The Senate on Wednesday introduced a sweeping measure to address rising electricity bills by limiting rate increases and adjusting the way utilities pay for wildfire and transmission costs.
What happened: Sen. Josh Becker, a member of the Senate’s affordability working group, amended SB 254, originally a spot bill dealing with electricity rate assistance, into a 161-page overhaul of the way California finances major utility expenditures.
What’s in the bill: The bill would require the state’s investor-owned utilities to issue $15 billion in securitized debt to pay for investments in wildfire mitigation and connecting customers to the grid, rather than passing the costs on to ratepayers. It would also create a state-run infrastructure authority that could publicly finance transmission lines.
Under the proposed bill, utilities applying to the state for permission to raise rates would be required to include a proposal that limits spending increases to the rate of inflation. Requests that exceed inflation would undergo a review with “heightened scrutiny” by the California Public Utilities Commission.
