Assembly Standing Committee on Utilities and Energy

Good afternoon. Good afternoon, and welcome. I'd like to convene today's hearing of the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Energy. Before we move to today's agenda, I have a few housekeeping announcements to make. As is customary, I will maintain a quorum throughout today's hearing.

In order to hear as much from the public within the limits of our time, we will not permit disruptions that impede the orderly conduct of legislative business. Any individual who is disruptive may be removed from the room. Today, we have three measures on the agenda. Please note that Assemblymember Erwin will be absent from committee today. And as a reminder, testimony is limited to two witnesses each on both the support and opposition side.

Each witness will have two minutes. As a reminder, primary witnesses in support must be those accompanying the author or who otherwise have registered a support position with the committee, and the primary witnesses in opposition must have their opposition registered with the committee. All other support and opposition can be stated at the standing microphone when called upon. And as a reminder, if you're providing me two testimonies, please state your name, affiliation, and position. I believe that is it.

Alright. We do not have a quorum, so we will go ahead and proceed as a subcommittee. And we'll jump right in to item number one, which is AB 1715 by Assemblymember Schiavo.

Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you, Madam Chair and members who are here, for the opportunity to present AB 1715 today. I really appreciate the committee's work on this bill and will be accepting the committee amendments. AB 1715 is broadly focused on transparency and has two parts.

First, the bill would require that the CPUC establishes a searchable database on its website of utility advice letters, responses, and resolutions going back to 2020. Database is challenging to navigate, and it is practically impossible to follow the paper trail between an advice letter and its outcome, or letter and its outcome or CPUC resolution from the outside. Second, the bill would set up a quarterly reporting structure to ensure proper oversight of taxpayer funds, of government loans, or grants, to investor owned utilities. Investor owned utilities have increasingly sought non traditional funding such as government loans. For example, in January 2025, PG and E finalized a loan for the Department of Energy for $15,000,000,000 for load growth and reliability projects.

Alternative financing mechanisms such as these publicly financed loans or grants are a key recommendation from the rate payer advocates because they will lower utility borrowing costs and shareholder equity returns offering potential savings for rate payers. Proper oversight to ensure funds are spent responsibly and accounting is transparent is essential if rate payers are to receive the savings that they are due. Here with me to testify in support of AB 1715 is Adria Tinnen from the Utility Reform Network. Thank you for joining us today.

Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you, committee members. I'm doctor Adria Tinnin, director of race equity and legislative policy at TURN, the Utility Reform Network, here as sponsor of AB 1715. This bill may look familiar to to some of you as it is in part a rerun of AB 1020 which passed out of this committee last year.

As you all know, California is in an affordability crisis. This particular committee has done a lot to combat that, but our skyrocketing energy utility bills, which have nearly doubled over the last ten years, are continuing in that trajectory. To improve affordability while still building out the grid to meet future need and doing what's necessary to prevent utility caused wildfires, we've seen an uptick in alternative sources of funding. The PG and E receiving a $15,000,000,000, DOE loan, for example. Another great example is, securitized funding that was pursued and championed, rightfully so, last year in s b 254.

These alternative funding streams have the potential to save rate payers billions of dollars. But right now, we have no way to effectively track those savings and ensure rate payers receive the full benefit of these alternative streams. AB 1715 provides critical transparency and accountability. For transparency, of rate increases by directing the commission, thanks to the committee amendments, to establish a searchable database. Right now, the only way to find out about advice letters being filed is to be on the correct service list.

With dozens and dozens of applications and and advice letters filed every year, it's impossible to track. So the database, including advice letters, protest letters, and resolutions filed in response, it is an incredible asset for not only rate rate payer advocates, but the public as well. AV 1715 also provides important accountability by improving utilities reporting of state federal grants, loans, and bonds to CPUC in a few ways. It centralizes utility reporting of all public funding being sought or secured and requires utilities to report this information in each application where it's seeking rate payer funding. And lastly, the bill requires utilities to quantify potential cost reduction and deliver those back to to rate payers. In order to achieve affordability, we have to have accountability. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no other primary witness in support, we'll go ahead and open it up for any additional support testimony in the room. If you'd like to testify in support of a b 1715 you can approach the microphone. Okay. Seeing none, we'll move to witnesses in opposition. Do we have a primary witness in opposition to AB 1715? All right. Seeing none, we'll take me two test oh, somebody someone's putting up the primary witness hand. Come on up. No. Are you just just me too? Okay.

