Legislative Tracker Database
The below list of bills related to climate change, and in particular energy, are being tracked by CCEC as a resource for its members and climate professionals in California. Please note that descriptions are pulled directly from the bill text in the Legislative Counsel’s Digest without any analysis, and some descriptions only include a portion of the summary. If you are interested in a particular bill, we encourage you to follow the link in the bill number to read the full text.
To follow bills related to climate change adaptation please follow the ARCCA legislative tracker here.
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This bill would require the CPUC to issue a decision on an application for a certificate of public convenience and necessity within 18 months of the filing of a completed application for building or upgrading an electrical transmission line that is reasonably necessary to facilitate the achievement of the above-described state policy under those same circumstances.
This bill would exempt a building that is constructed in the service territory of a public utility district and that receives all of its electricity pursuant to a preference right adopted and authorized by the United States Congress, if that electricity is carbon free, from the building standards adopted by the CEC and the California Building Standards Commission that require new residential and commercial buildings to be solar ready. It would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the Trinity Public Utilities District.
This bill would expand the definition of “renewable electrical generation facility” under the California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program to include a facility that uses linear generators, as defined, using renewable fuels and meets those other specified requirements.
This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact subsequent legislation to create a roadmap that assesses the potential for industrial electrification of various subsectors in California.
This bill would authorize the Governor to certify energy infrastructure projects that use hydrogen as a fuel for streamlining benefits related to CEQA.
Existing law requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission, in coordination with specified agencies, to develop a strategic plan for offshore wind energy developments installed off the California coast in federal waters, and requires the commission to submit the strategic plan to the Natural Resources Agency and the Legislature on or before June 30, 2023, as specified. Existing law requires the strategic plan to include, among other things, a plan to improve waterfront facilities that could support a range of floating offshore wind energy development activities, as provided.
This bill would declare the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to submit to the voters an act authorizing the issuance of general obligation bonds in the amount of $1,000,000,000 for seaport infrastructure improvements to facilitate offshore wind energy projects off the California coast.
This bill would require the commission, as appropriate, to revise the above-described standard contract or tariff to, among other things: ensure that customer-sited renewable distributed generation continues to grow at a pace identified by the state as needed to meet the state’s climate goals, rather than sustainably; ensure that the standard contract or tariff is based on an independent assessment of the cost of service analysis and the total benefits of the renewable electrical generation facility, including quantifiable nonenergy benefits, as defined; and, ensure that the total benefits of the standard contract or tariff to all customers and the electrical system are approximately equal to or greater than the total costs. The bill would prohibit that cost consideration from compromising the state’s climate goals or quantifiable nonenergy benefits, as specified. The bill would require every large electrical corporation to make the standard contract or tariff, as revised, available to all new eligible customer-generators upon that revision.
This bill would repeal the provision requiring the CPUC to consider cost-effective alternatives to transmission facilities, as specified, in an application for a certificate of public convenience and necessity for an electric transmission facility.
This bill would require CARB, by December 31, 2030, to evaluate and report its findings and recommendations to the Legislature on the feasibility and tradeoffs of achieving the policy goal of ensuring that by 2045 statewide anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to at least 85% below the statewide greenhouse gas emissions limit, relative to alternative scenarios that achieve the policy goal of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, but no later than 2045, and achieving and maintaining net negative greenhouse gas emissions thereafter.
This bill would require the Zero-Emission Vehicle Market Development Office within GO-Biz to develop a model permitting checklist, model zoning ordinances, and best practices for permit costs and permit review timelines to help local governments permit curbside charging stations as part of the office’s development of the Electric Vehicle Charging Station Permitting Guidebook or any subsequent updates. It would require local agencies to, among other things, develop a model permitting checklist that includes all applicable requirements to permit the installation of electric vehicle charging stations in the public right-of-way, as defined. The bill would also require local agencies with populations of 250,000 or more to comply with these provisions by January 1, 2027, and local agencies with populations of fewer than 250,000 residents to comply with these provisions by January 1, 2029. Finally, it would require the CEC to additionally assess curbside charging needs by income level, population density, multifamily housing density, renter density, and geographical area to support equitable overnight charging access and the state’s 2035 electric vehicle adoption goal.
(1)Existing law requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission), in coordination with specified entities, to develop a strategic plan for offshore wind energy developments installed off the California coast in federal waters and a second-phase plan and strategy for seaport readiness that builds on the recommendations and alternatives in the strategic plan, as specified. Existing law establishes the Voluntary Offshore Wind and Coastal Resources Protection Program, which is administered by the Energy Commission for the purpose of supporting state activities that complement and are in furtherance of federal laws related to the development of offshore wind facilities, including environmental impacts monitoring and workforce development grants.
