Requires each electric corporation to submit a storm hardening and system resiliency plan to the public service commission for review and approval; makes related provisions (Part A); requires utility companies to reimburse customers for certain widespread prolonged outages; prohibits utility companies from recovering from customers the costs incurred due to power outage reimbursements; authorizes utility companies to petition the public service commission for a waiver of the reimbursement requirements (Part B).
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
3360--A
Cal. No. 170
2021-2022 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
January 26, 2021
___________
Introduced by M. of A. PAULIN, OTIS, GALEF, VANEL, BARRON, JACOBSON,
SANTABARBARA -- read once and referred to the Committee on Corpo-
rations, Authorities and Commissions -- reported and referred to the
Committee on Codes -- advanced to a third reading, passed by Assembly
and delivered to the Senate, recalled from the Senate, vote reconsid-
ered, bill amended, ordered reprinted, retaining its place on the
order of third reading
AN ACT to amend the public service law, in relation to storm hardening
and system resiliency plans (Part A); and to amend the public service
law, in relation to providing rate payers with reimbursement following
prolonged power outages (Part B)
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Each component of this act is wholly contained within a
2 part identified parts A and B. The effective date for each particular
3 provision contained within such part is set forth in the last section of
4 such part. Any provision in any section contained within a part, includ-
5 ing the effective date of the part, which makes reference to a section
6 "of this act", when used in connection with that particular component,
7 shall be deemed to mean and refer to the corresponding section of the
8 part in which it is found. Section three of this act sets forth the
9 general effective date of this act.
10 PART A
11 Section 1. Legislative findings. 1. The Legislature hereby finds and
12 declares that, due to the rise in storm intensity, and effects of
13 climate change, dedicated storm hardening programs need to be developed
14 and implemented throughout New York State to reduce damage and costs
15 from future weather events, as well as facilitate prompt restoration
16 times. Storm hardening is the process of constructing new, or upgrading
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD08931-10-1
A. 3360--A 2
1 old, infrastructure to increase resiliency and overall reliability
2 during weather events. In 2018, Winter Storm Riley and Winter Storm
3 Quinn greatly impacted New York's electric distribution system with
4 nearly 500,000 customers losing power. In August 2020, Tropical Storm
5 Isaias brought high winds, downed trees and widespread power outages to
6 much of the state; hundreds of thousands of customers in Long Island,
7 New York City, Westchester and Rockland counties experienced extensive
8 power outages, some lasting for more than a week. Legislative hearings
9 following these storms made it clear that enhanced storm hardening
10 efforts are needed to mitigate some of the impacts to the distribution
11 infrastructure and customers;
12 2. It is in the state's interest to strengthen electric utility
13 infrastructure to withstand extreme weather conditions, and the effects
14 of climate change by promoting the hardening of electrical transmission
15 and distribution facilities, the undergrounding of certain electrical
16 distribution lines, and enhanced vegetation management, including the
17 removal of danger trees, as well as long term planning;
18 3. Protecting and strengthening transmission and distribution elec-
19 trical utility infrastructure from extreme weather conditions, and the
20 effect of climate change, can effectively reduce restoration costs and
21 outage times to customers and improve overall service reliability for
22 customers;
23 4. It is in the state's interest for each utility to mitigate restora-
24 tion costs and outage times to utility customers when developing trans-
25 mission and distribution storm protection plans; and
26 5. All customers benefit from the reduced costs of storm restoration.
27 § 2. Section 66 of the public service law is amended by adding a new
28 subdivision 29 to read as follows:
29 29. (a) Each electric corporation subject to section twenty-five-a of
30 this chapter shall prepare and submit a climate change vulnerability
31 study to the commission within eighteen months of the effective date of
32 this act. The commission shall provide such study to the governor and
33 the legislature. The climate change vulnerability study shall evaluate
34 the electric corporation's infrastructure, design specifications, and
35 procedures to better understand the corporation's vulnerability to
36 climate-driven risks, and shall include, but not be limited to, adapta-
37 tion measures to address vulnerabilities and any other information
38 deemed necessary by the commission.