Joe Zanze with San Diego Gas and Electric and SoCal Gas. We had an opposed position on the bill in print, but appreciate the amendments from the committee and the author moving the, advice letter database to the PUC, moved our primary concern. Still reviewing the the stuff on the reporting, but I think we we're in a good spot and look forward to continuing working with the author and committee. So thank you.

Thank you. We don't have a quorum, but at the appropriate time, we will have a motion for mister Rogers and a second, mister Gonzales. It's a good time to remind our colleagues to please join us in Room 437. Okay. So we'll take any, testimony in opposition in the room. If you wanna testify in opposition to AB 1715 you can approach the microphone at this time. Okay. Seeing and hearing none, any questions or comments from committee members? Right. Assemblymember Schiavo.

We're just gonna leave it at that. This is a repeat. We've already had this conversation. Affordability is good. Transparency is good. This bill helps go both to do both. Thank you.

Thank you, Assemblymember. Alright. Moving to file item two, AB 1761 Assemblymember Rogers.

Well, first of all, thank you so much, madam chair. I'm just gonna start off by quoting my colleague that affordability is good and transparency is good. That's what AB 1761 are really yes. Deep thoughts, gets at. First of all, we will accept the committee's amendments, and I wanna thank, committee staff for working us working with us on it, and welcome to our new committee consultants, for their for their efforts.

AB 1761 really deals with the PCIA, the power charge and difference adjustment that CCAs and other departing loads are required, to pass on to their to their rate payers. And what this bill does is it allows for, interested parties to be able to utilize a pre established, a nondisclosure process from the CPUC to get advanced notice and an advanced look at what data is being used to calculate that PCIA. That will allow for, a longer runway to be able to adjust to changes that are coming, as well as increased accountability and scrutiny on those numbers where we have seen adjustments needed to be made, after the fact, once we did have access to this, information. CCAs, oftentimes don't have access to the same information depending on which proceeding it is or which IOU it is, so this would help to standardize that process as well. With me, we have two experts.

We have Katie Morcini, who's the senior counsel for Cal CCA, as well as Howard Chang, who's the CEO of AVA Community Energy, who can talk through how this would have a broader impact.

Hi. My name is Katie Morzoni. I am senior counsel at the California Community Choice Association or Cal CCA. Cal CCA is proud to sponsor AB 1761 and thanks assembly member Rogers for authoring this important transparency legislation. Community choice aggregators or CCAs are nonprofit local government agencies that procure energy and capacity for their customers as an alternative to the generation service provided by the IOUs.

There are 25 CCAs serving 15,000,000 customers. The state law authorizing CCAs requires that customers departing IOU bundled service pay their fair share of legacy power cost and that bundled customers are not harmed by the departure of customers to CCAs. The PCIA is designed to ensure that this indifference is achieved. While CCA customers pay the PCIA charge, they do not have access to all the data underlying the charge and limited ability to assess the impact on CCA customers that proposed changes to the PCIA methodology. They're unable to audit for potential errors, and it's difficult to forecast future rates.

A b 1761 would ensure that CCAs and other customer advocates are able to access all data informing the PCIA or any changes to the PCIA. Direction and with limited process, the CPUC adopted sudden and major methodological changes to the market price benchmark or MPB, a key input to the PCIA. The CPUC did not calculate the rate impacts of the change on customers. Meanwhile, the CCAs themselves did not have access to the data needed to accurately forecast the impact of the CPUC's changes on their customer rates. The result was substantial increases in PCIe rates on short notice.

The CPUC did not respond to multiple written and oral requests for the data underlying their proposed changes. And as Howard will tell you more about, the CPUC has only just started responding to a PRA request for this information, but only after 400 days. AB 1761 would have ensured that the CCAs had the information that they needed to manage the potential rate shock of such changes in the future. Also, the CPUC has not provided the data underlying their calculation of the annual MPB. Finally, I'll note that a b 1761 does not change the CPUC's decisions on the PCIA methodology or calculation.

