in the room here, and not just the joint authors, but also the Governor and the governor's office for stepping up in a big way to lead on this. Yeah, let's go.

Let's Go. All right. See no other comments and questions from our Members. We're going to call the roll. Madam Secretary. Oh, yes, I'm sorry. Would you like to close?

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. And yes, thank you once again, Senator Stern, for your work on this. Chair Becker, for your work on this. There has been a tremendous coalition that has come to the table to put this proposal before us and I think to make this possible. So I'm tremendously excited about the possibilities.

And I really do believe that this is an opportunity for us to lower Californians electricity bills, for us to accelerate our clean energy future, and for us to ensure that we've got a grid that is reliable. So with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much, Madam Secretary. Please call the roll.

The motion is do pass to the Senate Floor. Becker. Aye. Becker, aye. Ochoa Bogh. Aye. Ochoa Bogh, aye. Allen. Archuleta. Aye. Archuleta, aye. Arreguin. Aye. Arreguin, aye. Ashby. Aye. Ashby, aye. Caballero. Dahle. Gonzalez. Grove. Hurtado. Limon. McNerney. Aye. McNerney, aye. Rubio. Stern. Aye. Stern, aye. Strickland. Aye. Strickland, aye. Wahab.

So we're going to leave that on call for our Apsent Members. Thank you so much and.

All right, well, thank you, Members, and thank you, Mr. Chair. And then we need to bring up Stern's Bill that he presented. So Archuleta made a motion when we were in a Subcommitee. Okay. We're going to get Becker to do it. Is he going to come back to chair? I don't know. Is he?

Should we make him up? Yeah. We're going to pass the gavel back to the chair.

Yes. It was calling roll on SB500. The motion was?

That the Assembly amendments be adopted.

Assembly amendments be adopted by Senator Archuleta.

Please call the roll.

Right.

Okay. SB 500. Stern. That the Assembly amendments be concurrent. [Roll Call]

Okay. We will leave that on call. All right. We're now going to hold an informational hearing to discuss SB 254, a bill that I'm authoring with Chair Petrie-Norris and Senator Wahab. The bill is among several that are part of a long negotiation.

Input from the Governor, the Assembly Speaker, the Senate Pro Tem, and all Members of the Senate really to help address electricity affordability and address wildfire liabilities whose costs impact rate payers and wildfire survivors. As with other bills, SB 254 was amended yesterday is pending a hearing.

While we don't have possession of the bill, we're holding today's informational hearing in advance of the bill being heard in the Senate, which won't be until Saturday. This informational hearing is intended to be formatted similar to a bill hearing, but strictly informational, to hear presenters, presentations from supporters and opponents.

There will not be a vote on SB 254 today. Once the presentation... Well, let's leave it at that. There will not be a vote on SB 254 today. I will now pass the gavel to Vice Chair Ochoa-Bogh and once again join my joint author at the table.

Little musical chairs well, thank you and I want to again thank my joint author, Chair Petrie Norris and this bill. Although you've heard it before, it is now significantly different, combining three things, the best aspects of my original bill, Chair Petrie Norris's bill AB825 originally, and provisions to strengthen the Wildfire Fund led by the Administration.

The bill now includes a long list of important steps to reduce costs for electricity ratepayers, stabilize electric utilities in the wake of the terrible fires in Southern California this January, and make sure that the utilities aren't holding back our other priorities for housing, electrification and economic growth.

As anyone who tried to read the whole bill on Wednesday morning will know, this is a very long bill, so I'm going to give a somewhat brief overview of each of the seven major topics.

The first topic tackles wildfire mitigation spending, which is the biggest cause of the rising rates over the last few years, according to the Public Advocate's Office. There are two parts of this, both of which have already been reviewed.

One part is all the changes that came from SB1003 last year to improve coordination and oversight of wildfire mitigation plans and require utilities in the PUC to evaluate plans in terms of cost effectiveness to strike a better balance between risk reduction and costs.

The second is a section that came from the original AB825 by my co author, Chair Petrie Norris, for making better use of regional notification centers, the people who coordinate call before you dig and that'll improve efficiency of planning for undergrounding of transmission lines.

Both of these should help get us more bang for the buck from the money that utilities are spending to prevent wildfires. And again, this is in the tens of billions of dollars, so crucial that we get that bang for the buck.

Next, the bill has two major topics that will help us build the same things, just at a lower cost. And as Turner said, it's very rare we get the opportunity to do that build the same thing we would, but at a lower cost.

