Commentary: Legislation will help California utilities address power line safety

State lawmakers have introduced legislation intended to help prevent wildfires and peremptory power shutoffs by pausing California renewable power mandates to allow utilities to focus on upgrading infrastructure and forest fuel reduction efforts. Here, a former Republican gubernatorial candidate and an environmentalist offer their views.

There are certainly a lot of bad ideas and policies that come out of the Sacramento sausage factory. We are all dealing with the negative affects of those that contribute to our sky-high cost of living, homelessness and lack of sustainable forest management. There are a few good actors though who are presenting solution-oriented ideas that go right at these problems and the special interests that perpetuate them. One such proposal that is important to watch for those of us in San Diego is from Assemblyman James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, and state Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Tehama. Their idea is to redirect additional funding into utility infrastructure upgrades and forest fuel reduction projects — two of the leading factors in the state's catastrophic wildfires which are also cited by mega-utility Pacific Gas & Electric in its blackouts.

According to Gallagher and Nielsen, their legislation will temporarily pause the state's renewable power mandates until infrastructure and vegetation management conditions are improved. That means mega-utilities like San Diego Gas & Electric and PG&E will be left with no excuses and will be forced to clean up their equipment and transmission lines. Savings from this temporary relief could only be used by these mega-utilities to make their power lines safer and reduce forest fuels. The proposal will also freeze any proposed bonuses or executive compensation increases to the management of these mega-utilities.

The best part is that it would be done without raising user rates.

According to Assemblyman Gallagher and Sen. Nielsen, PG&E spends roughly $2.4 billion a year to meet legislative mandates to buy renewable power. However, the company has only invested $1.5 billion in the last two years in its century-old infrastructure.

While there is plenty of blame to go around regarding the lack of sustainable forest management policies, corporate greed and lack of political will, the indisputable fact is that there is no argument that transmission towers and utility infrastructure have been sources of preventable tragedies like the 2018 Camp Fire and the recent Kincade Fire ravaging California's Wine Country. The failure to address dead trees and brush that fuel these disasters is also a failure of the political class. Utilities haven't caused all fires, but the risk that they will has caused them to engage in damaging and unacceptable power outages this fire season. That's why it is essential to devote more resources to hardening their infrastructure to prevent fires as well as perform more sustainable forest management.

While legislation like this will take political will and courage to stand up to the mega-utility special interests — something in short supply in Sacramento — the people are demanding it. They are also demanding sustainable forest management policies to address the build-up of fuel and improve the ability of our brave firefighters to keep these fires from turning into full-scale disasters.

If we don't take bold action and pay more than lip service to this crisis, it will be next on the list of "new normal" features that cause more and more people to question their home-state choice. The good news is that there are some elected officials actually looking out for the people, and are not afraid to challenge the special interests that contribute millions to politicians from both parties. In this case, mega-utilities including our own SDG&E have likely skated on real accountability for years due to their generous donations to the political class in charge.

The win-win of proposals like this from Assemblyman Gallagher and Sen. Nielsen is that it challenges the status quo. It isn't just a Republican or Democrat gain, but rather there is broad across the board benefit.

The California Air Resources Board just released numbers showing that these fires are undoing all of the gains our state has achieved reducing our carbon emissions. Regardless of where you might sit on the carbon emission reduction policy debate, the fact is California is reducing carbon dioxide emissions and has been proceeding down that path since the late 1970s. These annual fires are wiping out much of that gain.

The point is, this proposed legislation by Assemblyman Gallagher and Sen. Nielsen is an immediate and direct action that will make a difference at preventing the root cause of many of these tragic fires. The time for placating these mega-investor-owned utilities is over, the season for press conference upon press conference for political gain is through, the people are demanding action.

Let's hold these utilities accountable, practice real sustainable forest management policies, clear the dead and diseased fuel sources and start taking our state back.

Cox is a San Diego resident, former Republican candidate for governor, and advisory board chairman of CHANGE-CA.org.

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