Existing law requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) to establish the Equitable Building Decarbonization Program that includes the direct install program and the statewide incentive program for low-carbon building technologies, as provided. This bill would require the Energy Commission to establish a mechanism to notify applicants to the Equitable Building Decarbonization Program that they may also be eligible for building energy efficiency and decarbonization incentives authorized by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) . Existing law vests the PUC with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations and gas corporations. Existing law establishes an 11-member Low-Income Oversight Board to advise the PUC on low-income electrical, gas, and water customer issues, as specified. This bill would add to the Low-Income Oversight Board a member to be selected by the Executive Director of the Energy Commission.
The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 designates the State Air Resources Board as the state agency responsible for monitoring and regulating sources of emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming in order to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The act requires all state agencies to consider and implement strategies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. This bill would additionally require state agencies to prioritize strategies to reduce methane emissions, including emissions from imported petroleum and natural gas, where feasible and cost effective. The bill would require the state board to encourage natural gas procurement on behalf of the state to shift to certified natural gas producing low methane emissions. The bill would also authorize the state board, the Public Utilities Commission, and other relevant agencies to apply approved protocols that measure, monitor, report, and verify methane emissions to existing programs to reduce methane emissions, including emissions from imported petroleum and natural gas procured by utilities and other large gas users, as provided. The bill would also authorize the state board, the Public Utilities Commission, and other relevant agencies to use all relevant sources and standards, including, but not limited to, emissions data, models, or protocols from existing or new regulations.
Existing law requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) to adopt, on a biennial basis, an integrated energy policy report that contains an overview of major energy trends and issues facing the state, including supply, demand, pricing, reliability, efficiency, and impacts on public health and safety, the economy, resources, and the environment. Existing law requires that the report present policy recommendations based on an in-depth and integrated analysis of the most current and pressing energy issues facing the state. This bill would require the Energy Commission, on or before March 1, 2027, to designate a person within the Energy Commission or identify and retain an external candidate to serve as the Senior Counselor on Industrial Policy and Clean Energy Development, and would require the senior counselor to, among other things, convene working groups that focus on certain issues, as provided. The bill would require the Energy Commission, the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, the Public Utilities Commission, the Department of General Services, and the office of the Treasurer, on or before March 1, 2027, to enter into a memorandum of understanding on equitable clean energy supply chains and industrial policy in California with specified goals and provisions, as provided. The bill would require the senior counselor to track and coordinate the work under the memorandum of understanding and to prepare an annual report summarizing the key findings and recommendations resulting from that work. The bill would require that the report be presented at a public meeting of the Energy Commission and be published on the Energy Commission's internet website. The bill would establish in the State Treasury the Equitable Clean Energy Supply Chain and Industrial Policy Fund and would, upon appropriation by the Legislature, authorize the moneys in the fund to be expended for purposes of the bill.
Existing state sales and use tax laws impose a tax on retailers measured by the gross receipts from the sale of tangible personal property sold at retail in this state or on the storage, use, or other consumption in this state of tangible personal property purchased from a retailer for storage, use, or other consumption in this state. The Sales and Use Tax Law provides various exemptions from those taxes. This bill would, on and after July 1, 2026, provide an exemption from the taxes imposed by the Sales and Use Tax Law for the gross receipts from the sale in this state of, and the storage, use, or other consumption in this state of, hydrogen fuel, as defined. The Bradley-Burns Uniform Local Sales and Use Tax Law authorizes counties and cities to impose local sales and use taxes in conformity with the Sales and Use Tax Law, and existing laws authorize districts, as specified, to impose transactions and use taxes in accordance with the Transactions and Use Tax Law, which generally conforms to the Sales and Use Tax Law. Amendments to the Sales and Use Tax Law are automatically incorporated into the local tax laws. This bill would provide that the exemption created by the bill does not apply to local sales and use taxes or transactions and use taxes. Existing law imposes or dedicates certain state sales and use tax rates for local funding, including through the Local Revenue Fund 2011. This bill would provide that the exemption created by the bill does not apply to those state sales and use tax rates imposed or dedicated for local government funding, including those rates for which revenues are deposited into the Local Revenue Fund 2011. Existing law requires any bill authorizing a new tax expenditure to contain, among other things, specific goals, purposes, and objectives that the tax credit will achieve, detailed performance indicators, and data collection requirements. This bill would also include additional information required for any bill authorizing a new tax expenditure. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.