These are both versions of what we had in SB254 and 825 previously, but with a few changes. The first requires utilities to finance $6 billion $6 billion worth of future spending on fire mitigation capital investments in using securitized debt.

So that allows the projects to be financed at lower interest rates and without any return on equity that adds to utility profits. This is not as large as the amount we had proposed originally, but it will still save ratepayers more than $300 million a year.

The estimates are between 300 million and $400 million a year from using requiring this form of securitized debt.

The second part is focused on reducing the costs of building big transmission projects by leveraging public ownership or public financing which is estimated to save up to 50% of the cost of these major new investments or as much as $3 billion a year if a significant number of projects leverage this approach.

And again, I want to thank Chair Petrie Norris for her tremendous work on this topic and it's also a topic I've been working on for several years. The bill does five things I'll mention just because we it's important to to say where we landed.

It directs GoBiz to lead on an acceleration accelerator program partnering with project sponsors and the IBank to structure financing expedite projects. Number two, it gives the IBank authority to lend at low cost to these projects and we expect it to use money from Prop 4 as initial capital for revolving loan fund.

Third, it revives the Consumer Power and Conservation Financing Authority in cases where the state can create the most savings by taking an ownership role as part of a public private partnership to develop a new transmission line.

Fourth, it provides a 20% tax investment tax credit card capped at $20 million per year per utility for the cost of building a transmission line that makes use of the IBank's funding. This part is designed to encourage utilities to take advantage of the low cost financing and will further reduce cost to rate payers.

Again, I'm going to give credit to Chair Petrie Norris and her team. Also to Senator Padilla and his team for all the great work they did on this topic this year which really led to what we have in the bill. Now. The next topic is a provision that puts tighter scrutiny on utility profits.

It was in 254 already. But to mention it briefly, it requires the utilities and the PUC to provide clear information about how much profit the utilities are earning and where it is coming from. Our utilities want to earn a fair return on equity in order to raise capital, support a growing grid and protect against wildfires.

But it should be a fair return, not a necessarily high return. So this will allow us, especially consumer advocates like TURN and the PH Public Advocate's Office to be more vigilant about more vigilant about whether utility profits are just and reasonable or excessive.

The next big topic is a set of reforms to streamline the permitting of clean energy projects at a time when the Federal Government the Trump Administration, as was mentioned in the previous bill presentation, when the Federal Government is waging war, frankly, on clean energy in an irrational effort to drive up energy costs across this country and is revoking tax credits and making clean energy more expensive.

It's important for us to find ways in that environment to help bring new projects online faster and cheaper. And if the projects can be built for less than our utilities will be able to lower prices for it too.

These are mostly the same provisions as when I presented the bill before, including having the California Energy Commission create a set of programs, environmental impact reports that can speed up the CEQA review and set up, and a set of changes to the CC's opt in permitting authority. Finally, the biggest well, two more points.

The biggest new additions to the bill are a set of provisions to strengthen and extend the Wildfire Fund, which acts as an insurance program for IOUs and is threatened to be depleted after the fires in Southern California this year. This bill creates a successor insurance Fund to the Wildfire Fund called the Continuation Account.

The provide coverage for any future fires. This makes sure that any new money we put in will be used to cover future risk, not pay for losses that have already incurred.

If losses from a prior fire exceed what can be covered by the existing funds, such as claims against Southern California Edison from the Eaton fires if they are ultimately found to be liable for it, the bill allows the PUC to let the utility securitize those remaining costs against future revenues from customers to make sure they wouldn't put the utility at risk of bankruptcy.

If the Wildfire Fund ends up with remaining money after paying off claims from any existing fires, that money will be transferred into the new account. The new account will be capitalized with contributions from ratepayers and utility shareholders in roughly equal parts.

It will raise $9 billion in bonds secured by extending an existing fee on electric bills that would have expired in 2035 but will be extended 10 years until 2045. So the important point here is to note this will not raise electricity bills at all in the new term. It will just extend the current assessment starting in 2036.

Secondly, it's going to require that the utilities raise up to $9 billion from shareholders money through extending the utilities annual contributions to Fund through 2045 too, and by calling an additional funding for the utilities if the account needs it to cover losses.

One of the things that we are unhappy with right now is the way that hedge funds have brought the rights to sue utilities over losses paid by property insurers hoping to profit from inflated claims, hoping to profit from inflating the claims to Try to prevent or discourage that.

This Bill gives the utility a right of first refusal to settle the claims with the property insurer at the price at which they are willing to sell the rights to a third party like a hedge Fund. This should make it harder for speculators to profit off these disasters.

Finally in this section, recognize that these actions to shirt the Wildfire Fund are only a first step towards a more sustainable long term solution.

