Regulatory Updates Impacting California Food Processors

Newsom Appoints Randolph Successor at CPUC
Governor Gavin Newsom has appointed Darcie Houck to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to fill former commission member Liane Randolph’s seat. Randolph was recently appointed as Chair of California Air Resources Board (CARB,) replacing former chair Mary Nichols. Houck has extensive regulatory experience having held the position of chief counsel for the California Energy Commission since 2019. Houck was previously an administrative law judge at the CPUC. Other appointments include Jan Schori and Mary Leslie to the CAISO Board of Governors. Schori previously served as CEO of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. Leslie is a reappointment to CAISO.

Utilities File 2021 Wildfire Mitigation Plans CPUC; Cite Need For Increased Costs
California’s investor-owned utilities filed their 2021 wildfire mitigation plans with state regulators, totaling more than $7 billion in investments in wildfire prevention. Pacific Gas & Electric plan requested nearly $5 billion for its 2021 WMP. This amount is slightly higher than the $4.9 billion spent in its 2020 plan and is more than twice the combined costs of the other two utilities. PG&E argues that more than half of PG&E’s service territory is in high-fire-risk districts.

En Banc Meeting Examines CPUC Staff Report on Expected Utility Costs (Residentials)
The California Public Utilities Commission held an En Banc meeting with the Energy Commission to hear from staff and stakeholders on a recently released report looking at electricity costs over the next 10 years. The report entitled “Utility Costs and Affordability of the Grid of the Future: An Evaluation of Electric Costs, Rates and Equity Issues Pursuant to P.U. Code Section 913.1”, documents the general trajectory of costs and bundled residential rates over the next decade, forecasting that electricity rates will see an annual average increase of 3.7% for PG&E residential customers and 3.5% for SCE residential customers. The increase will come on top of rates that have already seen increases of 37% in PG&E and 6% in SCE since 2013. While the report acknowledges the state’s effort to electrify transportation, it downplays the cost saying these “investments are not expected to contribute to the significant rate growth in the near term.” The growth in residential rates will be largely due to the ongoing wildfire fire costs and mitigation efforts. The report did not touch on commercial/industrial rate impacts.

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