Assembly Standing Committee on Utilities and Energy

All right, take two.

Take two. All right. Well, happy New Year, everyone, and welcome to the first hearing of 2026 of the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Energy. Before we move to our agenda, I have a couple of housekeeping items to make or housekeeping announcements to make. We've got two absent Members from the Committee today. Assembly Members Calderon and Hart.

We have two measures on the agenda. One is on consent. Following today's bill hearing, we will adjourn and then move into an oversight hearing on the implementation of the transmission accelerator. As is customary, I will maintain decorum throughout today's hearing in order to hear as much from the public.

Within the limits of our time, we will not permit conduct that disrupts or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of legislative proceedings. Any individual who is disruptive may be removed from the room. As a reminder for bill presentations, testimony for witnesses is limited to four minutes total, two minutes in support and two minutes in opposition.

For any additional witnesses on a measure, only state your name, position and affiliation, if any. With that, I don't believe we've got a quorum, so we will go ahead and begin as a Subcommitee. We are going to hear File item number two, AB710. Welcome, Assemblymember Irwin.

Thank you very much and good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. As you know, Californians are facing an affordability crisis in the form of rapidly rising electricity rates. The goal of 710 is to expand the use of a dynamic dynamic pricing known as time of use rate.

Dynamic pricing encourages customers to use electricity at times when it is less expensive to generate and cleaner, while discouraging usage of more expensive and emissions intensive power during peak times. Shifting usage to times when electricity is more abundant can help reduce electricity grid costs and provide ratepayers with more affordable service.

Dynamic pricing requires modern electric electrical meters, which 710 addresses by requiring utilities across California to develop plans to deploy advanced metering infrastructure. The Energy Commission's load shift goal report from 2023 included specific policy recommendations to expand dynamic pricing and advanced metering infrastructure, which this bill reflects closely.

The CEC report cited both recommendations as key policy tools required to reach the state's load shifting goal and provide cost savings for taxpayers. With me today to testify about the bill is Caleb Weiss with Environment California.

Good afternoon, Chair Petri-Norris and Committee Members. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Petrie-Norris and Committee Members. My name is Caleb Weiss and I'm the Clean Energy Associate at Environment California. I'm here to express our strong support of AB 710.

California has long been a national leader in both renewable energy deployment and the establishment of commitments to shift its energy supply further towards clean and renewable energy. However, despite our success, we continue to face challenges when it comes to the achievement of those clean and renewable energy commitments.

One of the primary challenges is colloquially known as California's duck curve, which describes the mismatch between abundant renewable energy supply during the daytime and. And the peaks in energy demand during the mornings and evenings.

As a result of this mismatch, California often curtails or wastes renewable energy resources during the daytime while relying on dirty, expensive energy during the hours of highest energy demand. In fact, in 2025 alone, California curtailed over 3.7 million megawatt hours of wind and solar energy, and total curtailment has risen every year since 2015.

A clear solution to this challenge is the increased implementation of policies which will encourage load shifting. Load shifting is the process of incentivizing and enabling customers to consume more energy during hours of renewable energy abundance and less energy during hours when dirty, polluting energy sources prevail.

AB710 would promote load shifting by setting deadlines for electrical corporations to establish dynamic pricing programs which are available to all customers and to implement plans which ensure that all customers have the requisite technology to be able to fully participate in these programs if they desire.

In contrast to our abundant renewable energy, we have no time to waste in our mission to shift California towards 100% renewable and clean energy. And this bill would establish reasonable timelines to help us to get there. Therefore, we respectfully urge your aye vote.

Thank you. At this time, we'll hear from any additional witnesses in support. Please approach the microphone at this time.

Good afternoon. Allison Hilliard with the Climate Center in support. Thank you.

Caitlin Loventhal with the California State Association of Counties in support.

Thank you. I do not believe we have a primary witness in opposition. Speak now. If we do. All right, please approach the dais. Welcome. All right, you've got two minutes. Thank you.

Okay.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee. PGE respectfully opposes AB710. Just acknowledging that we did just yesterday get our letter in. But I guess I'll just start off by talking about where we're. Where we're on the same page. Yes. Affordability. Our rates are down 11% in the last two years. Over the last two years? Yes.

Something else. The bill deals with smart meters. We're fully deployed. Yes. Time of use rates. Yes. Shift loads. Section one of the bill is not about time of use rates, but let's talk about some terms. The analysis goes partly into those load management. We've talked about that a little bit, the curtailing everything.

It's a huge umbrella of what are we going to do to use when the electricity is abundant or to shift someone over to when the electricity is abundant, shift them away from when it' things like VPPs, demand response, dynamic rates. What are dynamic rates? Time of use, real time pricing.

Section 1 refers to the CEC adopted load management standard. What is this? It doesn't mean like we think of like rps, like that kind of standard. It means real time hourly day ahead pricing. So this is cutting edge. It's not, it's. It's not even only on the generation component of the rate. It's on generation, distribution, transmission.

It's not fully tested. There are no states offering hourly day ahead products on both of these like rate components. So this refers. Section one refers to real time pricing. Is there a second witness? I.

Thank you. If you want to pause your testimony, I'm sure that there'll be questions that Committee Members will have to dig into some of those points. I don't believe we have another primary witness. Okay. Additional witnesses in opposition, approach the microphone at this time.

Madam Chair and Members. Don Gilbert, on behalf of the Golden State Power Cooperative. We're neutral on the bill. We have no position, but just wanted to flag an issue identified in your analysis. The client, the association is comprised of tweener.

So we got to stick with our. We got to stick with. We got to stick with. Yeah. Name and position. Only name, position and affiliation. So Golden State. And you're a tweener.

All right. Yes, we're a tweener. We're working with the author staff and think we'll get to our issue being addressed. Thank you very much. Want to get in the way of your bill.

Thank you.

Joe Zanzi with San Diego Gas Electric in opposition to the bill in print, hoping to work with the author to make sure that no ongoing rate making or rate proceedings are impacted by this bill. So thank you.

Thank you. Okay, with that we're going to pause for a moment so that we can establish quorum. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll call]

All right, so at this point let's turn to questions or comments from Committee Members, Assemblymember Chen.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just want to have a quick question with the opposition in terms of what you feel this type of legislation is going to impact rape proceedings.

Thank you for the question. I think that the bill would be very disruptive. It presents offering something the Committee has talked about and warned us about of putting out a date, a hard deadline.