This bill would establish in the State Treasury the Offshore Wind Community Capacity Building Fund and authorize moneys in the fund to be used, upon appropriation by the Legislature, by the Energy Commission to establish the Offshore Wind Community Capacity Building Fund Grant Program to award grants for the purpose of building capacity within local communities and California tribal communities to engage in the process of offshore wind energy development, as specified. The bill would make certain local communities, California tribes, and nonprofit organizations eligible for the grants, as described. The bill would require the Energy Commission to establish a grant application process for the program, develop guidelines for the use of grant moneys awarded from the fund, and prepare and submit an annual report to the Legislature on the implementation and effectiveness of the program, as specified.
This bill would require all eligible customer-generators of large electrical corporations receiving service under the 2nd standard contract or tariff to be subject to a specified version of the tariff developed by the CPUC in a specified rulemaking. It would require the CPUC to develop a new standard contract or tariff providing for net energy metering for eligible customer-generators of large electrical corporations, and would require every other electric utility to revise its standard contract or tariff providing for net energy metering. The bill would also require every electric utility to make the standard contract or tariff available to all new eligible customer-generators beginning on January 1, 2027. Lastly, it would require the CPUC to design the standard contract or tariff for large electrical corporations to achieve an annual rate of installation of solar renewable electrical generation facilities that is sufficient to meet the state’s anticipated need for customer-side solar generation resources, as provided.
Existing law requires the Public Utilities Commission to adopt a process for each load-serving entity to file an integrated resource plan and a schedule for periodic updates to the plan to ensure that it meets, among other things, the state’s targets for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and the requirement to procure at least 60% of its electricity from eligible renewable energy resources by December 31, 2030. In furtherance of these requirements, existing law requires the commission to consider the role of existing renewable generation, grid operational efficiencies, energy storage, and distributed energy resources, including energy efficiency, in helping to ensure each load-serving entity meets energy needs and reliability needs in hours to encompass the hour of peak demand of electricity, as specified.
This bill would make a nonsubstantive change to the latter requirement.
This bill would repeal the provision allowing the CPUC to authorize fixed charges for any rate schedule applicable to a residential customer account for the purpose of collecting a reasonable portion of the fixed costs of providing electrical service to residential customers, as well as for the CARE program.
This bill would require the Department of Housing and Community Development to, no later than December 31, 2025, perform a review of construction cost pressures for certain residential construction as a result of new or existing building standards requirements in the code and provide a one-time report of its findings to the Legislature in annual report to the Governor and both houses of the Legislature on the operations and accomplishments during the previous fiscal year of the housing programs administered by the department. Commencing with the next triennial edition of the code, and every 3 years thereafter, it would require the department to perform additional reviews of construction cost pressures for single-family and multifamily residential construction, as described, and propose revisions or updates to the code, as needed, with a goal of maintaining or reducing by 30 percent the cost of construction for new residential development. The bill would also require the department to convene a working group no later than December 31, 2025, to research and consider identifying and recommending amendments to state building standards allowing residential developments to be built, as specified. Lastly, it would require the department, no later than December 21, 2026, to provide a one-time report of its findings to the Legislature in the annual report described above.
(1)Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Existing law defines “electrical corporation” for purposes of the Public Utilities Act to include every corporation or person owning, controlling, operating, or managing any electric plant for compensation within this state, except as provided.
This bill would revise and recast the definition of “electrical corporation” to, among other things, eliminate certain existing exceptions to the definition of “electrical corporation,” thereby expanding the scope of that term and the entities over which the PUC has regulatory authority. The bill would additionally exempt from that definition a corporation or person employing one or more distributed energy resources, as defined, that has the capacity to be coupled with one or more energy storage systems for the generation of electricity primarily for specified uses. The bill would also exempt from the definition of “electrical corporation” a microgrid, as defined, that primarily serves the included load of the microgrid, as provided. The bill would also make various conforming changes.
This bill would revise the definition of “electrical corporation” to exclude a corporation or person employing certain solar or wind generating technology if the electrical energy is transmitted exclusively and directly through private electric lines to a facility owned by a different corporation or person that uses the energy only for (1) an electrolyzer technology facility that produces hydrogen from water, or (2) a facility using the electricity to provide industrial process heat, but not for departing electric load, as specified. It would also make various non-substantive changes.
This bill would make non-substantive changes to provisions in the Planning and Zoning Law regarding zoning regulations that require every city, county, and city and county to administratively approve an application to install electric vehicle charging stations and, until January 1, 2030, hydrogen-fueling stations that meet certain requirements, through the issuance of a building permit or similar non-discretionary permit, as prescribed.
This bill would require the CPUC, on or before July 1, 2027, January 1, 2028, but no sooner than 2 years after the adoption of the income-graduated fixed charge for default residential rates, to submit a report to the relevant policy committees of both houses of the Legislature on the electrical corporations’ implementation of the fixed charge, as specified. It would prohibit the CPUC from authorizing a fixed charge other than the income-graduated fixed charge for default residential rates until 30 days after the report is submitted.
