The California Public Utilities Commission launched a proceeding Thursday to evaluate and improve the safety cultures of electric and gas utilities, with the aim of preventing the state’s utility infrastructure from causing disasters like those of the last 11 years.
The new order instituting rulemaking (OIR) is significantly broader than prior safety culture investigations because it covers all gas and electric utilities under CPUC jurisdiction. Previous efforts focused on Pacific Gas and Electric after the San Bruno pipeline explosion of 2010 and Southern California Gas following the massive leak at its Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility in 2015.
At least a half-dozen catastrophic wildfires blamed on electrical equipment since 2015 have made the safety practices at PG&E, Southern California Edison and other utilities a paramount concern. The November 2018 Camp Fire, for instance, killed 84 people and leveled the town of Paradise. State fire investigators determined the cause was PG&E’s failure to replace a century-old “C” hook on one of its transmission lines.
PG&E is now under investigation for starting this year’s Dixie Fire, the second largest wildland blaze in state history. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection seized PG&E equipment hit by a falling fir tree, and the federal judge overseeing PG&E’s probation in the San Bruno case has questioned the utility’s safety practices regarding shutting down power lines that show signs of trouble. (See PG&E Denies New Manslaughter Charges.)
“Safety culture is an organization’s values, principles, beliefs and norms shared by individuals within the organization, manifested through their planning behaviors and actions,” CPUC President Marybel Batjer said before Thursday’s unanimous vote. “It shows how members of an organization work toward safe operations on a daily basis and how that translates into safety outcomes.”
The new OIR is intended to fulfill recent legislative directives, the CPUC said.
Senate Bill 901 and Assembly Bill 1054 were passed in 2018 and 2019 to help investor-owned utilities cover billions of dollars in wildfire costs under California’s strict liability rules while also requiring the utilities to submit to wildfire prevention and safety culture evaluations by the CPUC. (See Calif. Lawmakers Rush to Pass Utility Wildfire Aid and California Wildfire Bill Goes to Governor.)
“Safety culture assessments of electrical corporations are required as part of [AB 1054 and SB 901],” the proposed decision on the OIR said. “AB 1054 directs the commission’s Wildfire Safety Division, now the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety (OEIS), to conduct annual safety culture assessments of each electrical corporation, the first of which will be published in fall 2021. The AB 1054 assessments are specific to wildfire safety efforts and include a workforce survey, organizational self-assessment, supporting documentation, and interviews.”
“SB 901 directs the commission to establish a safety culture assessment for each electrical corporation, conducted by an independent third-party evaluator,” it said. “SB 901 requires that the commission set a schedule for each assessment, including updates to the assessment, at least every five years, and prohibit the electrical corporations from seeking reimbursement for the costs of the safety culture assessments from ratepayers.”
The CPUC will use the new proceeding to implement the bills, especially SB 901, Batjer said.
“This OIR will help us fulfill [our] mission by requiring utilities to proactively prioritize safety to better serve the public,” she said.
The proposed decision includes a preliminary scope of safety culture audits, but details remain to be worked out with stakeholder input. Parties have 45 days from Thursday to submit their written comments.