The bill requires the fund administrator to provide a report back to the Governor and the Legislature that evaluates and makes recommendations about further actions to reduce wildfire risk, altering rules about liability and other potential changes to address the challenges of wildfire liability on utilities, property insurers and property owners.

Strengthening the Wildfire Fund risk will ultimately save repairs money by lowering finance costs for the debt and equity that are needed for financing grid infrastructure and also make sure that wildfire victims are protected. One major new addition that was added is focused on making sure utilities provide timely service to support new demand.

This has been a major focus of the Legislature in recent years. My Bill, SB410 in 2023 set target timelines for energizing customers because at that time people were waiting ridiculously long times for PG&E in particular to hook them up. The times for new charging infrastructure example for my district was 50 weeks on average. Since then.

Since that bill passed, there's been a tremendous amount of progress, but in some there are still wait times and a lot of load growth predicted, especially from new housing, EVs, data centers and economic growth in general. We don't want utilities falling behind again.

So this part of the bill requires the Public Utilities Commission to evaluate whether executive incentives or the threat of penalties are warranted to make to more strongly encourage utilities to meet the target timelines.

It also requires each utility to have an independent Auditor examine their current practices and evaluate whether they are adequately prepared to handle anticipated low growth. Okay, that was a lot. This is a big Bill for some big problems and it's not going to solve all the problems.

We are going to be back next year looking for more ways to improve affordability and for longer term solutions on wildfire liability. But this is certainly the most ambitious bill in years trying to tackle energy Bill affordability for our constituents.

There is no silver bullet that can immediately lower electricity bills, but collectively the provisions in this bill can eventually save ratepayers billions of dollars each year. I want to acknowledge again, this work has been this bill's been the work of many, many people.

The Senate working group, the pro tem Staff Chair Petrie Norris and her team, Senator Padilla, the governor's team, including M. Patterson here, Turn Net Zero California and many others. I would like to give my joint author a chance to add her thoughts about the bill.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. And as you said, yes, it is a big bill tackling some big problems. And we know that all across the state, cost of living is the number one thing that Californians that our constituents are worried about.

We have the second highest utility rates in the country, and most Californians have seen their rates double over the last 10 years. We all know that that is not sustainable. And our constituents expect us to take a very hard look at their bills and identify ways to lower them in the short and the long term.

And I do believe that that is what the proposal before us today does. As the chair said, there is no silver bullet, but I think we're going to make some very meaningful progress with this proposal. So thank you for all of your work on this. And as you said, this has been very much a team effort.

So lots of hard work from Assembly staff, Senate staff and the governor's team as well. So thank you, Mr. Chair.

We'll now continue with lead witnesses who would like to testify and support of the bill.

Green?

Yes. Okay, great. Hi. Thank you so much. Senator Becker, Assembly Member Petrie Norris and Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. I'm really delighted to be here today to speak on SB254. My name is Ann Patterson. I am senior counselor to the Governor.

I also was legal counsel to the governor's energy team in 2019 that worked with the Legislature to establish the first Wildfire Fund. So I've been here way too long, but I am delighted to be here to testify on this bill, which has a lot of great components.

I really see it as a continuation of the work that the Legislature and the Administration has been doing really over the last seven years to provide ensure that Californians have access to safe, affordable, reliable and clean power.

We've done a lot of work through a lot of different bills, but we make huge movement forward with the provisions of this bill in SB250, which is going to provide, as Senator Becker said, billions of dollars per year in Ratepayer savings on utility bills in the near term, the midterm and the long term.

It's also going to help accelerate clean energy projects coming online and help get customers connected to the grid more quickly. All of that incredibly important work with a lot of other provisions, too, that Senator Becker went over.

I'm going to focus my time today because time is short on the Wildfire Fund which I have had the benefit of being close to for a number of years. So we'll give a little bit of background.

Back in 2019, we were faced with obviously incredibly devastating fires after North Bay fires and the camp fire and which led to the bankruptcy of pge. We saw the devastation that that had both for rate payers, it was very challenging, but also for wildfire victims who are left in bankruptcy trying to get their compensation for their losses.

The Wildfire Fund is designed to avoid that happening to Californians.

Again, protecting ratepayers from the both, you know, price spikes, which can be both sudden and significant of having the cost of those wildfire losses put into bills at one time and also making sure that we never put put victims in a position where they have to wait for years and years in line in bankruptcy to recover for their losses.

This provision in 2019 created that insurance fund with about $21 billion capitalized equally from shareholders, providing $10.5 billion and ratepayers having a non bypassable charge that had already been on the bill just extended to cover their portion of the Shared Insurance Fund.