And then we have to really struggle with the how Right now we're really struggling with that how we're in piloting programs as the analysis, as the analysis mentioned, dealing with real time pricing, which means hourly day ahead pricing, which means like the day before you get this notice of what's going to happen and then you manage your whole day based on what information you got the day before.

So we're piloting that. The commission has issued some guidance for, for the IOUS and they want to see the results of the pilots. And so we're saying that this is premature. We're not saying we disagree with this.

We're just saying setting the hard deadline would also be disruptive to ways that PGE in particular is trying to manage its bill modernization application. PGE has needs to modernize our billing and that is a heavy investment. There's a laundry list of programs that need to be integrated and modernized into that.

And the more pressure you put on and hard deadlines you put on what needs to be integrated into that bill modernization, you're either going to push somebody to the side that has to get out of the queue or wait longer or you're going to put cost pressures to meet a deadline.

Assemblymember Zipper.

So first of all, I want to thank the author for bringing I think an important issue before us. I did want to just were there any sort of short points I know you got your time ran out and it seemed like you're in the middle of things. I don't want to sort of have a bunch of minutes.

But were there any like very key points that you weren't able to make that you wanted to make, would that be okay?

I guess I would just say if the, if the Committee wants to focus and the author wants to focus on time of use rates, which a lot of us are very used to, you know, like between 4 and 7 or 4 and 8, we change our behavior. Let's talk about that. Let's work on that.

We have a 60% penetration with our customers on that. We want to work with our CCAs and others to do that, to reach more potential.

But over at the Cec, even our colleagues at the CCA Ava and colleagues at SMUD are saying on the real time pricing, this is not showing that this is going to be cost effective. This is going to bring incremental load shifts.

So I think I just spent a couple hours today learning about a lot more about all of these terms since AB 1117 last year with Mr. Schultz. He brought this issue to the Committee.

So I'm glad that we're digging in and I think this is a topic that we should focus on and we want to work with the author if this is really about time of use.

So thank you. So I had concerns about the bill mainly not about the goals at all. It was really more about the issues raised about whether this would disrupt existing proceedings and delay them. And I know that's not the author's goal at all.

So I'm just wondering if you're committing to work with all three of the IOUS on making sure that you're understanding the existing proceedings and that this is structured in a way so that it doesn't slow down or impede those proceedings.

Certainly. So this is, as I mentioned in my opening, these are recommendations from the Energy Commission's load shift goal report. That report was done in 2023. We acknowledge that there have, there are probably significant changes that have taken place in the meantime that we have to address.

We are in a rushed timeline because this is, there is a deadline to hear this bill. And so I think we need to dig more deeply into what the issues are of the IOUS. They know that we will work together with them and try to come up with consensus.

The issue of the proceeding that's not unique to this bill. The CPUC has many different proceedings going on. But I will note that proceedings on dynamic pricing have been going on since the 2000s.

And so I think it is important that we start to look at real ways that we can do load shifting and save our consumers money in these utility bills.

So that's great. It's great to hear. You know, I recognize that this is a very abbreviated timeline given where we are on a two year bill, and that there hasn't been a lot of opportunity to really sort of dig in with the IOUS.

But, you know, hoping you'll dig in with all three of them because they may have different issues on their own, proceedings that they've got to deal with.

And then also I think, you know, I trust that you're going to look at some of the issues that were raised about whether some of these issues are ready to be, you know, mandated as part of the legislation.

And, and I have confidence that you'll work with them to understand whether some parts of the bills need to be modified.

Yes, absolutely.

Great. Thank you so much. I'm prepared to support the bill today to let that work continue. Thank you. Thank you.

Assemblymember Schultz.

Thank you very much. Madam Chair, sorry for my late arrival. I was watching the beginning of the hearing. Assemblymember wanted to thank you for bringing the bill. As one of the witnesses mentioned. I did run 11:17 last year and I fully intend to bring something in that vein back.

But I view this as a companion bill, something of the. Of the same spirit. And so I'll be moving the bill today. And I just wanted to say to the opposition, your concerns are not. I hear them. I listened to them last year.

My hope is that should the bill advance out of Committee today, there will be more fruitful discussion. I think there is a path forward. In my humble opinion, the only wrong choice is to do nothing in this instance. So with that, I move the bill.

Thank you. All right, I have a question. I think both for the opposition and for the bill author.

My understanding of the bill as it is both from a point of intent as well as point of language is that the initiatives that are already underway at PG and E and the other IOUS would be able to work in harmony with the goals and the requirements of the bill.

I guess if you can, if the opposition witness can help clarify why that is not the case and what specifically is the concern. And then second, if the author, if you can just affirm that that's also your understanding of both intent and language.

Yes. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. The language in Section 1 refers again to the CEC's load management standard, hourly day ahead pricing for all as an optional product. A lot of products are optional for all customers. So that's interpreted as all the different customer classes. And one, the timeline is just not possible.

And we've talked about this last year. Well, why is that not? Because CEC has this timeline, just so the timelines aren't possible. And it may not be the right tool to build out for every customer class, even as something optional. The goal right now our pilot program has cost $36 million to stand up.

And that's just a pilot. So you have to pay. It costs money to build up a product, an offering, create a rate, even if it's optional. And then you have to weigh that to what are the results of the pilot? What are they telling us?

That can be the cost savings realization not only for the participating customer, but as the analysis pointed out, non participating customers. Such a broad mandate with a strict timeline may not be the right thing for every type of customer class.

Before I let the author respond, I don't interpret that section you're referring to as all customer classes. It says, on or before January 12028 the Commission shall require each electrical corporation to offer optional dynamic pricing tariffs consistent with the Energy Commission's electric load management standards, et cetera.

So, I mean, we're not going to go through line by line on the bill. I'm sure that you can do that with the author, but that's why I think that the concerns may be a bit unfounded. And I certainly feel like the concerns are resolvable and addressable if the author wants to respond.

We do want to work in concert with what's going on at the iou, and I do want to say I love the way you started out your testimony with. There is a lot of agreement, and we really need to. Their letter came in yesterday.

It's very early in the year, and we really need to have more thorough discussions.

All right. Seeing and hearing no other Members wishing to speak, I'll turn it back to you to close. Just respectfully ask for your aye vote. All right. And Madam Secretary. zero, we've got. Yeah, we've got a motion from Assemblymember Schultz, Second from Assemblymember Berner. Madam Secretary, please call the roll item number two.