It also does not seek to change the existing confidentiality practices at the CPUC. Thank you for your time. CalCCA respectfully request your aye vote on AB 1761.

Good afternoon. Thank you, chair Petrie Norris and members of the committee for the opportunity to speak. Thank you to someone mama Rogers on your leadership of of this bill. My name is Howard Chang. I'm the CEO for AVA Community Energy.

AVA is a community choice aggregator that serves Alameda and San Joaquin Counties, and most of the cities they're in represent a total of 18 different municipalities in the East Bay and the Central Valley, and we provide affordable, local, and clean power to over 2,000,000 in California each and every day. I wanna start by just saying, energy affordability concerns have obviously been increasing over the years. The the theme of the day may be data and transparency. I believe, that is critical in the form of a b 1761 as one critical piece to move us in the right direction. There's no one magic solution, of course.

I wanna highlight three main points with quick illustrative examples as to why this is important. One, PCI is an important energy affordability topic. It impacts over 30,000,000 Californias, both IOU and CCA customers. Two, today's process for setting the PCI annually is not adequately transparent. And three, load survey entities such as CCAs with more data and transparency and improved access to that can advocate more effectively, can catch, errors, and can help us manage and stabilize, increasing costs over the years.

So point number one, PCI is an important energy affordability topic. Over 30,000,000 Californias across IUs and CCAs pay the c pay the PCIA directly to the IOUs. Just for EVA over the last eight years, when you look across our different vintages of PCIA and across the eight years, there's extreme volatility and variability year to year. So we've seen that PCIe go as low as negative 2.7¢to positive 5.3¢. That's an 8¢swing.

Just in the last year from 2025 to 2026, that PCIe has gone up from 1¢to 4¢for our average customer. So, historically, PCI accounts for about five to 40% of our generation costs, that our customers face in totality. That's point number one. Point number two is today's process is not adequately transparent. So in February 2025, the CPUC, had a proceeding in, that, reformed the PCI calculation.

We're at two minutes, so if you can can wrap up. Yeah.

I just wanna say that, it's taken 400 days to get that information. Took the CPUC four months to actually finalize that reform, and we still don't have complete information on that particular filing.

Alright. Thank you. Alright. At this point, we will open it up for additional testimony in support. If you'd like to testify in support of AB 1761 please approach the microphone.

Madam chair, Chris Micheli on behalf of Silicon Valley Clean Energy in support. Thank you.

Madam chair, Mark Fenstermaker for Peninsula Clean Energy and Valley Clean Energy in support.

Good afternoon. Shant Apekian on behalf of the Alliance for Retail Energy Markets in support.

Jamie Minor on behalf of our colleagues over at San Diego Clean Power in support.

Good afternoon, chair and members. Andrea Deveau on behalf of California Choice Energy Authority or CalChoice, who includes the following eight CCAs, Lancaster Energy, San Jacinto Power, Pico Rivera, Innovative Municipal Energy, Rancho Mirage Energy Authority, Apple Valley Energy Authority, Pomona Choice Energy, Santa Barbara Clean Energy, and Energy for Palmdale's Independent Choice. Thank you and support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Elizabeth Espinosa here today on behalf of the board of supervisors and the County Of Santa Barbara in support. Thank you.

Chair and members, Alicia Priego on behalf of the city of San Jose and San Jose Clean Energy in support.

Good afternoon. Vince Wertmajo with MCE in support.

Good afternoon, chair and members. Marissa Hagerman with Traton Price Consulting registering support on behalf of Central Coast Community Energy in support.

Good afternoon. Catherine Brandenburg on behalf of Sonoma Clean Power in support.

Good afternoon. Melissa Sparks Kranz with the League of California Cities in support.

Good afternoon. Jordan Wells on behalf of the California State Association of Counties and Rural County representatives of California in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Keeley Morris with Edelstein, Gilbert, Robeson, and Smith on behalf of Clean Power SF in support.

Emily Pappas on behalf of Pioneer Community Energy in support. Thank you.

Thank you. At this time, we will turn to testimony from opposition of our opposition witness or witnesses want to come on up.

Madam chair and members, Kent Kauss with San Diego Gas and Electric in opposition. We appreciate the discussion about affordability. We've been talking about that since 2011 and warning where policies are going. We also, are in a different position on CCAs. About 85% of our service territory, our customers are served by CCAs.