That protects both the stability of the utilities and as I said before, the ratepayers and wildfire victims. As part of that bill, we also imposed a lot of accountability on our utilities. We directed them, just like we did this year to make $5 billion of investments in their grid using securitization and outside without a rate of return.

We imposed a wildfire safety certificate requirement for them to access the fund. Required them to have a wildfire mitigation plan approved in order to get access to the fund. Required them to have executive compensation tied to safety and long term performance of the company as a condition of being in the Wildfire Fund.

Having a safety committee of their board and board level reporting on safety to the CPUC. So all of those provisions were in the bill. They are also ported over and will be requirements of the successor fund to continue to hold utilities accountable to make those safety improvements.

And as Senator Becker mentioned, there has been a lot of progress on infrastructure investment. It's all. It is creating issues, challenges on the, on the, on the affordability side. But we have spent billions of dollars to make our grid safer to protect California communities.

That solution that we created in 2019, which was really a model for the world and has actually been followed and looked to by other states, worked really effectively for five years until January and January was really, I think a wake up call for all of us about despite all of the work we have done together collectively as the Legislature and the Administration to try to reduce the scale of damages from catastrophic wildfires.

You know, investments in CAL FIRE, the largest aerial firefighting fleet in the world, all of the mitigation efforts that the utilities have made, you know, you are seeing with climate change just that the severity of these events, the scale of the devastation is just growing as we are trying to catch up with all the investments that we're making.

So we recognized we had a crisis, the Fund would likely be impacted and really unable to do the job that it was doing for ratepayers and for costs and for fire victims.

And so we reached out very quickly to the Legislature, formed a group of legislators who have been helping us, I think along the way, hearing about the potential solutions. The proposal that is before you today has four main components.

The first, and I normally don't start with the report, but I'm going to start with the report because I think it's important. We are going to spend the next six months really digging in, looking across the entire world and across the country.

What are the best ways to socialize risk and mitigate risk of this magnitude from climate change.

We really need to look kind of outside the box, do what California does best, which is innovate, bring the best experts to the table so that we can provide to you as legislators the best information and recommendations about how we should handle socializing this risk going forward.

So that report will be before you in April 1st for you to take action on. In the meantime, we recognize that we do need an interim solution. We cannot expose ratepayers and wildfire victims to not having a solution in California.

So we've set up an interim wildfire fund capitalized just like we did with 1054, 5050. Utility shareholders are going to be contributing another $9 billion of shareholder money to this, to this fund when we need, you know, we can talk about the structure if you have questions about that.

The ratepayers, as Senator Becker mentioned, will be just continuing that same non by passable charge that was used to fund the original fund. So they will not see their rates go up as a result of this bill. So that is will be set up and there to help in the era.

I want to say we don't see that $18 billion fund as a long term durable solution. It is smaller than the last fund. And then we saw what happened in Los Angeles in January. If Palisade, you know, Palisades I think was larger. I don't exactly know which one was larger in damages.

But Palisades and Eaton combined, there is no utility customer, there's no shareholder that can manage that level of liability. So we have to figure out, you know, different solutions. So the. We just. I just want to sort of. That's why we're doing the report, because this interim solution is going to help in the. It's.

It's critically important, but is not going to get us through the next 10, 15 years. The third thing that it does is, as I mentioned before, is going to continue. All of those utility accountability measures will be ported over, so we will continue to hold them accountable.

And finally, as Senator Becker mentioned, there's a right of first refusal in here. Whenever you create a Fund with $20 billion in it, you're going to have people come and think that they might be able to make a profit off of it.

We are trying really hard to keep the hedge funds out of this while still recognizing that sometimes insurance companies do need to sell those claims in order to have liquidity.

So the solution that we worked out with the insurers was to create this right of first refusal where if you're going to sell, just give the utilities an opportunity to settle at the same price. Lastly, as I close, I just want to say, and I apologize for going on a little too long.

There's a lot to cover here, but that it's really important. I think you all, thank you both. Senator Becker, thank you. Petrie Norris, thank you all, the Members of the Legislature for taking action on this this year. I can't tell you how important it is that we have a solution going in.

We're in the middle of wildfire season right now that we have a solution in place to protect Californians. So thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. I want to thank the Chair and Vice Chair. And again, Mark Toney with turn. I gotta tell you, it's so much easier to be up here in support of a bill than against one. No, no, no, seriously, from my standpoint, okay. And I am really pleased to be here in support of SB254 for many reasons.