AB710. The motion is due. Pass to Appropriations. Petrie Norris. Aye. Petrie Norris. Aye. Patterson.

Not very.

[Roll call]

Okay. 11. 0. That bill is out. And we will leave the roll open for absent Members to add on. Okay. All right, we'll go ahead and move to the consent calendar. Can I get a motion on the consent calendar? Okay. Motion from Assemblymember Boerner. Second from Assemblymember Zbur. Madam Secretary, please call the roll item number one.

AB34. The motion is due pass to Natural Resources.

[Roll call]

Okay150. The consent calendar is out. We will leave the role open for absent Members to add on. We are going to leave that role open for three minutes, so until 2:01. And at that point, we are going to adjourn this hearing and transition to our oversight hearing on the transmission accelerator implementation.

Item number one, AB34. The vote is15.0.

Okay, that Bill is out.

Item number two, AB710. The final vote is11.0.

That bill is out. And that concludes the business of today's bill hearing. So with that, we are adjourned.

Okay.

And we're back for the second part of today's doubleheader. I am calling to order today's hearing of the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Energy. We are here for an oversight hearing to discuss the implementation of the California transmission accelerator. This hearing marks the first in a series of oversight hearings that this Committee has planned for 2026.

And I want to thank the chair of the Assembly Budget Subcommitee number four, Assemblymember Bennett, for his partnership on this issue. I believe he'll be joining us during the hearing and thank him for his partnership also to ensure the successful implementation of the transmission accelerator in California. So with that, let us turn to the topic at hand.

As everyone on the dais knows and recognizes, this Committee and the Legislature as a whole has been laser focused on energy affordability and on bringing rates down for California ratepayers. In September of last year, the Legislature passed and the Governor signed into law SB254.

The measure is an expansive effort to address electricity affordability with provisions that limit investor owned utility earnings on capital projects, clarify and improve wildfire mitigation plan oversight, modify clean energy permitting, and fund an account to stabilize utility wildfire liabilities. SB254 also created the California Transmission Infrastructure Accelerator at the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development.

Public financing for transmission projects holds tremendous promise to save Californians and billions and billions of dollars. The logic underpinning the transmission accelerator is really quite straightforward. Public financing can lower borrowing costs, eliminate the need for profit, and reduce federal and state tax burdens. Together, these factors can reduce the cost of building transmission infrastructure.

Some studies have estimated the savings at as much as 40% of project costs.

With CAISO's 20 year outlook estimating that total transmission development costs for the state of California between now and 2045 are going to range between 45 to $63 billion, we need to pursue every possible opportunity to save Californians money and even modest cost savings on individual projects can compound into substantial cost reductions over the long term.

But as we know, passing that bill last year was really just the first step.

And our Assembly speaker and the Assembly as a whole has been focused not just on affordability, but on implementation and oversight and ensuring that the promises we make to California, the promises that we make to each other as we give speeches on the floor and make announcements to the press, are made real.

And that's why we are kicking off this year with our first oversight hearing focused on the implementation of the transmission accelerator. So I am really excited for today's update. We recognize that the implementation of the accelerator is going to be complex. It will take sustained effort to ensure that the accelerator is developed and operating as intended.

I also, before we jump in, want to make clear that the statute is broad enough to encompass many different models of partnership financing these projects. And that was absolutely intentional.

We want to understand how the market would respond, where the interest from local governments and private capital may be in order to enable the accelerator the flexibility to forge partnerships that make sense. This hearing and the administration's budget proposal are the first step in this implementation.

So I'm really looking forward to hearing from today's panelists on what the Legislature should be expecting in the year ahead, what is the plan to move forward and what are the next steps to ensure that the accelerator is implemented effectively in 2026. So with that, I think we are going to go ahead and welcome our panelists.

We are going to be joined by Lauren Greenwood, the Senior Deputy of Legislative and External affairs at the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development. Thank you for being here.

We are joined by Neil Miller, the Vice President of Transmission Planning and Infrastructure Development at the California Independent System Operator, and by Colby White, the Chief of the Revenue and Taxation Unit from the Department of Finance.

And I am so sorry, I did not realize that my co chair and the chair of our Assembly Budget Committee has indeed joined us. Before we begin with our panelists, we'd love for you to present any opening remarks.

Thank you very much. And really what I want to do is thank you for securing the legislation for this policy change. Certainly creative, certainly needed and as you say, it's complex. So it's going to be interesting. And so I appreciate your starting right off with some oversight in terms of this.

I appreciate that you were able to secure funding from Prop 4 and win the governor's support for this as it moves forward.

And I just wanted to let you know, I also appreciate this invitation to be here because implementation and the number of times this will come in front of budget sub 4, but will be significant over the next few years.

So thank you very much and I look forward to trying to work with you to make sure this happens. It's great effort and great policy.

Thank you, Chair Bennett, and welcome to our panelists. We will go ahead and begin. Ms. Greenwood, we'll go ahead and begin with you.

I think it's just loading.

And while we work to get that presentation up, if Committee Members want hard copies, I believe we have those. We have one. We're saving trees.

Wonderful. Good afternoon Chairs and Members. My name is Lauren Greenwood and I serve as a Senior Deputy of Legislative and External Affairs for the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development. I will present for Go Biz and Ibank's roles in the transmission accelerator implementation. So just wanted to set some context. You know who is Go Biz? Quickly?

As many of you know, Go Biz serves as the state's leader for job growth and economic development.

From supporting our 4.3 small businesses to ensuring the future of California's clean economy through our energy unit, to bolstering foreign direct investment, growing Hollywood's iconic film and television industry, we're here to support California's economic interests which are wide ranging and growing by the year.

We also provide the everyday services to business owners to help them start, grow and invest in California, including site selection, permit streamlining, navigating regulatory hurdles, identifying incentives and much more. We take this work very seriously, knowing how important it is that our state's economic future is guided by a consistent set of values, sustainability, inclusivity and competitiveness.

So what you're looking at is the result of our state's four year economic development strategy and planning document. So this is called our California's Jobs First Initiative and it's our historic statewide economic blueprint which helps anchor our priorities going into the final year of the Administration.

As many of you know, in 2021, Governor Newsom and the Legislature made a historic investment that catalyzed the launch of what we now known as the Regional Investment Initiative which started as a two and a half year effort to create unique regional plans across our 13 economic regions.