39 (b) Within sixty days from submission of a climate change vulnerabili-
40 ty study to the commission, each electric corporation subject to section
41 twenty-five-a of this chapter shall, pursuant to regulation by the
42 commission, submit a climate resilience plan to the commission for
43 review and approval. Each plan shall: (i) propose storm hardening and
44 resiliency measures for the next ten years and twenty years, and shall
45 explain the systematic approach the corporation will follow to achieve
46 the objectives of mitigating the impacts of climate change to utility
47 infrastructure, reducing restoration costs and outage times associated
48 with extreme weather events, and enhancing reliability, as well as such
49 other additional objectives the commission may require consistent with
50 ensuring increased resiliency of utility infrastructure and overall
51 reliability during extreme weather events; (ii) detail how the corpo-
52 ration will incorporate climate change into its planning, design, oper-
53 ations, and emergency response; (iii) incorporate climate change into
54 existing processes and practices, manage climate change risks and build
55 resilience; and (iv) propose adjustments, as necessary, to how the
56 corporation plans and designs infrastructure for the increasing impacts
A. 3360--A 3
1 from climate change. The commission shall adopt rules to specify any
2 additional elements that must be included in a corporation's filing for
3 review of climate resilience plans.
4 (c) Each subject electric corporation shall contemporaneously serve
5 the climate resilience plan on the parties from its last rate case filed
6 pursuant to subdivision twelve of this section.
7 (d) In its review of each climate resilience plan filed pursuant to
8 this subdivision, the commission shall, at minimum, consider:
9 (i) the extent to which the plan is expected to mitigate the impacts
10 of climate change, reduce restoration costs and outage times associated
11 with extreme weather events, and enhance reliability, including whether
12 the plan examines areas of lower reliability performance;
13 (ii) the extent to which storm protection and hardening of trans-
14 mission and distribution infrastructure is feasible, reasonable, or
15 practical in certain areas of the corporation's service territory,
16 including, but not limited to, coastal areas, flood zones, and rural
17 areas;
18 (iii) the estimated costs and benefits to the corporation and its
19 customers of making the improvements proposed in the plan, including
20 considerations of equity in the plan as applied across the entire
21 service territory, with particular attention paid to the costs and bene-
22 fits in undergrounding transmission and distribution lines;
23 (iv) the timeline for implementation of the plan;
24 (v) whether the plan includes major performance benchmarks that meas-
25 ure the effectiveness of the implementation of the plan;
26 (vi) the estimated annual rate impact resulting from implementation of
27 the plan during the first five years addressed in the plan;
28 (vii) the extent to which the plan considers a multi-pronged strategy
29 appropriately tailored to addressing the impacts of climate change,
30 reducing restoration costs and outage times and enhancing infrastructure
31 reliability, including, but not limited to, vegetation management,
32 improvements to system management practices, undergrounding of distrib-
33 ution and transmission lines, replacement of obsolete cables, wires and
34 poles, automation and circuit reconfiguration, investing in infrastruc-
35 ture that supports the development of technologies that would improve
36 response to extreme weather events and reduce restoration costs, and
37 system resiliency through the deployment of distributed energy
38 resources, and fortifying critical facilities;
39 (viii) the extent to which the plan identifies opportunities for coor-
40 dination with municipalities, customer advocate groups, the independent
41 system operator, the energy research and development authority, and
42 other utility or telecommunication service providers; and,
43 (ix) the recommendations from the utility climate resilience working
44 group established pursuant to paragraph (h) of this subdivision.
45 (e) No later than eleven months after a corporation files a climate
46 resilience plan that contains all of the elements required by this
47 subdivision, and after a public hearing on the plan, which shall include
48 a public forum at a physical location, attended by commission members or
49 their designees to take in written or oral comment, the commission shall
50 determine whether it is in the public interest to approve or modify the
51 plan.
52 (f) At least every five years after approval of a corporation's
53 climate resilience plan, the corporation must file for commission review
54 an updated plan that addresses each element specified by commission
55 regulation. The commission shall approve, modify, or deny each updated
56 plan pursuant to the criteria used to review the initial plan.
