Senate Bill 254 (Becker) is billed as a measure to save ratepayers money and expedite clean energy permitting; however, a few provisions buried in the 231-page bill will invest even greater power in the California Energy Commission (CEC) under the AB 205 opt-in permitting program. Section 26 of the bill strengthens the CEC’s ability to ignore local laws, regulations, and objections of the community in which the project will be located.
SB 254 repeals provisions of Public Resources Code Section 25545.8 that require the CEC to ensure projects conform with public safety standards, air and water quality standards, and other applicable local, regional, state, and federal standards, ordinances, or laws. Existing law allows the CEC to certify a project that is inconsistent with local laws only if it first meets and confers with the local agency and determines that the facility is required for public convenience and necessity AND there is no more prudent and feasible means of achieving public convenience and necessity. SB 254 removes all of these safeguards.
SB 254 enables the CEC to avoid making minor changes to bring a project into conformity with local requirements, thereby significantly increasing the probability that CEC projects will be inconsistent with local laws and regulations. Under SB 254, the CEC will no longer be required to determine that overriding local laws is necessary to achieve public convenience and necessity. Nor will the CEC have to find that there are no other prudent and feasible means of achieving public convenience and necessity without overriding local laws.
Senate Bill 254 (Becker) is billed as a measure to save ratepayers money by reducing costs of transmission and wildfire mitigation while extending and enlarging the state’s Wildfire Fund. Many have voiced concern that the 2025 fires in Southern California will deplete the existing Wildfire Fund, which is an insurance pool for investor-owned utilities to ensure that those IOUs have adequate insurance coverage to pay for damage caused by utility ignited wildfires. To protect the Wildfire Fund’s solvency, the measure extends and expands the Wildfire Fund by requiring investor-owned utility shareholders and ratepayers to each contribute $9 billion over a ten-year period. From the ratepayer perspective, the measure will extend the collection of a $3 monthly surcharge ten years beyond the surcharge’s existing 2035 sunset date.
RCRC, the California State Association of Counties, and League of California Cities all oppose these provisions contained in SB 254. The organizations argue that while the CEC’s AB 205 opt-in permitting process already tips the balance strongly in favor of developers over local control, SB 254 removes the last safeguards that protect communities from bad projects.
The coalition letter of opposition can be found here.
For more information, contact RCRC Senior Policy Advocate, John Kennedy.