And while the work of building new tables was hard, the fact that we engaged more than 10,000 Californians throughout the process is something the Governor's Administration is proud of

hese regional plans were rolled into the state economic blueprint which was released last February and is the first statewide plan in over 20 years and the first regions up long term state economic strategy in the country.

As part of this initiative, we recently awarded 80 million to Fund ready to go projects that will support more than 23,000 jobs in 18 counties and drive sustainable economic growth across the state. Ensuring we create California for all continues to be a major priority.

And so what you're looking at is our key strategic sectors that we've identified for the state's economic future and and all of these sectors are supported by our anchor sectors, one of which is transmission and distribution. Hence the tie, I think the nice tie between what the Transmission Accelerator is proposing and what Go Biz's charter is.

So I wanted to just give a little bit of an overview of who the Energy Unit is. They help advance critical energy infrastructure projects that are necessary for the state to reach its climate goals and sustainability policy goals.

They've also conducted in depth engagement across a variety of state agencies, local governments, industry partners and community stakeholders to advance efforts to decarbonize the state's electrical grid by 2045. They participate in the Tracking Energy Development Task Force.

They are currently executing the Clean Energy Permitting Initiative and they're supporting on the Governor's Office recent executive order to support those large scale clean energy infrastructure projects that were affected by recent Federal Administration actions. Rohim Amali is joining us today as well.

She's our Deputy Director of the Energy Unit and is happy to take any Energy Unit specific questions. I Bank is also an implementing actor in the Transmission Accelerator Facility. They have been established since the early 1990s and have taken a small well, not small, but 100. Let's see. Where to go? Many apologies.

They took an initial General Fund investment in 1998 and 1999 totaling 162 million, but through their sustainable investment and financing have grown these funds to close over a billion dollars in infrastructure loans. They provide they service a variety of programs including our Infrastructure State Revolving Fund, Small Business Finance Center Bond Financing Program and expanding Venture Capital access.

And our IBANX Executive Director Andy Nakahata is joined with me today too. And so for the implementation of the Transmission Accelerator. The Accelerator, as you all know, is established within G Biz Energy Unit. The Accelerator's current consulting parties are the PUC, the Energy Commission, CAISO and Ibank.

The accelerator's responsibilities through at least January 12031 including developing a financing and development strategy for eligible transmission projects resulting from the CAISO Transmission Planning process. That is a key criteria to be to be able to participate in the Accelerator.

Once the project has been identified, the Accelerator will take the necessary steps to advance the deployment and development to maximize our ratepayer savings. I Bank will then consider projects selected by the Accelerator for public financing and again this eligibility is dependent on the CAISO's TPP process. Projects will be evaluated and approved based on financial viability.

IBANK will continue to monitor and service loans for the life life of the loans and debt even after the sunset of the Accelerator Fund. These projects will utilize public financing and will be eligible for a tax credit for qualified expenses expenditures.

And lastly, all of this work will require some investment and so that we are proposing 10 limited term positions to support the California Transmission Accelerator Revolving Fund. This Fund is financed through Prop 4 and the CAP and trade some of the cap and trade proceeds.

These positions will further implement SB254 and manage incoming program funds over the five years to support public financing for qualified transmission projects.

In total, over the five years, our Administration costs are anticipated to be nearly $26 million and we will be proposing forthcoming trailer bill Language that will seek to clarify the roles and responsibilities of the accelerator, affirm IBANX charter to provide sustainable public financing through its existing governance structure.

And these changes also specify that accelerator financing is separate from Ibank's others funds and has its own revenue stream. These changes also firm the PRA exemption protection needed in order for developers to be willing to share confidential and proprietary business information with IBANK and Go Biz to assess the financing.

And lastly, for projects receiving accelerator financing, we are including some language that adds requirements for the selection of the contractors for the construction and maintenance of finance transmission projects. With that, happy to take any questions.

All right, thank you. I think what we'll do is hear. From all of our panelists and then. Give Members an opportunity to ask questions once we get the full picture. So with that we will turn to Mr. Miller.

Thank you and thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today.

The issues I was asked to address were to touch at a high level on the California ISO's transmission planning process, focus in a bit more specifically on the competitive procurement process used to identify certain projects for how they will actually be acquired, and then also touch on how we can work with the transmission accelerator to help the transmission accelerator move forward.

So that's the gist of the presentation and there we go. So just to recap a bit about the transmission planning itself, the ISO is responsible for the overall expansion planning in our footprint, looking at the reliability, policy and economic needs of the transmission system.

Our transmission planning process is heavily coordinated with key state agencies, in particular coordinating with the California Energy Commission on the load forecasting and with the California Public Utilities Commission for its centralized role in resource planning and working together with those agencies both on providing input as well as working with their results as input into our process.

Also, our transmission planning is conducted under the provisions of a federally regulated tariff with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The transmission planning process itself has two main documents that we've been relying on. Our annual process is the actual approval vehicle for our Board of Governors to approve a plan.

And over the last four years, the transmission planning process has resulted in over $22 billion of investment being identified, approved and moving forward. That investment of course, is recovered through customer rates over the life of the projects, not an upfront charge.

We do focus on the most efficient and effective long term solutions, including consideration of grid enhancing technologies. So cost is very much a concern in these activities.

We also have started to prepare 20 year outlook documents that were not a requirement by legislation or or tariff, but were developed as a guidepost for the long term plan so that stakeholders, when they see a ten year plan, see how it fits into the longer term direction.

Another key aspect of our planning process has been to tighten the linkages between resource and transmission planning, procurement and interconnection processes to ensure that we're providing the most efficient and effective results.

That most recently culminated with the execution of an updated Memorandum of understanding with the two state agencies in December of 2022, setting out tighter levels of expectations of how we would work together. And that was actually pivotal in some of the changes we made to enhance our interconnection process for new resources in 2024 and 2025.

Moving a bit more closely to the competitive procurement aspect and eligible projects. Each year, following the board approval of our annual transmission plan, the ISO then solicits proposals to finance, construct, own and operate and maintain transmission facilities for the eligible projects.

And our tariff defines those eligible projects as those that are over 200kV and are not upgrades, replacements or modifications to existing transmission facilities. Essentially it's to apply to greenfield new facilities we do include. Examples do include AC and DC transmission lines, substations and switching stations, and reactive and dynamic support devices.

Since we implemented this process in 201021 projects had been awarded competitively. And we have two that are moving through the competitive process as we speak. Of those, 15 were awarded to independent developers, three to incumbent participating transmission owners, and three to partnerships of existing transmission owners and independent developers.

