This bill establishes a Transmission Infrastructure Accelerator within the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) to develop financing and development strategies for eligible clean energy transmission projects. To finance these projects, the bill creates the California Transmission Accelerator Revolving Fund within the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (I-Bank), deeming such projects to be in the public interest and eligible for various forms of financial assistance, including bonds.

The bill provides incentives for project development, including a tax credit for qualified expenditures on eligible transmission projects and removes the financing cap for the California Consumer Power and Conservation Financing Authority, allowing it to sponsor new transmission projects. It also streamlines the permitting process for energy facilities by extending application deadlines, modifying California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requirements, and creating a rebuttable presumption that projects have a net positive economic benefit for local governments.

The bill also enacts significant reforms to wildfire mitigation plans, changing the submission cycle for utilities to every four years and altering the review and approval process between the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the Wildfire Safety Division. It also reforms the Wildfire Fund by creating a new “Continuation Account” with updated financing mechanisms, including the potential for new bonds, and introduces a process for utilities to use securitization (recovery bonds) for certain wildfire-related costs.

Additional provisions include requirements for better planning around subsurface utilities, reforms to utility wildfire risk mitigation strategies to emphasize cost-effectiveness, and new reporting requirements for the CPUC on utility assets and energization times for new customers.