AB 448

Bill Subjects

Abstract

Existing law authorizes any person who owns, controls, operates, or maintains any electrical transmission or distribution line to traverse land as necessary, regardless of land ownership or express permission to traverse land from the landowner, after providing notice and an opportunity to be heard to the landowner, to prune trees to maintain clearances, as provided, and to abate, by pruning or removal, any hazardous, dead, rotten, diseased, or structurally defective live trees. Existing law authorizes this abatement at the full discretion of the person that owns, controls, operates, or maintains the electrical transmission or distribution lines, except for certain applicable minimum clearance requirements for those lines. Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission, which has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations, has established additional vegetation management requirements. Existing law provides that a violation of a rule or order of the commission is a crime and provides that the willful or negligent commission of any acts prohibited or the omission of any acts required by specified laws relating to fire safety is a misdemeanor. This bill would revise and recast those provisions related to electrical lines and abatement activities for a person who owns, controls, operates, or maintains an electrical transmission or distribution line, specifying that abatement activities covered by this law include felling, cutting, or trimming trees. The bill would explicitly require all these line clearance and tree pruning and abatement activities to comply with the commission's vegetation management rules. By expanding the scope of a crime, the bill would create a state-mandated local program. The bill would repeal an explicit statement that this electrical line access authorization provides no relief from liability for the removal of vegetation, unless that removal is covered by an applicable easement. The bill would require the identification of hazardous, dead, rotten, diseased, leaning, or structurally defective live trees that are to be felled, cut, or trimmed to be accomplished by using a tree evaluation tool or method, as provided. The bill would make any trees that are felled, cut, or trimmed, if valuable timber or wood, the property of the landowner, unless the landowner requests removal of the wood. The California Energy Infrastructure Safety Act establishes the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety within the Natural Resources Agency and provides that, on and after July 1, 2021, the office is the successor to, and is vested with, all of the duties, powers, and responsibilities of the Wildfire Safety Division of the Public Utilities Commission. The bill would require the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety, on or before April 1, 2022, to develop standardized content to be used to satisfy the landowner notice requirement for vegetation abatement and trimming activities, and standardized content to be used by a landowner to request the removal of wood, as specified. The bill would also require the office, on or before April 1, 2022, to develop a process for a landowner to exercise the opportunity to be heard, as specified, when challenging the proposed traversal of land and any felling, cutting, or trimming of trees. 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.