A. 3360--A 4
1 (g) Each corporation shall make an annual filing to recover the corpo-
2 ration's climate resilience plan costs through a charge separate and
3 apart from its base rates, to be referred to as the climate resilience
4 plan cost recovery clause. If the commission determines that such costs
5 are just and reasonable, in the public interest, and were prudently
6 incurred, those costs will not be subject to disallowance or further
7 reasonableness or prudence review except for fraud, perjury, or inten-
8 tional withholding of key information by the corporation, or if the
9 commission finds that the corporation has imprudently implemented the
10 plan. The annual climate resilience plan costs may not include costs
11 recovered through the corporation's base rates and must be allocated to
12 customer classes pursuant to the rate design most recently approved by
13 the commission. If a capital expenditure is recoverable as a climate
14 resilience plan cost, the corporation may recover the annual depreci-
15 ation on the cost, calculated at the corporation's current approved
16 depreciation rates, and a return on the undepreciated balance of the
17 costs calculated at the corporation's weighted average cost of capital
18 using the last approved return on equity.
19 (h) Each corporation shall establish a utility climate resilience
20 working group no later than one year after the effective date of this
21 subdivision. Such working group shall advise and make recommendations to
22 the corporation and the commission on the development and implementation
23 of the corporation's climate resilience plan. The working group shall be
24 comprised of representatives from the department, and municipal repre-
25 sentatives, customer advocacy groups, and energy and environmental advo-
26 cacy organizations. The working group shall meet at least twice annual-
27 ly.
28 (i) Each corporation shall provide to the county executive or the
29 chief elected official of a county for each county within its service
30 territory the most recent approved copy of the climate resilience plan
31 required pursuant to this subdivision. For the purposes of an electric
32 corporation operating within the city of New York, such corporation
33 shall provide the most recent approved climate resilience plan with both
34 the mayor's office and emergency management office of the city of New
35 York.
36 (j) The commission shall provide access to such climate resilience
37 plans pursuant to article six of the public officers law.
38 (k) Beginning December first of the year after the first full year of
39 implementation of a climate resilience plan and annually thereafter, the
40 commission shall submit to the governor and the legislature a report on
41 the status of each corporation's activities to comply with the plan. The
42 report shall include, but is not limited to, identification of all storm
43 protection and resiliency activities completed or planned for
44 completion, the actual costs and rate impacts associated with completed
45 activities as compared to the estimated costs and rate impacts for those
46 activities, the estimated costs and rate impacts associated with activ-
47 ities planned for completion, and the governance, planning, and opera-
48 tional activities undertaken by the corporation in furtherance of the
49 climate resilience plan.
50 (l) The commission shall promulgate any necessary rules and regu-
51 lations to implement and administer the provisions of this subdivision.
52 § 3. This act shall take effect on the ninetieth day after it shall
53 have become a law. Effective immediately, the promulgation of any rules
54 or regulations by the Public Service Commission necessary for the imple-
55 mentation of this act on its effective date are authorized to be made
56 and completed on or before such effective date.
A. 3360--A 5
1 PART B
2 Section 1. The public service law is amended by adding a new section
3 73 to read as follows:
4 § 73. Compensation to customers experiencing widespread prolonged
5 outages. 1. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, in the event
6 that a residential utility customer or a small business customer experi-
7 ences a widespread prolonged outage lasting at least seventy-two consec-
8 utive hours or more without having been resolved by the utility company,
9 the utility company shall:
10 (a) Provide a credit of twenty-five dollars on the balance of such
11 residential utility customer's account for each subsequent twenty-four
12 hour period of service outage that occurs for such customers for more
13 than seventy-two consecutive hours after the occurrence of such wide-
14 spread prolonged outage.
15 (b) Provide reimbursement of any food spoiled due to lack of refriger-
16 ation. Residential utility customers shall provide the utility company
17 an itemized list of all food spoiled or proof of loss of food spoiled
18 within fourteen days of the outage. The utility company shall reimburse
19 the customer within thirty days of the receipt of the itemized list or
20 proof of loss, provided, however, that if the utility company has
21 applied for a waiver pursuant to subdivision three of this section, such
22 utility company shall reimburse the customer within a time period to be
23 determined by the commission after the commission renders a decision on
24 the waiver request. The amount of the reimbursement shall not exceed a
25 total of two hundred thirty-five dollars for customers who provide an
26 itemized list. The amount of the reimbursement for customers who provide
27 proof of loss shall not exceed five hundred forty dollars.