I'm just going to start with the big picture. I was very involved in the 2019 negotiations for AB 1054. I worked many, many hours and months and days with and Patterson in the governor's office. And so I and Turner ended up supporting AB 1054. And we have been loyal supporters of it.

And part of why we're supporting the SB254 is because we asked for Many things that the governor's office that the legislative leadership said yes to. We asked for a that shareholders have to match rate payer contributions dollar for dollar and the answer was yes. We said we've got to bundle wildfire insurance expansion with affordability measures.

The answer was yes. And so you know, I'm not going to do it comprehensively, but I'm going to touch on a few things. Requiring investor owned utilities to finance $6 billion in future capital expenditures related to wildfire mitigation using Ratepayer backed securitized debt.

I mean substituting low cost bonds for high cost IOU capital equity would reduce shareholder profits and keep $3 billion in ratepayer pockets over the next 10 years. That is significant. Improving the review of wildfire mitigation plans to prioritize cost effectiveness and timely risk reduction by providing the CPUC authority to look at both. That is important.

The key component brought over from the original AB825 that chair Petrie Norris worked on so hard, which ended up creating a transmission infrastructure accelerator program to develop financing for new transmission projects to receive low cost public financing can cut ratepayer costs by 50%. And so for these reasons we support the Bill.

We very much appreciate the commitment to keep working at. This legislation is urgently needed next year to address the remaining affordability crisis faced not only by residential customers, but by agricultural, industrial, small business older customers. We need to identify additional savings to offset the $9 billion that ratepayers are required to contribute to the Wildfire Fund.

We need to strive to come up with a way to limit annual bill increases to no more than the annual cost of living adjustment provided by Social Security. And we need to set limits on strict liability for utility wildfire damage because that just creates unlimited ratepayer risk for future costs.

Turn urges you to vote yes on SB254 as an important first step in the right direction for ratepayer affordability. And we ask you to be prepared to roll up your sleeves to do more next year to address the affordability crisis.

Thank you very much, Mr. Turner. Tony. Mr. Toney. Sorry Mr. Toney, for your testimony. We're going to pause for a minute while we lift some calls in order to ensure that our Members can join their other committees that are concurrently going. We have three committees going on right now. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

Okay. AB 825. Petrie Norris do pass to the Senate Floor. Current vote 8-0. Chair Vice Chair voting Aye. [Roll Call]

Okay, that current vote is 9- 0. We'll leave that on call for our absent Members.

SB 500. Senator Stern, that the Assembly amendments be Concurred in current vote 8- 0. Chair. Vice Chair voting Aye. [Roll Call]

That it has 10 votes. We'll leave that on call for our absent Members. And then we will now continue with any witnesses here in room 1200 who would like to come and testify in support. You can state your name, your organization and your position on the bill. Yeah.

Good evening, Chair and Members. Robert Mutri, California Chamber of Commerce, in support. Thank you.

Madam Chair. Chris Micheli on behalf of Silicon Valley Clean Energy and support. Thank you.

Jan Smundy Jones with the IEP in support.

Annabel Hopkins with the Public Advocates Office. Just want to thank both the authors. For all of their work on this. We look forward to continuing to work with you. And we're here proudly in support.

Hunter Stern, Q. And the coalition of or the California Utility Workers Association. Sorry. Strong support. So strong I couldn't even say my organization's name. And thank you all for your work.

Thank you. Madam Chair. Doug Subers on behalf of the California Professional Firefighters in support.

Melissa Romero, California Environmental Voters in support.

Nat Clevenstein on behalf of the Center for Sustainable Energy and support.

Victoria Rome with Natural Resources Defense Council in support.

Good evening. Rebecca Marcus on behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists and support. Thank you.

Jason Eichert on behalf of the California Municipal Utilities Association also in support.

Erin Niemel on behalf of the California Energy Efficiency and Demand Management Council. In support.

Hi, I'm Melissa Kosio with Pacific Gas and Electric Company and strong support. Thank you for your work on this.

Brady Van Englen here on behalf of Southern California Edison in support. Thank you.

Kent Kouss with SDG and E in support.

Das Williams, Central Coast Community Energy in support.

Nate Solo on behalf of Net Zero California and strong support. Thanks everyone for the hard work.

Jamie Minor, on behalf of the California Community Choice Association. I want to echo the comments from turn and thanks please to support.

Thank you very much. Well.

Now continue with any lead witnesses in opposition.

Thanks very much. My name is Will Abrams. I am a member of the Utility Wildfire Survivor Coalition in strong opposition to this legislation. AB 1054 was fantastic for the utilities, fantastic for investors. But all you have to do is drive through the town of Paradise to understand that this was not great for the victims.