Now I should mention three of those projects were subsequently cancelled a few years ago due to changing circumstances, but that was how the award process played out. The competitively awarded projects represent a smaller number but a significant portion of new transmission expenditures.

Looking at the last four years, 11 of the 128 projects approved in our transmission plans were eligible for competition, which is only 9%, but they represented 46% of the total estimated capital requirement, just about $10.5 billion.

So we do see the competitive process focusing on a relatively smaller number of projects, but representing a significant portion of the capital. When we are selecting the sponsor to award a competitively procured project, the objective is to determine the most qualified project sponsor overall.

Best able to basically build, own, operate and maintain that facility over the life of the project, and maximizing overall benefits and reducing the risk of untimely complete completion and project abandonment.

The selection is based on a comparative analysis of the degree to which each project sponsor's proposal meets the criteria and selection factors that are set out in our tariff. More weight is given in that process. The key selection factors identified for the specific needs of the project. But cost and cost containment is always a key selection factor.

So when we look at this overall process, we do see that there is a great deal of alignment between the Transmission Infrastructure accelerator and the ISOs competitive solicitation process. We do not anticipate at this time any changes being necessary to the tariff to complement the efforts of the Transmission Infrastructure Accelerator.

We do see being able to continue to rely on the key selection factors and the selection factors described in our tariff with a particular emphasis on cost and cost containment. And we do recognize that in our process we can proactively acknowledge the opportunity for participants to engage with the Transmission Accelerator as a qualified bidder.

So with that, I'll end my presentation and look forward to the questions. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, and we'll now turn to Mr. White.

Good afternoon. Thank you Chair Members, Colby White with the Department of Finance. And so here I'm here today to provide a brief overview of the Transmission Accelerator tax credit that's established under this program. This tax credit is available to transmission developers that participate in the California Transmission Accelerator Revolving Fund Program Administered by the I Bank.

The tax credit is designed to work in Tandem or alongside the below market public financing from the I Bank. The idea being that developers access low cost debt through the revolving Fund and they also can potentially receive a tax credit to further reduce project costs and provide additional savings to ratepayers. The credit equals 20% of qualified expenditures.

It's defined quite broadly. It includes planning, design, engineering, permitting, construction equipment and wages directly related to an eligible transmission project. The credit is capped at $20 million per taxpayer per year and is available for tax years 2026 through 2035.

It is a non refundable tax credit that can be taken against either personal income tax or corporation tax in the state. And then the credit also has an eight year carry forward. So taxpayers without sufficient tax liability in a given year will be able to use the credits in future years that they may have a tax liability.

So that concludes my presentation. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now open it up for any questions or comments from Committee Members.

Assemblymember Rogers, thank you so much. I might ask this in the most in artful way, so just bear with me. So I help represent Humboldt County. Go Biz has recognized the importance of the offshore wind project. We know economically what that means for the state. It's recognized in the state's climate action plans.

Caiso has helped Fund some of the transmission work that's being done there. And CPUC just came out a couple of months ago recommending for the transmission to have an in service date in Humboldt of 2041. So nowhere near the speed or scale that we've been talking about.

So as we're giving additional tools to try to build out the transmission network, how are you all coordinating to make sure that your priorities and the administration's priorities and our local government's priorities are actually in the pipeline and being pushed at a reasonable speed? Working with groups like the CPUC and with the Energy Commission.

It's Neil here. I can start with that from a transmission planning perspective that we do. As I mentioned, the coordination with the resource planning conducted by the Public Utilities Commission, that's really our policy direction moving forward on how to adapt to changing circumstances. I should clarify that right now.

The target date for the two major projects that we awarded last year for the Humboldt region, the current target date for those projects is 2036 or sorry, 2034. And a CPUC proposed decision came out yesterday suggesting that we might want to consider moving that date to 2036.

So there the resources are coming online, are expected to come online over a time frame building up, I believe, to 2041 for the first tranche. But the bottom line is we do coordinate very closely and we do adapt as needed. If there is a change in the transmission requirement, we would adapt accordingly.

Yeah. And I'm referencing rulemaking 2506019 that was proposed in December here by the CPUC.

Yes. And then a proposed decision just came out last yesterday. Right. Go Biz.

Thank you for the question. Assemblymember. I think certainly looking at energy planning and deployment from an economic development lens is very important. Maybe Molly, the tracking energy development task force could kind of shed some light on just some broader efforts around.

Rahima Molly, Deputy Director with the Energy Unit. There is increased coordination, I think, to what Neil was saying. The energy unit is now part of the coordinating entity on transmission, especially with the creation of the accelerator to better guide policies going forward.

So I mean, in terms of energy project development, we do track large generation projects that are expected to come online and try to assist if there are issues that arise from those, you know, during deployment and what we're looking next. And part of the responsibility of the accelerator is to provide similar support services for transmission projects.

And that is what we're going to need staffing and budget to. To be able to. To do.

Right.

All right, thank you, Assemblymember Bennett.

Thank you very much.

I'll take that a little bit further.

My fundamental question is because we have such fragmented sort of leadership here when it comes to the whole grid issue between CPUC and Caiso and Energy Commission, the Executive branch, legislative policy, et cetera, who is it that's out there right now looking at the supply chain, potential bottlenecks to make sure that besides the financing, which is what the accelerator is mostly focused on, that we're not hung up in terms of those things.

And I preface that by saying by putting the name accelerator on it immediately makes you think we have to speed things up besides make things more cost effective for the ratepayers. So could you help me with that first? That's my first question.

Yeah, I'd be happy to. So right up front, you know, I did mention the level of coordination that goes on between the Public Utilities Commission, Energy Commission and ourselves.

We have actually weekly meetings between staff level with Public Utility Commission staff and our own staff on ensuring that the transmission planning inputs and how we're looking at the transmission planning process aligns with what's going on inside the resource planning being led by the Public Utilities Commission.

Annually we provide data that's publicly transparent into the CPUC's resource planning process. So they have an our view of the consequences and the transmission requirements to access key resource areas and they get to take that into account in doing their resource planning.

Those integrated overall optimized portfolios are then what are passed back to us to do the detailed planning, design the individual solutions that are required and ask our board to approve once we move to execution. As I mentioned, relatively few. A smaller number of projects are competitively awarded. The larger number are assigned to incumbent utilities.