We welcome complete 100% takeover of it. But the PCIA is a very complicated process, very difficult to explain in the two minutes we have. We appreciate the amendments in Section eight of the analysis. We think that's gonna go a long ways to what we're concerned about, providing protection against market sensitive data. When we report things like procurement costs, you don't want that out there.

It creates issues. There's no two way communication going back and forth. So we do appreciate that, and we look forward to reviewing the amendments.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks. Madam chair, members, Brady Van Englelen here on behalf of Southern California Edison. Echo a lot of the comments made by my colleague from San Diego Gas and Electric. We do have concerns with that market sensitive data. Obviously, you know, we'd be mindful of, you know, the contract, you know, what's actually in those contracts and how we protect that information as it is, obviously, market sensitive.

The other component of this that, you know, I'd just like to flag is that there was a decision issued by the PUC a couple years ago related to PCIA that, did avail the CCAs the opportunity to have greater access to this information. And to my understanding, that process has not been utilized as of yet to this day. If we actually if they actually had exercised that right and found that there were some shortcomings there and that that process didn't work, then I think we could sit at the table and figure out if this is the right path forward. Unfortunately, we're just kind of I think we're just kinda short circuiting that decision, jumping right to a bill, which, you know, initially did include some, you know, potential to introduce, you know, market sensitive information, and we prefer not to, you know, go down that path. So trying to constructively figure out how we can use the existing resources that have already been thought through pretty you know, crafted pretty carefully through the regulatory process without, you know, potentially overturning anything that you know, the existing structure as it is right now.

Thank you. Okay. We'll turn to additional witnesses in opposition. If you'd like to testify in opposition to a b 1761 can approach the microphone at the this time. Alright. Seeing none, bringing it back to committee for questions or comments. Assemblymember Zbur

Hello. I'll be supporting the bill today. I did take a look at the letters that, were submitted and did have some concerns about the market sensitive data in the SDG&E letter. And I think we talked yesterday, and you had indicated that you were committed to continuing to work with the IOUs on resolving some of those conflicts on the conflict with with the privacy data and the and the disclosure obligations. So, with that commitment, I'll be supporting the bill today. Yeah.

Great. Thank you. Before we take any additional questions, I'm just gonna pause us for a minute so that we can establish a quorum. Madam secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Okay. Additional questions or comments from committee members? Okay. I so I have I do have a question. So our opposition witness raised, a point that there was a process that was created in a CPUC proceeding that has not been utilized. Can the author, your witness, comment on the shortcomings of of that process. Why hasn't it been utilized? What more do we need?

Yeah. D2207008 is the decision that's being, referenced. And it created a system with, many hurdles and requirements that needed to be met. And, ultimately, Cal CCA at the time decided or the CCA members decided that those hurdles were so high, and the limits on the data were so much that it wasn't a super helpful, process to use. There were procedural hoops that would have resulted in long ongoing negotiations with the IOUs, and that work is time, labor, and resource intensive and costly, you know, to go through.

Even if we had come to agreement on the data processes for sharing, there were many limits to that data, including allowing reviewing representatives to only communicate with their clients once per quarter and provide those communications and analyses to the CPUC and to the IOUs at the exact same time. Ultimately, given the restrictions on the CCAs, they decided it was preferable to keep trying to use public information, and that determined it wasn't an appropriate pathway to use. My understanding of it too is there's limits on when that pathway can be followed, and so it it, you know, is not necessarily the most efficient way to move forward for information sharing at this time. Okay.

Thank you. Did you wanna Oh,

I was just gonna say it gets to the market sensitive data. We don't want that out there. And in order to protect that, which we think this committee would want to ensure was taking place, that's that's exactly why it is there. They do have access to it. They signed some nondisclosure agreements, but that's for a purpose. And we'd hate to see the result of that not taking place and what the market reaction would be.

And I do think that the committee amendments is excerpted by by the author to address, I would say, you know, most if not all of the concerns related to market sensitive data. Yes. I won't speak for the author, but I think that concern seems like it's it's been addressed. So do you still have I guess, given that, what are your what are the remaining concerns about the bill?

As you just described it, if that's Section eight, that's how we're reading Section eight of the analysis, and we have that same hope when we see it in print.

