Sacramento & San Bruno CA: Senator Jerry Hill 2014 Bills

News Release - Office of Senator Jerry Hill – December 30, 2014

Part 1 of 2 parts

Senator Jerry Hill’s Bills to Protect Consumers, Improve Oversight of Utilities and Increase Safety Take Effect January 1

SACRAMENTO – Thirteen bills by State Senator Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo/Santa Clara Counties, take effect New Year’s Day, providing greater consumer safeguards, improved oversight of utilities, regulation of waste from auto shredding and prohibitions against extortionate mug shot websites.

In all Governor Brown signed 16 of Hill’s bills into law in 2014. Three were urgency bills that took effect when the governor signed them. The 13 taking effect on January 1, 2015, are:

SB 434 – CPUC Commissioner Board Conflicts – Prohibits current and future members of the CPUC from sitting on governing boards of entities they create as commissioners.

SB 636 – Due Process in CPUC Penalty Proceedings – Preserves due process in CPUC penalty proceedings by allowing commission staff to serve in an advocacy role or in an advisory role, but not both concurrently. Last year, the commission’s general counsel dismissed all the attorneys prosecuting PG&E. The attorneys felt it illegal and unethical to advocate that PG&E should not be penalized. Since the general counsel advises the commissioners, it would be unethical for the general counsel to also direct the prosecution. While an ethical separation of roles is already the general practice at the CPUC, agency guidelines allow this practice to be waived whenever convenient.

SB 699 – Electric Grid Security – Requires the CPUC to adopt rules compelling utilities to protect the state’s electric power grid from vandalism and attack. The legislation was unanimously approved by the Senate just two days after the second of two serious security breaches in as many years at Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s Metcalf power substation near San Jose. The security breach occurred despite PG&E’s security improvements to the substation as a part of its three-year, $100 million program to increase security system wide. The improvements were 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. The former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has called the attack “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred” in the United States.

SB 900 – CPUC Safety in Ratemaking – Requires the CPUC to consider the safety performance of natural gas and electricity companies when setting customer rates and developing regulations. For at least three years, the CPUC has recognized the need to scope safety into its proceedings, but 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 such efforts continue and are completed.

SB 915 – Mills High School Advanced Placement Testing – Clarifies rules for conducting advanced placement tests for college admission and placement and ensures that investigations and retesting occur in a timely fashion if exams are called into question. It was sponsored by parents and students from Mills High School who submitted the bill idea in the Senator’s annual “Oughta Be a Law …” contest after the test scores of 286 Mills students on 641 advanced placement exams were invalidated in July 2013. The testing process had been challenged and the agency overseeing the exams deemed that “testing irregularities” occurred, even though an investigation turned up no evidence of cheating or other impropriety.

SB 968 – Martins Beach Access – Requires the State Lands Commission to enter into negotiations with Silicon Valley billionaire and Martins Beach property owner Vinod Khosla for one year, to acquire a right-of-way or easement for the creation of a public access route to and along the shoreline, including the sandy beach, at Martins Beach. If the commission is unable to reach an agreement to acquire a right-of-way or easement or Khosla does not voluntarily provide public access by January 1, 2016, the commission may acquire a right-of-way or easement, pursuant to Public Resources Code Section 6210.9 (eminent domain), for the creation of a public access route to and along the shoreline.

SB 1027 – Bars Web Mug Shot ‘Extortion’ – Bars websites from posting arrest mug shots and then charging hundreds, and if not thousands, of dollars to take the photos down. Sites that post mug shots and charge fees to remove them have flourished by making the photos widely available via the Web. This bill stops these shakedowns. A mug shot is included in an arrest record for identification purposes but it is not intended to imply guilt. In more than half of the cases in California, an arrest does not lead to a charge or conviction.

SB 1064 – NTSB Rail Safety Recommendations – Requires the CPUC to respond to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommendations for rail safety. The legislation mirrors Hill’s AB 578 of 2012, which requires the CPUC 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. Last year, a rail car on the Angel’s Flight Railway in Los Angeles’ Bunker Hill 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 had recommended that the commission prevent Angel’s Flight from reopening unless a walkway was constructed to provide a safe path of escape, but the CPUC chose not to do so – an action NTSB considered “unacceptable,” though there had been no mechanism to force the CPUC to comply.

SB 1249 – Auto & Appliance Shredder Waste Regulation – Requires the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) to regulate shredded automobile and metal appliance waste. Roughly 700,000 tons of this waste – also called fluff – is disposed of in the state’s landfills each year. But state toxics regulators have failed to revoke an exemption granted decades ago to the metal shredding industry regarding this type of waste, despite warnings from top scientists that this waste could become hazardous during the shredding process. A 2001 legal opinion by DTSC attorneys called the exemption “outdated and legally incorrect.” Seven fires have broken out at metal recycling facilities in the Bay Area since 2007. After fires in November and December, Redwood City leaders called on regulators to do more to help protect residents from future incidents. This bill rescinds exemptions for facilities that deal with vehicle shredder waste and require DTSC to develop regulations to ensure that treatment, transport and disposal are conducted in a manner that protects public health and the environment. The legislation also provides for better DTSC oversight of the industry to prevent contamination, explosions and other risks to California communities.

Nate Solov

Office of Senator Jerry Hill

916-651-4013

www.senate.ca.gov/hill

CONTACT: Aurelio Rojas 916-747-3199 cell

Leslie Guevarra, 415-298-3404 cell

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Robert Riechel

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Source Credit: California State Senator Jerry Hill

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