Electricity: public safety power shutoffs: loans.

The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 designates the State Air Resources Board as the state agency charged with monitoring and regulating sources of emissions of greenhouse gases. The act authorizes the state board to include in its regulation of those emissions the use of market-based compliance mechanisms. Existing law requires all moneys, except for fines and penalties, collected by the state board from the auction or sale of allowances as part of a market-based compliance mechanism to be deposited in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Existing law continuously appropriates 25% of the annual proceeds of the fund to the High-Speed Rail Authority for certain purposes. This bill would require the authority to transfer any unencumbered moneys appropriated to the authority from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission as a loan. The bill would require the transferred moneys to be deposited in the Electrical Infrastructure Revolving Loan Fund, which the bill would establish in the State Treasury. The bill would, upon appropriation by the Legislature, require the commission to expend the moneys in that fund for purposes of the Electrical Infrastructure Revolving Loan Program, which the bill would require the commission to develop and implement. This program would provide loans to electrical corporations to expedite the implementation of activities to minimize the risk of electrical lines and equipment causing catastrophic wildfires or to reduce the need of electrical corporations to engage in the intentional deenergization of portions of their transmission or distribution systems to minimize that risk. The bill would require the repayment of the transferred moneys with interest calculated at the rate earned by the Pooled Money Investment Fund.