This bill does not put sufficient guardrails in place for victims. Utilities and their investors are going to have too much control. This bill relies too much on the reasonable business judgment of the utilities as the guardrail. What could go wrong with the players involved? The utilities, injury attorneys, and large investors, and victims stuck in the middle.

We've been through this before. We've been through this before. In the 2018 through 2019 wildfire survivors. And sorry, 2015 wildfire survivors are still short of their payment. They are still 30% short. They are still struggling to pay medical bills. They are still waiting for final payments. How is it that we are bypassing these victims where we made commitments in 2019 to get them fully and fairly paid?

We're going to bypass them and prioritize new victims? Of course we want all victims to be compensated for their losses. But to bypass these victims that are suffering and cannot pay their medical bills so that we can expedite this in two days is unfair. Right now, there's a conference going on for After the Fire USA in Sonoma County. These are all of the major nonprofits in the state who are supporting recovery and resiliency.

It's going on right now. They couldn't make it here. There is a rush to move this through. We have been working on significant legislation that we were hoping to continue to work on in the off session so that come the new session we would have a thoughtful bill where all of the stakeholders could weigh in.

This is not it. We're not learning from our past mistakes. I too was here in 2019. Victims were lined up to support the bill with the promise that this would make them whole. It did not. They are still waiting. We cannot move forward with this bill and bypass payments for those victims. We can't continue to rush this along. I urge you to vote no on this bill. Thank you.

Madam Chair and Members. Michael Boccadoro on behalf of the Ag Energy Consumers Association. I'm going to characterize this as reluctant concern rather than opposition with the legislation. We are on record of supporting both the affordability bills that both of the co-authors had.

In fact, I had a lovely op editorial with Mr. Toney in the San Jose Mercury News a week ago in support of both of those. But we don't believe the affordability provisions go far enough. We look forward to working with both authors as we continue to move forward in future years to get affordability under control.

We can talk about billions of dollars in savings, but frankly there are pending rate increases at the Public Utilities Commission from Southern California Edison, from PG&E. A cost of capital increase that will more than offset any of the savings in these particular in this bill as it sits today. And we're likely to see 20% increases from both PG&E and Edison in the not too distant future.

The cost of capital, I know that Ms. Norris is already on record in opposition to that at the PUC. The administration needs to take that seriously because that is a significant ongoing concern with ratepayers across the board here in California. With respect to the wildfire fund, we are also concerned. $9 billion in additional funding in the liability fund from ratepayers is a bitter pill to swallow.

The fact that we are here today seeking that for the future. We understand the victims, we understand the pain that they've gone through. But that is a very, very bitter pill to swallow after one fire. When in 2019, we were part of those discussions, we were told that this would likely carry us through to 2040. It has not. It didn't get us to 2026. And so here we are paying for something. We're baking in $9 billion into future rates.

May not be a rate increase, but it's an additional $9 billion in future rates at a time when the state and our investor owned utilities are going to be spending tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars expanding the grid. Rates under that scenario will go one direction and one direction only, higher. And I've been doing this for 35 years before this Legislature and before the PUC. So we are deeply, deeply concerned about the wildfire liability.

We look forward to working with the governor's office, the administration to find a better solution going forward because we could very easily find ourselves in the same situation even before we start to collect the $9 billion in 2035 if another catastrophic fire hits and the fund gets depleted.

And that would be just completely unsustainable going forward. So we look forward to working with the authors. As I said, it's reluctant concern that we're up here tonight. We appreciate everything that the two authors have done on affordability. We've got a lot more work to do.

The wildfire fund's volumetric, which means it hits the business community harder. A lot of the affordability discussion, some of the provisions benefit all, but a lot of the affordability discussion has been focused on residential customers. Unfortunately, business customers in this state are also hurting greatly.

We've lost five food processors in the agricultural community already this year, in large part due to higher costs of doing business in California, including electricity costs. So I appreciate very much. Reluctant concern. We look forward to working with both of you and thank you for all the efforts.

Thank you for your testimony.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Mr. Chair. Damon Conklin with the League California Cities, also here on behalf of my counterparts CSAC and RCRC. We respectfully appreciate all the great work that the author and the sponsors have done with this bill, especially this year, addressing many of our concerns through this process.

Our opposition is very, very narrowly focused in the opt in 205 permitting provision. Specifically, the CEC right now under current law needs to work with local governments in order to certify a project to make sure that it's consistent with local ordinances.