This bill would require each load-serving entity to procure from virtual power plants, defined as actively coordinated aggregations of behind-the-meter distributed energy resources that can perform certain functions, sufficient capacity to meet specified minimum capacity requirements by certain dates, as provided. The bill would require capacity procured from a virtual power plant by a load-serving entity pursuant to these provisions to be used to meet the resource adequacy requirements established for the load-serving entity. The bill would authorize the commission to postpone, in one-year increments, the deadlines for compliance with these requirements for a particular load-serving entity if the commission makes certain findings. The bill would require, on or before January 30, 2026, and each year thereafter, each load-serving entity to submit a report to the commission showing the load-serving entity’s progress toward complying with the virtual power plant capacity requirements.
This bill would require that the CEC and CPUC’s quarterly joint Reliability Planning Assessment include the status of utility transmission upgrades and electrical grid infrastructure capacity, CPUC approvals of applications for certificates of public convenience and necessity and permits to construct utility and independent projects, and applications for permits for projects from the CEC and the queue of projects from CAISO, include the expected completion dates for both system and local resources, and report on the use of fossil fuel by certain facilities constructed by, purchased by, or under contract with the Department of Water Resources, as specified. It would also require the CEC to quarterly publish on its internet website and update a tracking energy development dashboard that synthesizes and publishes the information included in the assessment and reported on California energy resources in the energy almanac. The bill would require the CEC to ensure that the demand forecasts in the integrated energy policy report and wind and solar energy generation profiles account for increased weather variability, interactive weather effects, and increased likelihood of heat events, including multi-day events, due to climate change, and to use the demand forecasts and those energy generation profiles to inform its energy planning, as specified.
This bill would authorize a county board of supervisors or city council to grant a petition for cancellation where the land subject to the contract is located in a basin under the jurisdiction of an adjudicated watermaster or the groundwater sustainability agency. It would require the landowner to commit to limiting the amount of water rights to a specific solar energy project, as defined, that uses less water than the agricultural use. It would also prohibit the imposition of a cancellation fee when a contract is canceled pursuant to the bill’s provisions. Lastly, it would exempt from CEQA the cancellation of a contract pursuant to the above-described authorization.
This bill would require the CEC, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to form the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Taskforce to conduct a study on retail gasoline fueling stations and alternative fuels infrastructure, as provided. The bill would require the taskforce, on or before January 1, 2027, to submit to the Legislature a report on the study with recommendations. Until the completion of the study and the submission of the report to the Legislature, it would prohibit a local government, including a charter city, from banning the construction or maintenance of retail gasoline fueling stations or alternative fuel infrastructure. Lastly, it would include findings that changes proposed by this bill address a matter of statewide concern rather than a municipal affair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities.
This bill would require the CPUC, on or before July 1, 2026, in a new or existing proceeding, to evaluate and, if just and reasonable, establish a clean energy development incentive rate time-of-use tariff to encourage the development of new commercial or industrial electrical loads that contribute to the state’s efforts to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. It would require the tariff to offer lower rates for customers and to meet specified requirements, including, among other things, that the program only be open to new electrical customers that did not establish service before January 1, 2025, or to existing electrical customers that are expected to increase their total annual electrical demand by more than 50% after beginning service under the tariff. Finally, it would require that the tariff only be open to customers with certain uses, including producing hydrogen using an electrolysis of water and using electricity to provide industrial process heat.
To help users visually see the status of each bill, CCEC launched a new progress status under each bill that simplifies the legislative process into 10 key steps. However, it should be noted that the percentages used in the visual tracker do not correspond with the actual amount of time it takes for bills to move through the legislative process.
| 10% | Introduction / First reading in the house of origin |
| 20% | Committee hearings |
| 30% | Second reading |
| 40% | Third reading |
| 50% | First reading in the other house |
| 60% | Committee hearings |
| 70% | Second reading |
| 80% | Third reading |
| 90% | Resolution of differences |
| 95% | Enrolled and presented to the Governor |
| 100% | Signed by Governor and chaptered into law |
Using the filter functions below, you may search for bills sponsored by specific authors, or set at a specific status.
Feel free to use any or all of these filters to find the most relevant bills!
Filtered results will include opportunities that meet at least one filter selected within a category, and will also show opportunities that meet 2+ filters across multiple categories.
To help users visually see the status of each bill, CCEC launched a new progress status under each bill that simplifies the legislative process into 10 key steps. However, it should be noted that the percentages used in the visual tracker do not correspond with the actual amount of time it takes for bills to move through the legislative process.
| 10% | Introduction / First reading in the house of origin |
| 20% | Committee hearings |
| 30% | Second reading |
| 40% | Third reading |
| 50% | First reading in the other house |
| 60% | Committee hearings |
| 70% | Second reading |
| 80% | Third reading |
| 90% | Resolution of differences |
| 95% | Enrolled and presented to the Governor |
| 100% | Signed by Governor and chaptered into law |
Using the filter functions below, you may search for bills sponsored by specific authors, or set at a specific status.
Feel free to use any or all of these filters to find the most relevant bills!
Filtered results will include opportunities that meet at least one filter selected within a category, and will also show opportunities that meet 2+ filters across multiple categories.
