Sacramento CA: UPDATE on Senator Hill Bills

News Release – August 29th 2014

Senator Jerry Hill’s Bill to Heighten Electric Grid Security Heads to Governor After Another Breach at PG&E Facility Near San Jose

Three Other Hill Bills to Improve PUC Safety Oversight Also Await Governor’s Decision

SACRAMENTO – The state Senate today sent the governor legislation by Senator Jerry Hill that would require the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to adopt rules compelling utilities to protect the state’s electric power grid from vandalism and attack.

The Senate’s 37-0 vote on Hill’s Senate Bill 699 came just two days after the second of two serious security breaches in as many years at Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s Metcalf power plant near San Jose.

Hill, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Gas and Electric Infrastructure Safety, said the attacks underscore the need for utilities to tighten security of power facilities to protect California’s electric grid.

“Whatever PG&E is doing doesn’t seem to be working,” said Hill, D-San Mateo/Santa Clara Counties. “We need independent oversight to validate the company’s work and claims they are making.”

Wednesday morning’s security breach occurred despite PG&E’s security improvements to the Metcalf power substation as a part of its three-year, $100 million program to increase security system-wide. The improvement project was prompted by an attack on April 16, 2013, in which snipers knocked out 17 giant transformers at the Metcalf facility and slipped into an underground vault to cut telephone cables.

Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the time, called the attack “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred” in the United States.

A blackout was averted in the Silicon Valley by re-routing power around the site. But Mark Johnson, retired vice president of transmission for PG&E, told a utility industry conference last November that he fears the incident may have been a dress rehearsal for a larger attack.

This week the facility was compromised again, when thieves cut a hole in a fence, walked in, and stole construction equipment. The break-in—which reportedly took more than 45 minutes—was successful even though the facility’s alarms were triggered. Those alarms, however, apparently were not detected by the utility’s onsite security staff.

In the 2013 incident, there was no PG&E security personnel at the substation and no one from the company arrived at the scene until more than an hour and half after the attack. More than a year later, no one has been arrested or charged in the attack, and it has not been determined whether the breach was a terrorist attack or well-planned vandalism.

Hill sent three other bills to the governor this week to improve the PUC’s safety oversight:

SB 900 – PUC – Safety in Ratemaking

Would require the PUC to consider the safety performance of natural gas and electricity companies when setting customer rates and developing regulations.

While for at least three years, the PUC has recognized the need to scope safety into its proceedings, the development of effective procedures for doing so has been slow. Because the commission has only recently begun to incorporate risk management tools in its policymaking, it has yet to embed safety considerations in the process. SB 900 would ensure that occurs.

SB 1064 – PUC – NTSB Rail Safety Recommendations

Would require the PUC to respond to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommendations for rail safety. The legislation mirrors Senator Hill’s AB 578 of 2012, which requires the PUC to reply to NTSB recommendations for natural gas safety within 90 days and to vote on those recommendations and how they will be carried out.

On September 5, 2013, a rail car on Angel’s Flight Railway in the Bunker Hill district of Los Angeles derailed, leading to a dangerous rescue of four passengers. The firefighter who led the effort had no ropes, railing or walkway to prevent him or the passengers from falling onto concrete 25 feet below. After a fatal 2001 accident on the line, the NTSB recommended that the PUC prevent Angel’s Flight from reopening unless a walkway was constructed to provide a safe path of escape, but the PUC chose not to do so – an action NTSB considered “unacceptable,” though there was no mechanism to force the PUC to comply.

Hill’s SB 1064 would also require the PUC to note in its annual report to the governor and Legislature any actions it has taken that NTSB deems unacceptable.

SB 1409 – PUC – Safety Investigations

Would require the PUC to list in a report the gas and electric accident investigations the commission finalized in the previous year, as well as those pending completion. The bill also requires the PUC to summarize these investigations in its annual report.

The PUC has reported that 150 fatalities and 413 injuries have occurred involving PG&E’s, Southern California Edison’s, and San Diego Gas and Electric’s electrical facilities since 2003. An average of 13 such fatalities occur in California each year.

Although the PUC is required by law to investigate accidents involving electricity infrastructure that result in fatalities and serious injuries, the investigations typically take years to complete, and there is no accounting of completed investigations or those in progress – as an August 6 hearing by the Senate Subcommittee on Gas and Electric Safety, chaired by Senator Hill, pointed out.

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Nate Solov

Office of Senator Jerry Hill

916-651-4013

www.senate.ca.gov/hill

Office of Senator Jerry Hill

CONTACT:

Aurelio Rojas, 916-747-3199 cell;

Leslie Guevarra, 415-298-3404 cell

CONTACT: Aurelio Rojas, 916-747-3199 cell; Leslie Guevarra, 415-298-3404 cell

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Photo Credit: Robert Riechel - San Bruno Patch Archive

Source Credit: California State Senator Jerry Hill

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