Okay. Any additional comments or response?

Yeah. No. I and I think it goes back to also, some of the members of Bert's comment, which is that the intent of the bill is not to allow for this information to leak out. That's why we're relying on preestablished and well worn pass that the CPUC currently uses already that that people are familiar with that should achieve that goal.

Thank you, assembly member. Alright. Seeing no additional questions or comments, we Assemblymember Rogers, would you like to close?

Yeah. Absolutely. I just I agree that this is a really complicated issue, and there have been instances where mistakes have been made. If we're talking about affordability, if we're talking about transparency, this bill helps address the asymmetry and the information that's provided for not just the folks who deserve the just compensation for the PCIA, which is in statute, but also making sure that we're being responsive to rate payers who deserve that type of oversight. As with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Alright. We've got a, motion and a second. The motion is do passes amended to appropriations. Madam secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Okay. Ten zero. So that bill is out, but we'll leave the roll open so that absent members, may add on. And oh, wait. Wait. Before you leave. Okay. And as assembly member Rogers noted, we are today members welcoming a wonderful new member to our incredible team on the utilities and energy committee. This is Suman Tadapudi who is joining us as a principal consultant. So welcome. Alright. And now we are we'll turn to item number three, a b 1787. Assembly member Schultz, the floor is yours.

I can go here.

He's kidding. He's kidding. Okay.

Did you bring candy for the committee?

I I I would not. Some might say it not be appropriate. However, it is show and tell day at my daughter's school. So I brought a prop to use in my presentation

Excellent.

With the chair's permission, of course.

Permission granted.

And for the benefit of Mr. Gonzales. Alright. Colleagues, thank you for your time and attention. I'm pleased to present Assembly Bill 1787 today. I wanna say right out the gate, thank you to the committee staff and, of course, to Madam Chair, for all of your work to improve the bill.

And to be extraordinarily clear, we will gratefully be accepting all of the proposed committee amendments as further described on pages 8, 9, and 10, and those in comments 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the analysis. AB 1787 requires the California Public Utilities Commission to require our three large investor-owned utilities to offer an optional dynamic rate tariff to cuff—to customers—if the CPUC has approved upgrades to the IOU smart meter infrastructure and related information management and billing systems on or after 01/01/2027. And through the Chair and with permission, you've probably seen one of these things in your neighborhood. This simple device is a smart meter. As committee analysis points out, the IOUs are now planning to upgrade their multibillion-dollar smart meter systems.

The bill rewards customers who can be flexible with their electricity usage to reduce consumption during times of peak demand by shifting usage to times when renewable and low carbon resources are low cost and abundant. By making such adjustments, customers on dynamic rates can reduce their own electricity bill and help all customers save money collectively by avoiding the high costs associated with meeting peak demands and help avert grid reliability events. I'll just note that dynamic pricing is not a newer novel concept. It has been implemented in the states of Illinois, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, and Alabama, as well as the European Union. In Illinois, dynamic pricing has been shown to reduce electricity bills even for low income and low income customers.

In the Netherlands, price-informed customers have been to have been able to charge their electric vehicle for free, as noted in publications from the Wall Street Journal. Under AB 1787, let me be clear, no one would be forced to be put on a dynamic rate. It would be an option that a customer, whether residential or commercial, can elect. AB 1787 provides high level guidance to the CPUC to ensure fair implementation of dynamic rates, and many of the details of the tariff would be developed by the CPUC in their rate design process. I hope, with all sincerity, that the committee amendments that I have agreed to today will address the concerns of the IOUs.

However, I will continue to work with the opposition as the bill moves forward with the hope of resolving any remaining concerns that they have. With me today to speak in support of AB 1117 is Tiffany Phan representing the California Efficiency and Demand Management Council, as well as Rebecca Lee, Director of Western US Energy Market Policy with NRG Energy, who can also provide technical assistance. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and members. Tiffany Phan on behalf of the California Efficiency and Demand Management Council, or CEDMC. CEDMC is a trade association representing a wide range of companies that provide energy efficiency and demand response services and products in California. We represent companies that design, implement, maintain, evaluate—and evaluate energy efficiency and demand response and employ nearly 300,000 people who play an important role in California's economy.