The modification, because we do a lot of upgrades rather than just building new facilities, it's both faster and lower cost to upgrade an existing facility than build new. So we do have many of those. Now the ongoing project tracking is led.

There are several efforts we conduct with the Public Utilities Commission a twice a year transmission development forum where we're reviewing the costs and or sorry the delays and timing of any major projects that are underway as well.

The Public Utilities Commission has called for additional cost reporting through a program that they run to ensure that the costs are being paid attention to as well.

So we have a number of these mechanisms, not only after we've initiated a project, but to track their progress as they're being built, as they move through the procurement of materials, as they go through their permitting process and actually go through construction to come online. Because we also have many generators that are waiting for those transmission projects.

It's been many years since we could just count on the capacity that was available and have generators move forward. We have generators moving forward that are counting on transmission projects hitting their in service dates and coming online.

So this gets a lot of scrutiny, not only from us, but from the generators that are counting on that transmission capacity becoming available.

I appreciate that answer, but very specifically, who is responsible to make sure that the supply chain is going to be able to deliver the equipment that we need three years from now, five years from now, et cetera? Is it the CPUC or is it Caiso? I mean, to hear that it goes back and forth between the two.

Well, the supply chain itself is largely left to industry, but we do watch and predict project what the requirements are so that the people that are interested in developing these transmission facilities are aware the utilities are also monitoring their own long term requirements.

So we're basically counting on the market to make sure that the supply is available when we need it for the.

Capital equipment that is required. Yes, we are counting on the market and worldwide supply chains.

And I have some concern with what we're seeing in terms of the worldwide supply chain right now, the dependence on China for so many aspects of it, etc.

So I would just encourage us to think, be thoughtful and think this through in terms of whether that is still a reliable way for us to move forward with something as important as you said, these generators waiting for these projects to move forward.

We really appreciate the concern because this is something we're also in constant discussion about. It is an ongoing concern. We know that the Public Utilities Commission has also asked the utilities.

Setting aside that smaller number of competitive projects, the utilities not only have the work that comes through our planning process and our interconnection process, they also have all the additional capital replacement work that they need to take care of.

So we know that the utilities have generally started to shift back to some practices that weren't popular a few years ago of starting to pre order certain standard bulk equipment like circuit breakers, knowing that they will have an application even if the specific application hasn't been identified yet.

Thank you. I have two other quick questions. I'd like to try to keep the answers quick too.

But I think for Go Biz and the two of you, do you anticipate the people, the staff working on the accelerator project to be not just focusing on the financing and trying to make this, create a financing plan that's, that's come forward that makes a lot of sense for the ratepayers, but also being pushing, pushing to make sure that CAISO moves as fast as we can possibly get them to move, that the CP CPUC moves quickly, that their paying attention to supply chains.

Do you see yourselves, do you see this Department as being sort of the point of the spear in terms of trying to energize everybody?

I think there is a provision in the statute that says that the accelerator would monitor project development and provide support as needed through engagement with state entities involved or even local and helping to push whether it's permitting and other types of issues that may arise.

Thank you. I would encourage us to have it go beyond support and it would be informing all of us of where you see issues that need to be, you know, need to be addressed. So that would encourage us to do that.

And the final thing I would leave for our chair and that is we're counting on the tax credit is the primary financial motivation for people to move forward.

And yet, and I shouldn't say yet and, and this is going to have a benefit for the taxpayer, I mean for the ratepayer because as you said, we're not going to be paying that 10% because of that.

I think in the long run we might want to consider ratepayer funding going into one time funds to the state to pay so that the ratepayer doesn't have to pay year after year. So I just wanted to let you know I'd like to throw that out there for us in the long run to consider.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Assemblymember Schiavo.

Thank you. So do you. I know this is kind of big, big, big changes, big ideas. We need lots of big ideas right now for the big issues that we're facing. Do you, I'm curious if you think that Go Biz has sufficient authority to coordinate the.

That are necessary to move the accelerator projects forward or if further guidance is needed. You have opinions on that?

I think for Go Biz we often find ourselves in this facilitator role, whether it's for clean energy or public financing, etc. I think the boards of our operating entities are often in collaboration with many departments and agencies, and I think we find ourselves being able to develop and build productive relationships.

So we're very optimistic that this is a role that will find continued success. I think our engagement certainly will be long term.

These projects come to come through the TPP process at various levels of maturity, and so certainly some of our services such as like permit assistance and support, we have an ability to leverage our other existing staff and experts.

And do you anticipate I know this is a partnership with CPUC, CEC, CAISO, Ibank. Are there other public entities that you anticipate working with and coordinating on this?

We do. I mean this is something new that we're creating.

And so I think it's going to take a lot of engagement with other trade associations like on the public side, such as Gapa, who may or may not be interested, other stakeholders involved in the energy space to get an understanding of their interest of being the public entity that may be interested in partnering with the private developer to effectuate a project.

Do you, and do you anticipate any of those partnerships where you'll be able to produce, I mean, are you seeking out partnerships, I guess. Or anticipate any partnerships where you think you'll be able to produce more savings for ratepayers?

I think it's early, too early to tell. I mean we have to be able to develop, develop a public private partnership financing strategy to look at what those financing options are. This is quite a niche market transportation, you know, financing that.

I think it's going to take us some time and some more understanding of what that may look like.

And do you, I mean, I know you know this, the big goal of this is that we can save a lot of money. It also can cost a lot of money up front to. You got to spend money to make money kind of concept.

And, and you know, and now we've also just passed legislation around regionalization and I don't know how much of the dollars that were in the analysis, if, if or if you have any thoughts or input on kind of how regionalization could change the need for trans.

Does it like how much do we think having access to other states, you know, energy is going to really change the need for transmission or do you think it increases the need for transmission to be able to move that around? What do we have a sense of how that could impact our overall transmission needs?

Well, overall the regionalized market we see as a tremendous efficiency tool.

But one of the conditions or one of the issues normally going into those market structures is that everyone that's participating is expecting to show up with the resources that they're bringing, the resources they needed to stay reliable to the table and then we can operate them far more efficiently under a regional market structure.

And it's really not an opportunity for one state to, I'll say, lean on another's resources. Now that being said, the long term plans from the Public Utilities Commission do call for increased procurement of out of state resources, out of state wind in particular, that has a strong diversity advantage.

So it's a really valuable asset, not just on a megawatt hour basis, but the diversity advantage helps. And that will require additional transmission.

