Department of Forestry and Fire Protection: electrical grid inspection unit.

Pursuant to existing law, the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection is responsible for fire protection in state responsibility areas, as well as the administration of the state's private and public forests. Pursuant to existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations, electrical cooperatives are subject to the authority and jurisdiction of the commission for certain purposes, and local publicly owned electric utilities are under the direction of their governing boards. Existing law requires each electrical corporation, local publicly owned electric utility, and electrical cooperative to construct, maintain, and operate its electrical lines and equipment in a manner that will minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfire posed by those electrical lines and equipment. Existing law requires each electrical corporation to annually prepare a wildfire mitigation plan and to submit its plan to the commission for review and approval, as specified. Existing law requires the commission, at the time it approves each plan, to authorize the utility to establish a memorandum account to track costs incurred to implement the plan. Following approval, the commission is required to oversee compliance with the plans. Existing law requires the commission and the department to enter into a memorandum of understanding to cooperatively develop consistent approaches and share data related to fire prevention, safety, vegetation management, and energy distribution systems and to share results from various fire prevention activities, including relevant inspections and fire ignition data. This bill would require the department to establish an electrical grid inspection unit with a northern region and southern region, each region having 10 fire captain specialists and one battalion chief. The electrical grid inspection unit would be responsible for enforcing electrical corporation compliance with all statutes, regulations, and rules concerning safety, maintenance of firebreaks, and vegetation control in state responsibility areas and specified areas that are at high risk for catastrophic wildfires. The bill would require the department to adopt regulations establishing a program for the inspection of an electrical corporation's lines and associated equipment for the transmission or distribution of electricity that authorizes the electrical grid inspection unit to issue citations to an electrical corporation to correct a condition involving the utility's lines or associated equipment. The bill would require that the regulations include specified content, including protocols to notify the Public Utilities Commission of the results of inspections for which no citation is issued and of any citation issued by the department and the resolution of the citation. The bill would make the notifications admissible in specified proceedings and reviews by the commission. The bill would appropriate $5,000,000 from the General Fund to the department for purposes of establishing and staffing the electrical grid inspection unit.