And there is a very innocuous strikeout in the Public Utilities Code section, maybe unintentional, but it asserts local permitting enforcement. And our goal is to be a partner with the CEC. We want to collaborate and share and provide insights and feedback on local projects.

And that provision no longer compels the CEC to work with local jurisdictions. And so look forward to working with the authors moving forward potentially next year and some cleanup legislation if necessary. But just wanted to cache our remarks that our opposition is that very narrow focus of the bill. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Good evening. Audra... Excuse me. Good evening. Audra Hartmann on behalf of the California Large Energy Consumers, also known as CLECA. As prior speakers have said, we were very much in support of your prior bills on energy affordability. Thank you very much for doing the work on that. Unfortunately, we are opposed to the wildfire fund fee provisions and specifically the volumetric way of cost recovery.

For the average CLECA member, they pay over $1.0 million a year into that fund. That is significant, and I can't tell you how much it hurts to pay that fee and to keep them relevant and here in California. So we'd like to work with you to address that and see if there are ways to get other cost savings, a way to address that volumetric fee in the future. So look forward to working with you in the future. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Seeing no other witnesses in opposition. We're going to bring it back to the dais. Questions, comments by our Members? Senator Archuleta.

Well, I'd like to thank the Chair for allowing the opposition the amount of time that they get. And I will tell you normally and a lot of times that's not allowed. But I really appreciate it because it gave our presenters, the Assembly Member and the Senator, an opportunity to listen because there are still things to be done, no doubt.

But we're on the way in California with the Governor and everything we're trying to do and the Pro Tem and our new upcoming Pro Tem. We're all going to work together here in the Energy Committee and everyone. We are listening. We have heard it from the community after community. We need to bring down the cost. We need to we need to be more efficient.

We need to be sensitive to those who suffered in the fires. And we have to be prepared to face new fires and new tragedies. So the funding is in the works. Everything is going in that direction. So I think there's optimism here in the Senate and certainly in the Assembly. And this informational portion of our committee hearing is just that, to listen to all of you and us to listen to the presentation.

So I think we're on the right track and I want to commend our two Chairs on this bill because when it does come to a time when we address these things and we have a full committee to vote... And I know we're going to be with everyone because we're all looking for the same thing, to take care of our consumers, to make sure that our workers that are receiving the great union wages continue their jobs and expand.

And I will tell you that California is leading the way. The bill before us, the coalition, the coalition that you've established today is pretty impressive because we're all trying to do the same thing. Let's work together. And I thank you all for appearing before us, and I thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Senator Archuleta. Do you have any other comments, questions? Nope. Okay, so I have a couple questions that we're going to provide here. First, on the issue of the opt in permitting process. And I'm not sure who would be the best person to answer this question, but I'm going to leave it open to anybody here. Can you provide some additional insight on the way that the California Energy Commission will coordinate with local jurisdictions regarding public safety standards, air and water quality standards, or other local ordinances?

I can take the first crack at it. We're always trying to strike a balance, as you know, in this committee and really in the Legislature this year. I'd say overall, one of the themes, along with affordability, has been how do we get things done faster in California. How do we build housing faster, how do we build clean energy resources faster, how do we build new factories faster? That's been a big theme this year.

Now, in all of that discussion, we were always, of course, looking to balance that with the concerns of local communities, with environmental groups, and others who may have concerns about a particular project. The 205 process, I think, has been seen as a positive one.

We've had a very fast approval, very large the Darden Project, very large solar and battery storage project that hopefully we get built in the Central Valley. And... But we've seen that not everything gets approved under that process. There's other, you know, the Fountain Wind Project, for example.

It's still pending. So it continues to be a matter of striking that balance. We think that this does strike that balance. If moving things faster, we do certainly want to have that coordination with local cities and counties. That may be part of an ongoing effort.

You know, with all these things, as a Legislature, we're been 3-4 years we've been trying to speed things up and maybe didn't go far enough. And you know, if in one case we go too far, we're going to have to look at that as well. But that's really the theme. And I want to see if my co-author wants to comment because she's been very involved in streamlining permitting as well.

I think the focus would be on the coordinating component of how that happened.

Well, and thank you for the question. As Senator Becker said, I think we want to ensure that as we are removing unnecessary obstacles or cutting green tape in order to deliver on our clean energy goals more quickly and more cost effectively, we certainly do not want to steamroll locals.

And I think that, I think that the AB 205 construct, to Senator Becker's point, does strike that right balance. And I think some of the folks who spoke in opposition have some concerns that this is shifting that. And so I think we're open to continuing that conversation and mindful of that. I don't know. Senator, do you have a clearer idea of how the locals will continue to interface with the CEC?

