CA SB 1098

in committee

Public utilities: forecast-based ratemaking.

California · 2025-2026 Regular Session · upper

Description

Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations and gas corporations. Existing law authorizes the commission to fix the rates and charges for every public utility and requires that those rates and charges be just and reasonable. Existing law requires the commission, whenever the commission authorizes a change in rates reflecting and passing through to customers specific changes in costs, to require a public utility to establish and maintain a balancing account to reflect the balance between the related costs and revenues. Existing law further directs the commission to authorize public utilities to establish catastrophic event memorandum accounts, as provided. Existing law authorizes each electrical corporation to establish a memorandum account to track costs incurred for wildfire risk mitigation that are unforeseen and incremental to the wildfire risk mitigation programs and activities authorized in the electrical corporation's revenue requirements, as specified. This bill would provide that it is the policy of the state that forecast-based ratemaking through the regularly scheduled general rate case process is the preferred and primary method of establishing authorized revenue requirements for electrical corporations and gas corporations. The bill would require the commission, in exercising its ratemaking authority over all public utilities, to adhere to specified principles and requirements, including requirements that forecast-based ratemaking be the default approach for establishing revenue requirements and cost recovery mechanisms and that memorandum accounts and balancing accounts, as defined, be authorized and maintained only when necessary to address costs that cannot reasonably be forecasted in the general rate case process, as provided. The bill would require each memorandum account or balancing account authorized by statute, or by the commission, before January 1, 2027, to be included and reviewed in the subsequent general rate case proceeding, and would require the commission, during its review, to consider assigning an expiration date to each memorandum account or balancing account, as provided. The bill would authorize the commission to establish exceptions to those principles and requirements for categories of costs not reviewed pursuant to that requirement, as provided. The bill would further require that the ratemaking treatment of memorandum accounts or balancing accounts that are in effect on January 1, 2027, remain unchanged until the commission reviews the account pursuant to that requirement. Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime. Because the above requirements would be a part of the act, and a violation of a commission action implementing those requirements would be a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

Introduced: 2026-02-13
Status date: —
Latest action: 2026-06-29 — Read second time and amended. Re-referred to Com. on APPR.
Bill type: bill
Last updated: —

Subjects

Committees

Not provided by source.

Action timeline

2026-02-13
Introduced. Read first time. To Com. on RLS. for assignment. To print.
introduction,reading-1,referral-committee
2026-02-17
From printer. May be acted upon on or after March 16.
2026-02-26
Referred to Com. on RLS.
referral-committee
2026-03-24
From committee with author's amendments. Read second time and amended. Re-referred to Com. on RLS.
amendment-passage,committee-passage,reading-1,reading-2,referral-committee
2026-04-08
Re-referred to Com. on E., U & C.
referral-committee
2026-04-16
Set for hearing April 21.
2026-04-22
From committee: Do pass and re-refer to Com. on APPR. (Ayes 12. Noes 3. Page 3973.) (April 21). Re-referred to Com. on APPR.
committee-passage,committee-passage-favorable,referral-committee
2026-04-24
Set for hearing May 4.
2026-05-04
May 4 hearing: Placed on APPR. suspense file.
2026-05-08
Set for hearing May 14.
2026-05-14
From committee: Do pass. (Ayes 5. Noes 2. Page 4264.) (May 14).
committee-passage,committee-passage-favorable
2026-05-14
Read second time. Ordered to third reading.
reading-1,reading-2,reading-3
2026-05-27
Read third time. Passed. (Ayes 30. Noes 9. Page 4485.) Ordered to the Assembly.
passage,reading-1,reading-3
2026-05-27
In Assembly. Read first time. Held at Desk.
reading-1
2026-06-04
Referred to Com. on U. & E.
referral-committee
2026-06-25
From committee: Do pass as amended and re-refer to Com. on APPR. (Ayes 11. Noes 3.) (June 24).
amendment-passage,committee-passage,committee-passage-favorable,referral-committee
2026-06-29
Read second time and amended. Re-referred to Com. on APPR.
amendment-passage,reading-1,reading-2,referral-committee

Versions

02/13/26 - Introduced — 2026-02-13Compare
03/24/26 - Amended Senate — 2026-03-24Compare
06/29/26 - Amended Assembly — 2026-06-29Compare
SB1098Compare
(document, no version)Compare

Documents

Votes

Do pass, but first be re-referred to the Committee on [Appropriations]
2026-04-21 · pass · 12-3
Member-level votes (17)
- Caballero: yes
- Becker: yes
- Allen: yes
- Hurtado: yes
- Gonzalez: yes
- McNerney: yes
- Reyes: yes
- Wahab: yes
- Stern: yes
- Arreguín: yes
- Archuleta: yes
- Richardson: yes
- Dahle: no
- Strickland: no
- Ochoa Bogh: no
- Grove: other
- Rubio: other
Placed on suspense file
2026-05-04 · pass · 7-0
Member-level votes (7)
- Dahle: yes
- Cervantes: yes
- Wahab: yes
- Richardson: yes
- Seyarto: yes
- Cabaldon: yes
- Grayson: yes
Do pass
2026-05-14 · pass · 5-2
Member-level votes (7)
- Wahab: yes
- Cervantes: yes
- Cabaldon: yes
- Richardson: yes
- Grayson: yes
- Dahle: no
- Seyarto: no
3rd Reading
2026-05-27 · pass · 30-9
Member-level votes (40)
- Grayson: yes
- Hurtado: yes
- Limón: yes
- Wahab: yes
- Cortese: yes
- Blakespear: yes
- Cervantes: yes
- Durazo: yes
- Smallwood-Cuevas: yes
- Reyes: yes
- Cabaldon: yes
- Wiener: yes
- Padilla: yes
- Stern: yes
- Caballero: yes
- Umberg: yes
- Archuleta: yes
- Gonzalez: yes
- McGuire: yes
- Pérez: yes
- McNerney: yes
- Becker: yes
- Weber Pierson: yes
- Richardson: yes
- Arreguín: yes
- Ashby: yes
- Laird: yes
- Menjivar: yes
- Rubio: yes
- Allen: yes
- Ochoa Bogh: no
- Niello: no
- Valladares: no
- Strickland: no
- Choi: no
- Alvarado-Gil: no
- Grove: no
- Seyarto: no
- Jones: no
- Dahle: other
Do pass as amended and be re-referred to the Committee on [Appropriations]
2026-06-24 · pass · 11-3
Member-level votes (18)
- Schiavo: yes
- Papan: yes
- Harabedian: yes
- Rogers: yes
- Petrie-Norris: yes
- Schultz: yes
- Boerner: yes
- Mark González: yes
- Irwin: yes
- Hart: yes
- Kalra: yes
- Patterson: no
- Calderon: no
- Davies: no
- Chen: other
- Wallis: other
- Zbur: other
- Ta: other

Related bills

No related bills recorded for this bill.

Official source

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB1098

Attribution

Data from openstates_bulk_csv, retrieved 2026-07-24T01:34:27.960412Z

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