The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued
D.21-06-034 on June 29 which adopts and revises the
CPUC’s guidelines and rules for utilities regarding Public
Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) events to mitigate the risk of
catastrophic wildfire caused by utility infrastructure. CSAC,
along with several member counties and coalitions, participated
in this proceeding and was able to secure several positive
changes for counties.
Specific to the request from counties, the CPUC agreed that the
investor-owned utilities (IOUs) must, upon request, provide lists
of critical facilities and infrastructure customers to
governments and other similar entities to ensure that the IOUs
and governments mutually understand how the safety needs of
critical facilities and infrastructure customers have been
addressed. However, the decision only requires the IOUs to
make these lists available on their secure PSPS web portals, and
not in any other format, such as paper lists.
At the request of CSAC and its partners, the decision also
emphasizes the importance of recent and ongoing emergency
management experience. The new decision requires that the
staff receive annual training to this effect.
Finally, the decision adopts a limited scope of CSAC
recommendations that would have required IOUs to mitigate the
loss of cell phone services where cell phones are the primary
method of receiving evacuation warnings. The Decision only
requires the IOUs to provide device charging stations at the
community resource centers.
