California Gov. Gavin Newsom, D, on Friday vetoed a bill that would have created an inspector general for the state Public Utilities Commission.
Newsom said he understood the desire to bring more oversight to the commission but that the bill contained several “flaws” and also created obligations that were not accounted for in the state budget. AB 353 would have required the governor to appoint an inspector general for a term of six years and transfer existing auditing powers over to that office.
Newsom said if the bill became law, it would compromise the role of the Public Advocate’s Office.
“By granting existing agency staff access to internal deliberations, work products, and litigation strategies, this measure would undermine the independence of the Office,” the governor said in a statement explaining his veto. “Further, a reorganization of the CPUC at the scale envisioned by this bill would have significant fixed and operational costs in the tens of millions of dollars that are not included in this year's budget.”
Newsom also vetoed AB 1761 that would have required utilities and the PUC to disclose all data used to calculate the Power Charge Indifference Adjustment fee. The bill had been championed by community choice electricity providers.
On Monday, Newsom signed a package of laws aimed at data centers, including strengthening energy reporting requirements and requiring regulators to create new rate structures.
Newsom's office touted the laws as the "most comprehensive" in the nation, though California is seeing much less data center development than other regions such as Texas and the Mid-Atlantic.
"With these laws, we are ensuring that Californians remain in the driver’s seat — and that those profiting from data centers aren’t doing so at our expense," Newsom said in a statement.
Newsom signed several other bills with direct or indirect implications for electric utilities and power infrastructure stakeholders, including AB 192 standing up the transmission infrastructure accelerator.
AB 192 requires the accelerator to evaluate the California Independent System Operator’s transmission planning process and authorizes it to select eligible transmission projects that may receive public financing from the California Transmission Accelerator Revolving Fund.
The projects must support “new high voltage transmission facilities that are subject to the competitive solicitation process” administered by CAISO that are “consistent with the state’s reliability and greenhouse gas policy objectives,” according to the text of the bill.
Eligible project sponsors must also commit to requesting a revenue requirement at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that reflects “only its actual capital structure and for the portion of the project financed through the fund the actual cost of capital associated with this portion in order to minimize the costs collected through the transmission access charge.”
The accelerator is expected to develop program guidelines by Dec. 31, 2027.
Other bills Newsom recently signed into law include AB 1715, requiring utilities to report public grants and pass those savings directly to customers, and AB 2266, which seeks to streamline compliance reporting and grid planning.
Newsom has not taken action yet on a number of other notable energy bills that passed out of the state Legislature this year, including a bill legalizing plug-in balcony solar devices and proposals related to virtual power plants.
Earlier this month, the Legislature and the governor failed to reach an agreement on wildfire liability for utilities, causing California utility stock prices to fall. Lawmakers have said they will continue working on the issue.
Update: This story has been updated with details about additional bills Newsom signed into law Monday
