Berman bill targets utility spending on lobbying, ads 

“This is us listening to our constituents and listening to the frustration of the experiences that our constituents are having, frankly, the frustration of the experiences that we are having,” Berman said. “We’re not only legislators, but we’re also utility customers.” 

Assembly Bill 1167 tightens restrictions on utility company spending disclosures and increases penalties for companies who’ve been found spending customer payments to further political or public relations agendas, Berman said. 

The legislation is targeting documentation that these investor-owned utilities submit to the Public Utilities Commission when they raise rates, also clarifying definitions of lobbying activities, political activities and public relations activities. 

“What we found was that the investor-owned utilities like PG&E were taking advantage of the lax rules that California had,” Berman said. “They were trying to essentially hide their political spending, hide their public relations spending, in their hundreds of pages of documents for these approvals that they get from the Public Utilities Commission.” 

Berman cited several specific examples, including a $6 million charge by PG&E to ratepayers for an advertising campaign, which it originally argued was to inform customers of safety measures that the company was taking. Although that charge was ultimately reversed and given to shareholders, he said, the goal of AB 1167 is to make it less likely that expenditures of this nature are foisted on ratepayers to begin with. 

“What my bill does is it makes that process easier for the public to be able to see and for advocacy organizations to be able to see, what are the investor-owned utilities trying to charge to customers, to ratepayers make it harder for them to try to push those expenses off to ratepayers,” Berman said. 

Utility price increases are increasing due in large part to decades of neglect of utility infrastructure, which now requires large-scale repairs in the face of increasing fire and climate concerns. 

But prioritizing legislation like AB 1167, as well as other bills like Senate Bill 254, authored by state Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, which revamps parts of California’s utility structure and creates public financing opportunities for large-scale projects, will help ensure customers don’t bear undue cost burdens as those repairs occur, Berman said. 

“It’s important to note, we are making up for decades of neglect,” he said. “I do think that’s starting to get under control. I think a lot of progress has been made on the safety front. … It is my expectation that rates will stop going up. Ideally, they’d stop going up at all, but definitely not nearly at the rate that they’ve been going up over the past five years.”