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<\/p>\nSacramento, CA… Following utility-directed power shutoffs that impacted nearly two million Californians and ahead of another Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) decision by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), Governor Gavin Newsom today demanded that PG&E do more to provide information for customers and take action to reduce the number of customers impacted.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the immediate goal should be to better manage the current anticipated PSPS event, PG&E\u2019s short-term objectives should include steps to ensure that as few people as possible are impacted by any future PSPS decision,\u201d wrote Governor Newsom in his letter to PG&E CEO William Johnson today.<\/p>\n
Governor Newsom urged the utility to adopt the directions of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and continued to extend the state\u2019s technical and operational assistance \u2013 from providing forecasting and technological support to leveraging aircraft equipment and emergency personnel.<\/p>\n
\u201cI continue to extend the technical assistance currently offered by the State of California to reduce the impacts of PSPS, including operational guidance from Cal OES, meteorological data from CALFIRE, and most recently, infrared-equipped aircraft to assist in inspections of power line safety and the acceleration of power restoration,\u201d wrote the Governor. \u201cCal OES will activate State and Regional Operations Centers to respond appropriately and ensure continuity of state agency operations that support California residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following PG&E\u2019s unprecedented PSPS earlier this month, the Governor urged PG&E to provide affected customers an automatic credit or rebate of $100 per residential customer and $250 per small business as some compensation for their hardships.<\/p>\n
Read the full letter to PG&E CEO Johnson here.<\/p>\n
Since the first days of his administration, Governor Newsom has taken decisive action to protect Californians from wildfires:<\/p>\n
Expedited wildfire prevention projects to protect 200 of California\u2019s most wildfire-vulnerable communities.
\nAwarded $20 million in block grants to improve forest health and increase fire resiliency.
\nJoined with Governors Kate Brown of Oregon and Jay Inslee of Washington in requesting President Trump double the federal government\u2019s financial investment in managing federal forestlands in California, Washington and Oregon.
\nDeployed the California National Guard to assist CAL FIRE with emergency hazardous fuels-management projects.
\nLaunched an \u201cInnovation Procurement Sprint\u201d to get the most cutting-edge tools into the field and tackle the wildfire threat, resulting in two pilot projects to help modernize wildfire prevention and response.
\nPartnered with XPRIZE to design an incentive prize for innovation to battle wildfires.
\nSecured delegation of authority from the Secretary of Defense to fly Cal Guard\u2019s infrared equipped Unmanned Aerial System in support of CAL FIRE missions.
\nPartnered with the federal government to secure state access to satellite-based technology to detect wildfire ignitions.
\nAccelerated publication of new Emergency Alert and Warning Guidelines, ahead of wildfire season.
\nThe Governor worked with the Legislature to enact laws that will make California more resilient to wildfires and hold utilities accountable. The bills reflect the recommendations from the Governor\u2019s Strike Force report: <\/p>\n
AB 1054 by Assemblymember Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) holds PG&E accountable for prioritizing safety and requires the California Public Utilities Commission to take a number of actions to require our investor-owned utilities make investments in wildfire prevention and response. AB 1054\u2019s provisions include:
\nImprove the investor-owned utilities\u2019 assessment of wildfire risk and match increased investments to risk reduction through the Wildfire Mitigation Plan process.
\nImprove safety expertise, by creating a new wildfire safety division at the CPUC, which will transition to a separate Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety in the Natural Resources Agency in two years. (Combined with AB 111, AB 1054\u2019s companion bill)
\nCreate the California Wildfire Safety Advisory Board, a panel of world-class experts in wildfire risk and utility infrastructure, to advise the wildfire safety division to ensure the strongest possible standards are put in place, and the utilities are held to them.
\nEnsure oversight of the utilities\u2019 plans, require utilities to invest in wildfire prevention and eliminate shareholder profit on $5 billion of safety investments.
\nHold utilities to an increasingly stringent safety standard, which includes requirements to tie executive compensation to safety, safety culture improvements and direct reporting to the CPUC by members of the investor-owned utility boards of directors.
\nAB 38 by Assemblymember Jim Wood (D-Santa Rosa) provides mechanisms to develop best practices for community-wide resilience against wildfires through home hardening, defensible space, and other measures.
\nSB 190 by Senator Bill Dodd (D-Napa) includes a specific requirement to develop best models for defensible space and additional standards for home hardening and construction materials to increase the resilience of communities.
\nSB 70 by Senator Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber) requires IOUs to include information about consideration of undergrounding utility lines in their Wildfire Mitigation Plans (WMPs).
\nSB 167 by Senator Bill Dodd (D-Napa) requires IOUs to improve their WMPs by including specified requirements to mitigate the impacts of PSPS.
\nSB 247 by Senator Bill Dodd (D-Napa) requires increased oversight of the IOUs\u2019 WMPs, enhances requirements for fair wages and improves safety by ensuring a skilled and trained workforce.
\nSB 209 by Senator Bill Dodd (D-Napa) requires establishment of a new weather technology center modeled after the state\u2019s intelligence fusion centers.
\nAB 836 by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) establishes a program for retrofits of air ventilation systems to create community clean air centers, prioritizing areas with high cumulative smoke exposure burden.
\nAB 661 by Assemblymember Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento) requires the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District to prepare a wildfire smoke air pollution emergency plan to serve as an informational source for local agencies and the public during an air pollution emergency caused by wildfire smoke.
\nSB 560 by Senator Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) will mitigate impacts of PSPS.
\nSB 160 by Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) will improve engagement with culturally diverse communities for local emergency planning.
\nSB 670 by Senator Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) will improve the coordination of emergency communication systems during 9-1-1 outages.
\nSB 632 by Senator Cathleen Galgiani (D-Stockton) sets a deadline for completion of CAL FIRE\u2019s vegetation management environmental review.
\nAB 1823 by Assemblymember Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) which facilitates fuel reduction and other forest health projects.
\nThe Governor\u2019s budget made vital investments in resilience to help the state prepare for wildfires: <\/p>\n
$75 million to build resiliency and surge capacity among state and local government agencies in in the event of a utility company\u2019s decision to initiate a Public Safety Power Shutoff.
\n$38.7 million to expand the state\u2019s capacity for emergency response
\n$730,000 to help streamline hazardous fuel treatment programs.
\n$41 million to fund inspections and improve review of utility companies\u2019 wildfire mitigation programs.
\n$225.8 million, from cap-and-trade revenues and General Fund, for forest health, fuel reduction and other wildfire prevention efforts \u2014 including $200 million of SB 901 funds allocated annually for 5 years.
\n$50 million for Listos California, a new emergency preparedness outreach campaign.
\n$60 million, including $10 million in FY19 and a revised fee structure that goes into effect next year, to upgrade California\u2019s archaic 9-1-1 system and $1 million for first responder broadband network and integration with the 9-1-1 system.
\n$67.5 million to expand firefighting surge capacity.
\n$127.2 million for C-130 Air Tankers and twenty-first century firefighting helicopters.
\n$130.3 million for better communication equipment for first responders.
\n$24.7 million for CAL FIRE to procure innovation solutions to the wildfire crisis via the Innovation Procurement Sprint, operate Fire Detection Cameras, and enhance Situational Awareness Staffing.
\n$711,000 for a statewide Disaster Reserve Corps.
\n###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sacramento, CA… Following utility-directed power shutoffs that impacted nearly two million Californians and ahead of another Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) decision by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), Governor Gavin Newsom today demanded that PG&E do more to provide information for customers and take action to reduce the number of customers impacted. \u201cWhile the immediate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":81761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","category-traffic-fire","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/PGE-PSPS-1.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/81761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}