CEDMC supports AB 1787 which would ensure accountability regarding any future smart meter upgrade expenditure and reward electricity customers for shifting electricity usage to low-cost periods when carbon free and renewable energy is cheap and abundant.

As such, it would also reduce California's reliance on expensive wholesale peak power purchases to increase affordability for all customers. AB 1787 contains strong consumer protection provisions to prevent undue cost shifts, protect global customers, and affirm existing regulatory policy on dynamic rates to provide a critical policy tool to help California meaningfully manage the electricity grid system. CEDMC urges your aye vote on AB 1787. Thank you.

Chair and members, Rebecca Lee, on behalf of NRG Energy. This bill is also about transparency and accountability because dynamic rates is a way for retail customers to see transparently the wholesale prices that the grid is experiencing. As a direct access provider in California, we currently offer dynamic rates that are indexed to the hourly wholesale prices, in the market operated by the independent system operator. More than six, more than six months out of the year, we're now seeing increasing trends of negative pricing. This means that electricity during those prices are cheaper than zero. And this is a tremendous opportunity for customers, both business and residential customers, to take advantage of these times when electricity is abundant.

And as that, we have experienced in us other states offering dynamic rates to residential customers. So, should you have any questions on the mechanics and the logistics of how these rates are designed, we're happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Let's turn to additional testimony in support. If you'd like to testify in support of AB 1787, approach the mic.

Madam chair, Shant Apekian on behalf of the Alliance for Retail Energy Markets in support.

Chair, members of committee, Brandon Garcia on behalf of Advanced Energy United, in strong support. Thank you to the author for bringing this bill.

Good afternoon. Elliot Appleton-Sackett with Environment California, in support.

Good afternoon. Will Rigger from State Strategies, here today for Climate Action California, in support.

Good afternoon. Jacob Evans with Sierra Club California in support. Thank you.

Thank you. We are now going to open it—or sorry. We are now going to welcome our opposition witnesses. You can go ahead and come on up. Hi.

Okay. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the committee, Valerie Turella-Vlahos with Pacific Gas and Electric Company. We do have an opposed position on this this bill. PG&E supports an affordable and clean energy future.

We do want to decrease and stabilize our customers' bills. As of March 1st, PG&E bundled residential customer bills have gone down 13% since January 2024. PG& E also supports, as this bill is addressing, effective dynamic pricing solutions. However, we are concerned that AB 1787 creates a one-size-fits-all, heavy-handed approach to implement real time pricing, optional real time pricing pilots.

As of March 12th, we have 2,300 customer sites enrolled across our territory. All segments of customers participating, also partnering with nine CCAs, for a total of 340 megawatts enrolled in this pilot. Standing up these pilots is not cheap. The CPUC is authorized $40,000,000 for PG&E's pilot. The pilots will be evaluated on the impacts of affordability, participating, non-participating customers, how effective they are, etc.

At the same time, PG&E is proposing to modernize its billing systems, and we have a modest, also, proposal for some smart meter deployment of 5% of our customers, in our GRC. And those upgrades and proposals go way beyond a benefit of real time pricing products. So, we just—I think we might have a fundamental disagreement hinging these policies upon each other is not the correct approach. I'll just say, finally, I have an expert here if there are technical questions that come up, Melody McCutcheon, our expert manager of pricing products, if there are questions that I cannot answer. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and members. Hello. I'm Lourdes Ayon with San Diego Gas and Electric. Really love the mantra opening it up today with affordability is good, accountability is good. Thank you Assemblymember Schiavo.

Because we truly do believe in that, and I think you're gonna see a lot of of San Diego Gas and Electric representatives coming here before you talking about affordability and the importance of affordability. And part of the reason why we're probably gonna be opposing a lot of bills, if we feel that there's a cost increase or a cost shift or anything else that's going to affect our rate payers or our customers, we're gonna be here talking about it. That said, I do wanna thank the committee for a very thoughtful analysis. And the amendments provided, I think, put us in a better position to have a more productive discussion with Assemblymember Schultz.

Now, I can't say for sure that we will be removing opposition because there's a lot here that we still need to discuss. And also, there's active proceedings before the PUC, for us, that will, that could—this bill could absolutely hold it up. The proceeding that we have before PUC could, it could affect it negatively. It could hold it up, and we don't want any of that. I think that we want what you want.