Yeah, I think the bottom line here is that they do consult with local authorities. Right. With the local cities, with the local counties. What the change does is it prevents those entities from vetoing a CEC permitting bypassing, say, an ordinance to block types of projects. So that's really what the, the, the goal of that change was to made. So we still have that consultation, but there won't be a veto by saying passing ordinance that blocks a broad category of projects.

So basically it would be removing the ability for the local jurisdictions to say we don't want this project or we don't approve of this project? Is that...

No, they'll be able to weigh in on individual projects. So they can't pass an ordinance blocking a type of project, a broad swath of projects.

Would you like to expand?

I think Assembly Member Becker got it, which is sort of like a kind of blanket veto to a whole category as opposed to coordination on a project by project basis. And I will say just experience, you know, in our past experience with AB 205, there is really strong, like, feedback loop with the locals, you know, both in terms of public hearings from public community members.

So there's, I think, a clear process that happens where the locals are deeply involved in coordinating with the CEC. I think what you're seeing is potentially like the people would try to undermine the process by simply saying none of these types of projects in this type of category could happen.

Thank you. And then last one, this one might be a little bit, a little edgier. But, you know, we want to make sure that everybody stays awake and attentive today. So I'm sure we want our minds engaged. So in this reporting here, in this bill, in this for TURNs, how much reporting is there in this bill on TURN's annual intervener compensation?

TURN's annual intervenor compensation is a matter of public record. It is something that is part of what's disclosed in both our 940 tax returns and our annual report, which TURN posts on our website. And for several years, you know, going back.

So that is something that is already available to the public and anybody can look at at any time, including real time right now. Because we think it's important for an organization like TURN to be proactively accountable to the public. They should know how TURN's revenue works, what we are receiving, and what we are spending.

And so that is the current process. How is this, is it the same in this particular bill or is it... Does it change at all in this particular bill? Any changes there?

I am not aware that anything in the bill changes or addresses specifically the intervener compensation program. As you know, TURN is one of about three dozen or so regular interveners before the Commission. The Commission I know on its website publishes regular...

There's regular reporting on how much each intervener, including TURN, but not just TURN, all interveners, in terms of how much we have requested for which proceedings, how much of what we requested was awarded and how much was denied.

Also on the website is how long it's been pending. The statute requires the CPUC to respond to intervener compensation claims within 75 days. That is seldom achieved by the CPUC. But what is good is that you can look and see every request and how long it's been pending.

And I'm assuming everything that you described is still a component in the new bill. Nothing changes.

Nothing would... Nothing, as far as I understand, if anybody has, you know, on the table, has any other information, nothing in the bill would change that, would reduce any of what is already being done.

Or even enhance it. It stays the same.

That's my understanding that it stays the same. If someone else has any other insight, please. But that is my understanding. I'm trying to give you a direct answer to a direct question.

Yes, perfect. Perfect. And I'm sure our audience appreciates that. Wonderful. So that is all the questions that I have on file. No other comments or questions? In that case, to our authors, would you like to close?

Thank you for holding this forum in this hearing for us today. Thank you to our witnesses. And, yeah, I'll just say thank you again to my joint author. This has been, you know, a lot of times in this, in this body, we have bills that address one piece of the solution. And this is really an attempt to be comprehensive. There's still work to do for sure, but to tackle the major components of rising utility costs and come up with bold solutions. So really proud of the work. And thank you all.

Thank you very much. And oh, Assembly Member.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator, for inviting me to join you today for the informational hearing. Look forward to continuing to work with all of you to deliver more solutions in the months and years ahead. We know that this is a really important step. We also know that there's a lot of work for us to do and a lot more that we want to deliver for Californians. So to be continued. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much. All right. I will let our chair actually close our informational hearing. Oh, I'll let him come back and do that. Okay. Actually, we're going to lift calls right now.

AB 825 Petrie-Norris do pass to the Senate Floor. [Roll Call] If you want to SB500 Stern that the Assembly amendments be concurred. [Roll Call]

Thank you. We'll keep the roll open for a little while longer and we will recess. Keep the roll open a little.

We're now reconvening our hearing and we are going to be lifting calls. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

SB 500 Stern. Current vote 11-0. That the Assembly moments be concurred in [Roll Call]

Okay. That Bill passes with 12 votes.

AB825. Petrie Norris. Current vote 11-0. Roll Call]

And that Bill also passes with a 12 vote. Thank you, everyone, for your participation at today's informational hearing. The hearing is now adjourned.