The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 establishes the State Air Resources Board as the state agency responsible for monitoring and regulating sources emitting greenhouse gases and requires the state board to ensure that statewide greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to at least 40% below the 1990 level by 2030. Existing law requires the state board, in consultation with the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, to develop a standardized system for quantifying the direct carbon emissions and decay from fuel reduction activities for purposes of meeting the accounting requirements for Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund expenditures, as specified. This bill would require the state board, on or before January 1, 2028, to publish on its internet website an assessment of the life-cycle emissions from alternative uses of forest and agricultural biomass residues, as specified. The bill would require the state board, on or before January 1, 2029, to publish on its internet website a strategy to support beneficial carbon removal products, including, but not limited to, biochar, that are generated from agricultural or forest biomass resources. The bill would require the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to require, to the extent feasible, all state-funded forest health projects to include an appropriate forest biomass resource disposal component that includes a scientifically based, verifiable method to determine the amount of biomass to be physically removed and the amount to be burned by prescribed burn. The bill would require the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission to include the value proposition of using agricultural and forest biomass resources for low- and negative-carbon liquid and gaseous fuels, including hydrogen, from noncombustion conversion technology methods and other emerging and innovative approaches in relevant reports and other agency-sponsored documentation.
Existing law requires the State Air Resources Board to adopt rules and regulations that will achieve ambient air quality standards required by the federal Clean Air Act, as specified. Existing law requires the state board, following a noticed public hearing, to adopt airborne toxic control measures to reduce emissions of toxic air contaminants from nonvehicular sources. Pursuant to this authority, the state board has adopted the Airborne Toxic Control Measure for Fuel Sulfur and Other Operational Requirements for Ocean-Going Vessels within California Waters and 24 Nautical Miles of the California Baseline regulation to require the use of low-sulfur marine distillate fuels in order to reduce emissions of particulate matter, diesel particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides from the use of auxiliary diesel and diesel-electric engines, main propulsion diesel engines, and auxiliary boilers on oceangoing vessels. This bill would require the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) , in coordination with the State Lands Commission, the Transportation Agency, and the state board, to develop a plan on or before December 31, 2030, for the alternative fuel needs of oceangoing vessels that call at California's public seaports and that enables the seaports to meet their emission reduction goals. The bill would require that the plan do specified things, including, among other things, identify barriers to permitting alternative fuel facilities at seaports and opportunities to address those barriers. The bill would require the Energy Commission to convene a working group to advise the Energy Commission on the development of the information required to be included in the plan, as specified. The bill would require the state board to provide the Energy Commission with information regarding fuels for oceangoing vessels that comply with the state board's regulations for those vessels.
Existing law provides that it is the policy of the state that each electrical corporation upgrade the state's electrical distribution systems as needed. Existing law requires the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) , in consultation with the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) and the Independent System Operator (ISO) , to take specified actions to facilitate the commercialization of microgrids for distribution customers of large electrical corporations. This bill would require the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, in conjunction with the ISO, to identify six electrical infrastructure modernization zones, as provided. The bill would require the PUC and the Energy Commission to recognize these zones as load growth priority areas. The bill would authorize an electrical corporation that serves a customer within an electrical infrastructure modernization zone to work with the local jurisdiction to update its electrical load projections. The bill would require the PUC to authorize an electrical corporation that serves a customer within an electrical infrastructure modernization zone to expedite cost recovery and to manage microgrids, as specified. Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the PUC is a crime. Because the provisions of this bill would be a part of the act, and because a violation of a PUC action implementing its requirements would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. 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. This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the unincorporated area known as Altadena in the County of Los Angeles.
Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Existing law requires all charges demanded or received by a public utility for a product or commodity furnished or to be furnished or a service rendered or to be rendered to be just and reasonable. Existing law, except as provided, prohibits a public utility from changing a rate unless there is a showing before the PUC and a finding by the PUC that the new rate is justified. Existing law requires the PUC to publish and maintain on its internet website particular documents regarding the PUC's agendas, actions, decisions, resolutions, rules, and other information. This bill would prohibit the PUC from placing the consideration of a decision in a ratesetting proceeding that would result in an increase in rates to customers of an electrical corporation that has a revenue requirement that exceeds $1,000,000,000 on its consent agenda. The bill would, except as provided, require the PUC to provide, at a meeting to vote on a decision of a ratesetting proceeding that increases the rates of an electrical corporation's customers by more than 5%, before its vote on the decision, a public comment period of at least 30 minutes on the decision. Under existing law, the California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program requires retail sellers and local publicly owned electric utilities to procure a minimum quantity of electricity products from eligible renewable energy resources during certain compliance periods up to December 31, 2030. Existing law provides that a local publicly owned electric utility is not required to procure a certain amount of eligible renewable energy resources if, during a year within those compliance periods, the local publicly owned electric utility receives more than 40% of its retail sales from large hydroelectric generation under an ownership agreement or contract in effect as of January 1, 2018. Existing law authorizes the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) to establish appropriate multiyear compliance periods for local publicly owned electric utilities beyond December 31, 2030. This bill would provide that the provision related to the procurement of eligible renewable energy resources by local publicly owned electric utilities also applies to the compliance periods established by the Energy Commission.
Existing law requires the Secretary for Environmental Protection, until January 1, 2027, to convene the Lithium-Ion Car Battery Recycling Advisory Group to review, and advise the Legislature on, policies pertaining to the recovery and recycling of lithium-ion batteries sold with motor vehicles in the state, and requires the secretary to appoint members to the committee from specified departments, vocations, and organizations. Existing law, the California Emergency Services Act, establishes the Office of Emergency Services within the Governor's office, under the supervision of the Director of Emergency Services, and makes the office responsible for the state's emergency and disaster response services for natural, technological, or manmade disasters and emergencies. This bill would require the Office of the State Fire Marshal on or before December 31, 2026, to convene the Lithium-Ion Car Battery Advisory Group to review, and advise the Legislature on, policies pertaining to the safety and management of lithium-ion vehicle batteries involved in an emergency situation, as provided. The bill would require the Office of the State Fire Marshal to appoint members to the advisory group from specified departments, agencies, vocations, and organizations. The bill would require the advisory group to meet at least quarterly until July 1, 2028, and to consult with universities and research institutions that have conducted research in the area of lithium-ion batteries, with manufacturers of electric and hybrid vehicles, and both state and local first responders. The bill would require the group to develop standards, on or before July 1, 2028, based on local, state, and national guidance and research, aimed at ensuring that best standards and practices are created that allow first responders to respond to lithium-ion vehicle battery emergencies in a safe and efficient manner. The bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2029.
The Powering Up Californians Act requires the Public Utilities Commission, on or before September 30, 2024, to establish reasonable average and maximum target energization time periods, as defined, and a procedure for customers to report energization delays to the commission, as provided. The act requires the commission to require electrical corporations to take remedial actions necessary to achieve those target energization time periods and to require certain reports to be publicly available. This bill would require the commission, in a new or existing proceeding, to require each large electrical corporation to compile a list of information needed to approve or deny an energization application, to post an example of a complete, approved energization application and an example of a complete energization application for a housing development project, and to make those items available on its internet website by a date specified by the commission. The bill would also require the commission to require each large electrical corporation to determine if an energization application is complete and provide notice or otherwise provide certain information under a specified procedure. The bill would require the commission to require each large electrical corporation, upon approval of an energization application, to immediately transmit that determination to the applicant by electronic mail and, if applicable, by posting the response on its internet website, as specified. Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or an order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime. Because the above provisions would be part of the Public Utilities Act and a violation of a commission action implementing this bill's requirements would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. 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.