28 (c) Provide reimbursement of prescription medication spoiled due to
29 lack of refrigeration. Residential utility customers shall provide the
30 utility company with an itemized list and proof of loss of prescription
31 medication due to lack of refrigeration within fourteen days of the
32 outage. The utility company shall reimburse the customer within thirty
33 days of the receipt of the itemized list and proof of loss of
34 prescription medication, provided, however, that if the utility company
35 has applied for a waiver pursuant to subdivision three of this section,
36 such utility company shall reimburse the customer within a time period
37 to be determined by the commission after the commission renders a deci-
38 sion on the waiver request. The amount of the reimbursement shall total
39 no more than the actual loss of perishable prescription medicine.
40 (d) Provide reimbursement to small business customers for any food
41 spoiled due to lack of refrigeration. Small business customers shall
42 provide the utility company with an itemized list for all food spoiled
43 and proof of loss within fourteen days of the outage. The utility compa-
44 ny shall reimburse the small business customer within thirty days of the
45 receipt of the itemized list and proof of loss, provided, however, that
46 if the utility company has applied for a waiver pursuant to subdivision
47 three of this section, such utility company shall reimburse the small
48 business customer within a time period to be determined by the commis-
49 sion after the commission renders a decision on the waiver request. The
50 amount of their imbursement shall not exceed five hundred forty dollars.
51 2. Any costs incurred by a utility company pursuant to this section
52 shall not be recoverable from ratepayers.
53 3. Not later than fourteen calendar days after the occurrence of a
54 widespread prolonged outage, a utility company may petition the commis-
55 sion for a waiver of the requirements of this section. The company shall
A. 3360--A 6
1 have the burden of demonstrating that granting the waiver is fair,
2 reasonable and in the public interest. In determining whether to grant
3 such waiver, the commission shall consider: (a) whether the company
4 complied with their submitted emergency response plan pursuant to the
5 provisions of subdivision twenty-one of section sixty-six of this arti-
6 cle; (b) whether any actions or omissions of the company contributed to
7 the prolonging of the widespread prolonged outage; (c) the hardships
8 endured by said company's customers due to the widespread prolonged
9 outage; (d) the severity of the widespread prolonged outage; (e) condi-
10 tions on the ground during the widespread prolonged outage and the
11 subsequent restoration; (f) balancing of the equities; and (g) any other
12 criteria the commission deems in the public interest to consider. The
13 commission shall issue a final decision regarding the grant of the
14 requested waiver no later than forty-five days after submission of the
15 petition.
16 4. The commission shall promulgate procedures, standards, methodol-
17 ogies and rules necessary to implement the provisions of this section.
18 Such rules and regulations shall define the terms "widespread prolonged
19 outage", "small business customer" and "proof of loss".
20 § 2. Severability. If any provision of this act or the application
21 thereof to any person, corporation or circumstances is held invalid,
22 such invalidity shall not affect other provisions or applications of the
23 act which can be given effect without the invalid provision or applica-
24 tion, and to this end the provisions of this act are declared to be
25 severable.
26 § 3. This act shall take effect on the one hundred twentieth day after
27 it shall have become a law. Effective immediately, the addition, amend-
28 ment and/or repeal of any rule or regulation necessary for the implemen-
29 tation of this act on its effective date are authorized to be made and
30 completed on or before such effective date.
31 § 2. Severability clause. If any clause, sentence, paragraph, subdivi-
32 sion, section or part of this act shall be adjudged by any court of
33 competent jurisdiction to be invalid, such judgment shall not affect,
34 impair, or invalidate the remainder thereof, but shall be confined in
35 its operation to the clause, sentence, paragraph, subdivision, section
36 or part thereof directly involved in the controversy in which such judg-
37 ment shall have been rendered. It is hereby declared to be the intent of
38 the legislature that this act would have been enacted even if such
39 invalid provisions had not been included herein.
40 § 3. This act shall take effect immediately provided, however, that
41 the applicable effective date of parts A through B of this act shall be
42 as specifically set forth in the last section of such parts.