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By Steven Bradford, Assembly Utilities & Commerce Committee chair When a transmission line running to San Diego went offline in September, more than five million residents from Arizona to California, Southern Orange County to Mexico, were left in the dark. I led a Joint Legislative hearing in San Diego recently with members of the Assembly and Senate, representatives of utilities, emergency responders, wireless communications providers, and wastewater facility operators. We tried to find answers to how an outage of this magnitude could happen in a highly developed, major metropolitan area. What we learned is California’s power grid is very vulnerable. As a result, residents of California are vulnerable as well. This year I authored AB 724 to reauthorize the public goods charge, which promotes energy efficiency and conservation, research, and renewable energy market development. Unfortunately, the bill, which would continue the diversification of our power supplies and reduce vulnerabilities, did not make it out of the Legislature this session. As a result, this program will end on December 31. The failure to reauthorize the surcharge means we must prepare to be left behind, with critical research in clean energy technology ending, and energy efficiency programs that reduce electricity consumption in homes, apartments, businesses, farms and heavy industry being discontinued. The public goods charge was implemented almost 14 years ago as a way to fund important alternative energy research and energy efficiency and conservation projects. Over the years this program has created thousands of jobs, created new industries in clean energy technology, and saved a lot of money. The Los Angeles Times recently reported that the ratepayer-funded Public Goods Charge has saved ratepayers $1 billion by developing and funding projects in customer-owned biomass and biogas generation, wind, and solar. This is the kind of innovative leadership California is known for. As we saw in September, our power grid is fragile. Losing projects that ease consumption and strengthen the grid will damage our state’s economic and infrastructural security. Among those programs are the public energy research and development program, called PIER (Public Interest Energy Research). The PIER program gives the state the opportunity to not only maintain its leadership position on advanced energy technologies, but also provides the public with royalty rights to the projects, as well as open access to investigations that were leading to a more reliable and clean energy system in California that is affordable to ratepayers. For example, PIER funded the development of the Real Time Dynamics Monitoring System used by the California Independent System Operator. It was the first commercially available tool to let electric grid operators visualize (and take actions based on) high quality information from synchrophasors about system operations across the West in real time. Electricity customers benefit from fewer outages and less likely widespread outages, as well as a more efficient grid, saving ratepayers an estimated $90 million annually, and reduced economic losses from outages estimated at between $250 and $400 million annually by 2020. We also will lose the Renewable Energy Trust Fund, which provides incentives that help develop and commercialize lesser known renewable energy technologies, such as biomass and small wind projects. This fund also used to loan money to schools and institutions to implement energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. AB 724 would have reformed all of these programs to improve transparency, accountability, and make sure that all ratepayers can see and appreciate why these programs are important now and for California’s future. I am passionate about the Public Goods Charge because, in addition to protecting the security of our power grid, it prioritizes efficiency upgrades for low-income ratepayers. When Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park was rededicated recently, the celebration also marked the completion of an important but underreported project: Pacific Gas & Electric Co. performed energy efficiency upgrades this year at 10 locations in the communities of Allensworth and Alpaugh, a small, rural area 30 miles north of Bakersfield. PG&E found $54,000 worth of upgrades eligible for public goods charge funding. These upgrades may sound routine, but Allensworth is a tiny, disadvantaged community without the resources to make these upgrades itself. Unfortunately, the program that made these improvements possible is about to end. I am committed to extending the public goods surcharge one way or another before it expires at the end of the year because it is such an important piece of our state’s future. I will be watching the processes that are underway at the California Public Utilities Commission to address all of the PGC-funded programs that are currently in jeopardy. As San Diego showed us, we cannot become complacent about our infrastructure. Too much is at stake. --Assemblymember Steven C. Bradford represents the 51st Assembly District, comprised of the cities of Gardena, Hawthorne, Lawndale, and Inglewood, and the communities of Athens, Lennox, South Central LA, Westchester, Willowbrook, Playa Vista, and parts of Ladera Heights and West Compton. Edited By:

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