As part of that, we do participate in a number of westwide coordination efforts so that when we are looking at how to bring those resources to California, we can do so in the most effective way. And if that includes partnering up with one of our regional neighbors, overall, that's a way to reduce cost r ratepayers.

And in all of those planning activities, while we're participating, looking at westwide models and everyone there is representing the interests of their consumers, us included.

But like I said, as that system develops, then we're looking for how can we operate it the most efficiently through the regional market so that overall, the lowest cost resources at any particular time are the ones being dispatched.

Thank you.

Well, I'll just start by saying thank you to all of you for the work that's been done thus far. I know in when we had an initial meeting to discuss the proposals that were in the governor's budget, my team and I were actually really, really pleased.

I think that taken together, those budget commitments really represent an important step to move this forward and to make the promise of the transmission accelerator real. I do want to dig into a handful of questions and I guess I'll start with.

So actually, as we're talking about other states, so this idea of public financing for transmission infrastructure is certainly not a new one and certainly not unique to California. There's a number of other states that are doing this and are doing this in a way that seems to be effective and seems to be saving ratepayers money.

So how are we ensuring that we're learning from other states and as we develop our California plan, that we are following best practices, also learning from mistakes, but really identifying and learning from best practices.

So we've, after passage of 254, we started to do informal engagement and reach out to different stakeholders, investment firms, New Mexico, Rita, for example, to learn how they run, you know, their program and what they finance and what you know, the their priorities are to get those lessons learned and best practices. And we're going to continue that.

But we're hoping that, you know, being able to bring on the consultant to help us do this more effectively and nationally to see other than New Mexico, who else is doing this and maybe even outside of the US and internationally too, to get those lessons learned and how we should implement and set up the accelerator.

That's great. And I'm going to turn Mr. Nakahata to you. Thank you for being here. And actually, before I jump into my questions regarding the iBank's role as it pertains to the transmission accelerator.

It might be helpful for Members if you could just give us a very brief overview of the work that iBank has done historically, the two minute history of iBank, just to set the context for Members.

So iBank has a variety of different programs. We're a bit, as I stated before, we're the state's only General purpose financing agency and we're a little bit of the catch all. If it doesn't naturally fit or isn't served by another agency within the state, then it generally can fall to the iBank.

And so we have a variety of different programs. We have a large portfolio of guarantees on economic development loans. I think right now it's between 600 and $700 million. 70% of the portfolio is $150,000 or less in terms of loan size. So you can imagine, you can do the math, it's a fairly large portfolio.

In addition to that, we are trying to expand the venture capital ecosystem to better reflect the state of California's demographics. So we have our expanding venture capital access program. We also have the infrastructure state revolving loan program where we make loans at tax exempt rates for municipal entities for their infrastructure needs. I think that's.

Oh, and in addition to that, we also serve as a conduit bond financing agency. We recently closed the larger structuring for the Brightline west train project, high speed rail project from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. So we're involved in a number of different financial programs.

Okay, great, that's helpful. And can you speak to how iBank thinks about its appetite for risk as a public lender tasked with advancing public policy goals?

So iBank is willing to take risk, but we want to do the analysis to understand the risk that we're taking. And we certainly, you know, as we, I can't apply it to transmission since we haven't seen the projects yet or what the risks are. But in every loan that we make, we are analyzing the risks there.

And our appetite is we don't want to lose money on it. We certainly in our economic development portfolio, you know, which is really true mom and pop small business loans for the most part and contains a lot of risk.

We are looking at, you know, we're constantly monitoring our default rates and working with our lending partners in terms of, you know, making sure that that's managed. So we recognize that lending has to incorporate risk. But we want to make sure that we've prudently analyzed the risks and understand them.

And this question may be premature, but if you, if you have A strategic frame. How does iBank intend to price the loans for TIA projects?

It's really premature at this point and I think that that's going to be a discussion that we have with the accelerator, with, with the various parties participating in the accelerator to determine what's the right strategy. And it depends on size of loans, scope of projects, you know, and what the risk is.

You know, generally in our other loan portfolios, we price it off of General tax exempt market rates and we do a credit analysis where we assess, we both do an internal assessment and we use a Moody's investor service tool to assess ratings on projects and then we tie pricing to that.

And one of the things I think that my team and I have been talking about is the role that iBank can play in delivering a higher debt to equity ratio for projects, one that better reflects developer risks and delivers savings to consumers. Do you have thoughts on that and how iBank can play that role?

So, so tax exempt debt, if these can be financed on a tax exempt base basis, is inherently lower cost. And lower cost enables, enables a project developer to have a higher ratio of debt to equity in terms, in terms of the project.

It still is yet to be seen since we don't know the projects and we don't know who the parties are, whether or not these can be financed on a taxable or tax exempt basis.

And so my last question is for you, but actually for all of the panelists. Are there any elements in current statute that as you have dug in, you think need clarification or expansion either to give you the requisite authority to clarify how different agencies should work together, roles and responsibilities.

Are there any pieces of statute that you think need clarification or expansion at this stage?

As Lauren mentioned, there are a number of cleanup items which are really clarifications between the authority and the role of the iBank and the accelerator. And we do think that some of those are important in terms of moving forward on implementation, especially to keep the independence of the iBank.

You know, we do have an independent AAA rating and the market needs to recognize that we have independent decision making authority on that. I don't know if Lauren, you want to comment further?

And Mr. Miller, any thoughts from Kaiser's perspective? Not, not from our side. Great. Assemblymember.

Just one very quick point. Oftentimes in our hearings in budget sub 4, we've had the issue of limited term positions and the difficulty of finding quality people. And I note here that we have these are all limited term positions coming on board. So at the very beginning.

I hope that we would hear back quickly from Caiso, I mean, from Go-Biz if we're having trouble finding the quality people that we need. And we need to at least have some of these positions become fixed term positions so that you can attack quality. Thank you.

Thank you for that point. So with that, I think that concludes the questions from Committee Members. I want to thank all of you for both being here today and for your work on this and so many other important priorities for the state of California.

As I said at the beginning, this Committee has been really laser focused on affordability and the public can certainly expect that focus to continue this year. We are continuing to turn, overturn every rock to identify any opportunity to save customers money in both the short and the long term.

So we look forward to continuing to work with all of you as we implement the transmission accelerator this year. And we will certainly be seeing, I think, many of you again in Assembly Member Bennett's sub four Committee as the year unfolds. So with that, we'll go ahead and open it up for public comment.

