California's New Wildfire Board Holds First Meeting

California’s New Wildfire Board Holds First Meeting

Will Review Utility Wildfire Mitigation Plans with CPUC

Jan 22, 2020

California's Wildfire Safety Advisory Board held its first meeting, electing industry veterans as chair and vice chair and getting briefed by the PUC on its responsibilities.

By Hudson Sangree

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The state’s new Wildfire Safety Advisory Board held its first meeting Tuesday, electing industry veterans as its chair and vice chair and getting briefed by California Public Utility Commission staff on its role and responsibilities.

Assembly Bill 1054, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in July, created the board and established a $21 billion wildfire recovery fund to shore up the state’s investor-owned utilities as they deal with the costs of massive, deadly wildfires sparked by electrical equipment. Pacific Gas and Electric is in bankruptcy following two years of catastrophic blazes.

The board, whose members are appointed by the governor and lawmakers, is meant to advise the CPUC’s new Wildfire Safety Division on fire-prevention measures, especially the wildfire-mitigation plans that IOUs must file with the CPUC under Senate Bill 901, approved in 2018.

California’s Wildfire Safety Advisory Board met for the first time Tuesday. | © *RTO Insider*

The CPUC approved the first set of plans under SB 901 in May. (See California Regulators OK Utility Wild f ire Plans.) This year’s measures are due in early February, and the CPUC plans to hold workshops to consider the measures later in the month. CPUC staff said the second-year plans likely would be far more detailed than last year’s measures.

“There’s a lot more coming this year, a lot more information,” Melissa Semcer, the commission’s wildfire mitigation branch manager, told the board.

At the outset of Tuesday’s meeting, the new board members elected as their chair Marcie Edwards, the former general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (2014-17). Edwards was interim chief executive officer of CAISO in 2004.

As vice chair they picked Diane Fellman, the former vice president of regulatory and legislative affairs for the Western region at NRG Energy (2010-17). Fellman served as legal counsel to the CPUC in the 1980s and was most recently employed as a regulatory specialist at the CPUC.

Edwards and Fellman were appointed to the panel by Newsom, along with the following: Jessica Block, a senior wildfire researcher at the University of California, San Diego, who previously worked as a fire researcher in Australia; John Mader, an electrical distribution engineer at Pacific Gas and Electric since 1998; and Alexandra Syphard, a veteran research scientist now employed by Sage Insurance Holdings.

The state Senate named Ralph Armstrong Jr., a representative and business manager with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and former journeyman lineman with the Western Area Power Administration. The state Assembly appointed Christopher Porter, also an IBEW representative and business manager.

The board scheduled monthly meetings through June, with its next meeting March 11 in Sacramento.

California California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC)