Electrical corporations: financing orders.

Existing law authorizes the Public Utilities Commission to fix the rates and charges for every public utility, and requires that those rates and charges be just and reasonable. Existing law authorizes an electrical corporation to file an application requesting the commission to issue a financing order to authorize the recovery of costs and expenses related to a catastrophic wildfire, including fire risk mitigation capital expenditures, through the issuance of bonds by the electrical corporation that are secured by a rate component, as provided. This bill would, in addition to expenses related to catastrophic wildfires, authorize the use of a financing order to recover the costs of wildfire mitigation efforts, operational and maintenance expenses related to an electrical corporation's wildfire mitigation plan, wildfire risk mitigation costs, vegetation management costs and expenses, or to recover an electrical corporation's costs related to any federal or state declaration of a state of emergency. The bill would authorize an application for vegetation management expenses submitted by a large electrical corporation, as defined, to include the issuance of recovery bonds for vegetation management expenses, including where bond proceeds are refunded to customers, in an amount not to exceed a specified amount with an average repayment period not to exceed 15 years.