And if you'd like to participate in public comment, you can go ahead and approach the microphone at this time.

Hello. Thank you, Madam Chair and Committee Members for holding this hearing today. We're very interested in the development of this program. Molly. I'm Molly Kroll with American Clean Power California. We represent some transmission developers who participate in the Caisos competitive process.

We share the goals of making new trans, the new transmission accelerator program, which is intended to expedite affordable transmission development for both reliability and clean energy. However, we do have some questions on the implementation and really protecting the role of the competitive transmission developer in this program.

California's competitive solicitation process right now has already cut between, well, I should say between 2013 and 2019 capital cost by about 30%. And that's because the participation of competitive bidders creates a competitive process that drives down costs.

In addition, the CAISOS agreements with those competitive bidders include cost containment provisions which keep cost overruns down and also actually penalize transmission developers for failing to meet deadlines. So that process is really important. Transmission development is also extraordinarily difficult and requires specialized engineering, project management, construction expertise, and finance.

And given the major backlog in transmission development in the state, having those third parties bring resources and capital and expertise is extremely important. As Neil pointed out, the competitive solicitation opportunity which this program is currently targeting is already pretty limited.

So only 21 projects in the last 10 years, or by my count, 11 in the last four cycles and only I think eight private competitive developers that have been deemed qualified.

So it's a limited number of parties and we want to make sure that those developers stay participating in the process and don't want to leave California as a result. I have two recommendations. First is to enable and encourage public finance models that invite independent transmission developers to participate into the project.

So that means allowing them to have some level of ownership in the project and allowing them to make a return on the investment that they bring into the project.

For example, a model sort of similar to citizens where there's sort of a lease between a public agency and the private developer could be a suitable model as compared to one where it's majority public ownership.

And these private developers are just sort of building a bringing a design build level into the 3p model, which we think would be both more risky and less attractive. Second, the program should clarify the structure in terms of the suitable 3p model before the start of the CAISO competitive process.

So that means identifying who the public partners would be and the terms and obligations of the partnership. So who has liability, who has ownership, what are the responsibilities? And I note that in the BCP from iBank they're suggesting 10 to 12 months to identify suitable bidders in their process.

That's compared to the average 10 week process of the Kaiser's process. So, you know, just important to get that timing correct. In summary, I think maximizing savings through this program is a really laudable goal.

But I would also suggest that getting it right with the first few few projects, even if it's more modest savings, will result in a better, stronger long term program for this state. With that, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon Chair and Members. Thank you for the opportunity to comment today and thank you Chair for your leadership and focus on delivering needed infrastructure more quickly and at a lower cost for ratepayers. I'm Molly Corcoran on behalf of Alice Power, a leading transmission investor, developer, operator and owner nationally.

Alice Power has built or is developing more than 1100 miles of transmission across nine states. Representing over 9 billion in investment in California. LS Power has been selected by CAISO to build more to build and operate more competitively awarded transmission projects than any other entity based on innovative design and enforceable cost containment commitments that directly benefit ratepayers.

We strongly support the goal of accelerating transmission delivery. Our comments are focused on implementation details and how the accelerator complements are based on attention. Unintentionally, unintentionally disrupt California's successful competitive transmission framework. Our recommendations today include that the accelerator could represent a meaningful shift in the role of the project proponent, particularly with respect to ownership.

For many competitive developers, long term ownership and operation are what justify committing significant private capital and ensuing construction, operational and wildfire related risks. If ownership is limited or uncertain, developers may understandably reassess where to deploy scarce capital potentially outside the state of California.

Clarifying how private developers can continue to participate in a way that supports sustained investment would help preserve robust competition. Second, alignment with CAISA's competitive solicitation timelines is critical. The statute appears to assume that private public partnership arrangements can be identified and largely resolved before bids are submitted.

In practice, those agreements are complex and directly affected pricing and financing. Without additional clarity or timing adjustments, some developers may be unable to participate fully in upcoming solicitations, which could reduce competitive pressure and increase cost to ratepayers.

Third, we believe that additional clarity would be helpful regarding the source of expected cost savings if the primary benefit is to access lower cost public financing.

A financing only option could pursue preserve competition when while achieving that goal, if public ownership is central to the savings, clearer guidance on the ownership thresholds and risk allocation would allow developers to make important participation decisions. Finally, clarity around the allocation of operational and wildfire related risk is essential.

Uncertainty in these areas directly affects financing costs and developer willingness to engage in closing. We appreciate the Chair's leadership in the Legislature's intent to accelerate transmission delay delivery.

We respectfully suggest that at a minimum, the accelerator does not be applied to the 2026 CAISO planning cycle until until key implementation details such as the public ownership, the terms of pro forma agreements and risk allocation are developed and are publicly available.

Without clarity, private transmission developers may not be able to meaningfully participate in the CAISO process, potentially resulting in higher costs for such projects. Alice Power looks forward to working collaboratively with the Chair, the Committee, the Administration, and other stakeholders to ensure the accelerator achieves the its goals while preserving the benefits of competition for California ratepayers. Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you Committee. My name is Will Abrams. I am part of the Utility Wildfire Survivor Coalition and I wanted to make a comment today just to really ensure that as we're talking about acceleration of transmission that we're also thinking about wildfire safety, specifically around wildfire mitigation plans.

So we want to make sure the more agencies we have involved that there's clear responsibilities in terms of who's regulating what in terms of infrastructure and who owns what in terms of infrastructure.

We have seen fire after fire where when something bad happens, right, that there is a lot of discussion and a lot of litigation around who owns what and who's going to be responsible for what.

And then you have communities and wildfire survivors stuck in the middle trying to understand who's responsible, both from the regulatory side and from sort of the operations side. So just to caution the Committee that as you're thinking through these issues, that wildfire safety is in the forefront of your decision making. Thank you.

Thank you. And with that, looks like that has concluded the business of today's hearing. In closing, I'll just say, as we've often talked about in this Committee, this is really and truly a pivotal moment for California. We are decarbonizing our economy and building our clean energy future. Part of that is a moment of generational investments.

As I said at the beginning, we are making generational investments in in transmission infrastructure. By 2045, we are going to increase generation in the state of California by some 300% and transmission by some 350%.

So as we're making these generational investments, we need to do so in a way that ensures that we keep ratepayers front and center and that we continue to work together to build a future that is sustainable as well as reliable and affordable.

So look forward to continuing to do that work with all of you, with all of my colleagues, and with that, we are adjourned.