We want affordability for our customers. We wanna be able to work with the legislature. But when we're seeing that, that proposals coming from the legislature are affecting mandates are affecting rates. We are being very extra sensitive and careful and very thoughtful about it and wanna have more thorough discussions which with each and every one of you to make sure that we keep costs low. Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright. Let's turn to additional witnesses in opposition. If you'd like to testify in opposition to AB 1787, please approach the microphone.

Good afternoon. Madam chair, members.

Oops. Excuse me. Sorry. Thank you.

Brady Van England here on behalf of Southern California Edison. We are opposed unless amended on file. I know that there's some pretty substantial amendments that were recommended through committee analysis. We appreciate the thoughtful analysis and that, you know, the work that coordinated work with the author and committee staff. We're reviewing. Hopefully, we'll have an opportunity to continue working with the author as this bill moves through the process, and I look forward to that conversation. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you. Let's open it up for questions or comments from committee. Assemblymember Zbur.

Hi, Nick, it's great. Read the bill and will be supporting it today. I did have some questions about potential conflicts that the bill could have with the established CPUC rulings on the demand flexibility rule making and wanted to ask if you are committed to continuing to work on some of those conflicts with the IOUs because that that was one of the areas that I think we don't wanna, we don't wanna hold up some things that have already happened. And, and to me, it seemed like there was, some likelihood of potential conflict.

So, I just wondered how you might deal with that.

Absolutely. Thank you very much, Assemblymember Zbur. Just wanna say right out the gate, appreciate the comments from the opposition witnesses. And I, I actually agree. I think that we all do want the same thing.

The pilot programs that were mentioned by PG&E show that this can work, coupled with the fact that we've had a 5 billion infrastructure investment to develop the smart meter technology and deploy it. So, I don't think that we're that far apart. I will tell you that should the bill advance out of committee, I will walk into those conversations understanding that given the philosophical difference, they may never lift their opposition, but more than happy to have good faith conversations to make sure that this bill doesn't complicate those external processes. I don't know if either of my witnesses have anything to add, but you have my full commitment, Assemblymember.

Just to add on, this bill sets a no later, with the committee amendments, sets a no later deadline, meaning that, that these rates would be offered to customers when these new meters are placed into service. And that's not expected to be several years away, which actually provides a much more generous timeline than what is currently happening at the PUC with the IOU's filings. Thank you.

Alright. Seeing no additional questions or comments, I'll just say thank you for bringing this measure forward and for your work on this area. You know, we've certainly been very focused on affordability in this committee and certainly in this committee hearing. Equally, we are focused on ensuring the resilience of our grid, and this is critically important for each of those. So, I think we all know we need to get more out of our existing infrastructure and dynamic strategies, dynamic rates are a really, really important part of that.

So, happy to be supporting it. Would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Alright. We've got a motion and a second. The motion is, okay, do pass as amended to appropriations. Madam secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

13-0. That bill is out. We'll leave the roll open for absent members to add on. Okay. Let's move back in the file to file item number one AB 1715 by Assemblymember Schiavo. We do have a motion from Assemblymember Rogers, second from Assemblymember Gonzalez. The motion is do pass as amended to appropriations. Madam secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Sixteen zero, that bill is out. We'll leave the roll open for absent members to add on. We are going to okay. So that members that concludes the business of today's hearing. We'll go ahead and reopen the roll on file item number two, which is a b 1761 by Assembly member Rogers.

[Roll Call]

15-0. We'll leave the role open for our absent member to add on. File item number 3AB1787 Assemblymar Schulz. Chen,

[Roll Call]

Alright. So that's still 130. We're leaving the role open for absent members to add on.

[Background]

Alright. We're gonna reopen the roles and then wrap this up. Madam secretary, file item number one, AB1715.

Final vote is 16-0.

160. File item number two, a B1761. Yes. Okay. So file item one, a B1715 16-0, that bill is out.

Item number two, a b 1761. Final vote is 150.

Fifteen zero. That bill's out.

Item number three, AB 1787. Final vote is 130.

Thirteen zero. That bill is out, and that concludes today's hearing of the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Energy. We are adjourned.