Electrical corporations: investigations.

(1) Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations, as defined. Existing law requires the PUC to adopt inspection, maintenance, repair, and replacement standards for the distribution systems of electrical corporations in order to provide high quality, safe, and reliable service. Existing law requires the PUC to conduct a review to determine whether the standards have been met and to perform the review after every major outage. This bill would require every electrical corporation to cooperate fully with the PUC in an investigation into any major accident or any reportable incident, as defined by the PUC, regardless of pending litigation or other investigations, including, but not limited to, those that may be related to a PUC investigation. The bill would require every electrical corporation to provide the PUC, upon its request, immediate access to specified documents. The bill would require every electrical corporation to preserve any and all documents or evidence it collects as part of its own investigation related to the incident for at least 5 years, or a shorter period of time as authorized by the PUC. The bill would require any and all documents collected by an electrical corporation pursuant to these provisions be catalogued and preserved in an accessible manner for assessment by PUC investigators as determined by the PUC. (2) Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime. Because the provisions of this bill are within the act, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program by creating a new crime. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.