Assemblymember Boerner Introduces Bills To Cap Utility Profits and Require Accountability For Wildfire Prevention Spending, Says Consumer Watchdog

SACRAMENTO, Calif., March 11, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- San Diego-area Assemblymember Tasha Boerner introduced two bills tackling two of the biggest drivers of rising electricity bills in California: excessive profits at utility companies and the lack of accountability for wildfire mitigation spending.

AB 1677 limits how much investor-owned utilities can profit from their investments, an amount set by the Public Utilities Commission in a cost of capital proceeding. California utilities have been allowed to make about 10% profit, when the average cost of capital is much lower for most companies. AB 1667 limits the utilities' profits to 4% more than the long-term Treasury bond (currently 4.7%). If AB 1667 were law today, utilities' investors would not be allowed to make more than 8.7% profits, saving ratepayers billions annually.

AB 1774 requires independent audits of utilities' wildfire mitigation spending to make sure the funds are spent before new money is appropriated through a rate hike. 

The poster child for the bill is an audit of San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), one of the few ever done, that found that SDG&E could not show that it ever spent $240 million it was authorized to spend between 2019 and 2020 on wildfire prevention. Nonetheless, the PUC allowed SDG&E to keep all the undocumented funds and authorized even more spending without trueing up the prior unspent funds.

"Investor-owned utilities in California are granted among the highest returns on investments anywhere in America and, not surprisingly, Californians are paying some of the highest utility rates in the nation," said Assemblymember Boerner. "It's time to rein in their profits and save Californians money on their monthly utility bills."

California's investor-owned utilities are for-profit companies owned by private investors but operating as regulated monopolies. Consumers have no choice of provider. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) sets the profit structure.

In December 2025, the California Public Utilities Commission voted 4–1 to keep utility profit margins near 10%, despite calls from consumer advocates to lower them to about 6%, which analysts said could save customers billions of dollars annually. PG&E's rate of return is now 9.98%, down from 10.28%, San Diego Gas & Electric's is now 9.93%, down from 10.23%, Southern California Gas is down to 9.78% from 10.08%, and Southern California Edison's is now 10.03%, down from 10.33%. California has some of the highest rates in the country, second only to Hawaii.

Edison's financial results show the regulatory decision resulted in a massive surge in profits and a rapid transfer of wealth from California customers to investors.

Following the CPUC decision, Edison's board in December 2025 increased the company's quarterly shareholder dividend to $0.8775 per share, distributing hundreds of millions of dollars to shareholders. In February 2026, Edison International reported $4.46 billion in net income for 2025, up from $1.28 billion the year before. That represents a $3.17 billion increase in one year, meaning Edison's profits nearly tripled.

Joy Chen, Executive Director of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, said the legislation is urgently needed because utility profit levels have soared as many fire survivors have struggled to stay housed.

"Utilities said these profit levels were needed to prevent bankruptcy after the fires," Chen said. "But instead they have produced record profits while wildfire survivors facing housing instability and even homelessness continue paying massive electricity bills. If companies are granted monopoly control and guaranteed profits, there needs to be basic accountability and transparency."

Wildfire spending is another major driver of utility rates. 

"The rubberstamping of utilities' wildfire mitigation plans result in a lack of accountability and overspending for little actual prevention," said Boerner. "It's time for utilities to answer for the ratepayer money they are being given. We shouldn't be paying the highest rates and in return getting some of the worst safety and reliability."

For example, Edison had not spent funds it was authorized to spend for wildfire mitigation to remove abandoned "ghost lines," such as the one that reportedly started the Eaton fire. 

Despite audit conclusions that the utilities could not show that they spent $2.5 billion of the $6 billion in 2019-2020 Wildfire Mitigation Plan (WMP) spending authorized, the PUC ignored the audit conclusions, let the utilities keep the money and authorized more for 2021-2023 wildfire spending.

The PUC should be required to independently verify that all monies authorized for WMP programs has actually been spent – and on programs that work – before authorizing more WMP spending, according to the author.

"By requiring the PUC to order independent audits of wildfire spending and then follow the audit recommendations, AB 1774 will save ratepayers billions and will save lives," said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. "This is a common sense measure designed to protect against wildfires and against utilities' tendency not to spend wildfire mitigation funds because they can make interest on the money they keep in their bank."

In 2021, as OEIS was starting up[1] PUC safety employees who were transferring to OEIS ordered the first and only independent audits of the utilities' past WMP spending for 2019-2020.[2] The audit conclusions are complicated, primarily because of the lack of appropriate accounting, missing records and the noncooperation of the utilities. So the auditors raised myriad questions about underspending, switched spending and non-spending. 

The auditors recommended disallowance of $2.5 Billion in utility spending for a 2 year period -- with billions more spending questioned because of the potential for double recovery of receiving funds for multiple years for the same program spending.[3] The audits found: 

SDG&E cannot show that it ever spent $240M (out of $759M) or show if it diverted that money to other programs -- what it spent it on or whether that money was double authorized.

SCE cannot show that it ever spent $700.4M (out of $2.868B) or show, if diverted, what programs that money went to -- and whether the estimated costs (which the PUC authorized) equaled the actual costs actually spent on estimated programs.

PG&E cannot show that it ever spent $1,544B (out of $2.42B) or that those amounts were not double recovered for their 2019 and 2020 WMP programs -- although here the auditors went back to PG&E 2017 through 2020 wildfire spending (which raised many more questions about unspent and double recovered costs as PG&E changed their program names between 2017-2019. That made it almost impossible to determine if previously authorized money was ever spent or if PG&E wanted more money for the same activities in 2019-2020 that they received money for but failed to do in 2017-2018.)

But even in the face of the uncontroverted audits, the PUC allowed the utilities in their GRCs to keep all the undocumented funds, and authorized even more spending without trueing up the prior unspent funds.

The lack of accountability is profound for wildfire survivors who face daily struggles.

According to a community survey conducted by the Department of Angels, eight in ten Eaton Fire survivors are still not home, and more than half are expected to lose housing coverage in the coming months.

Families have drained retirement savings, maxed out credit cards, and are taking on crushing debt just to stay housed. Many now face the risk of homelessness.

These same families are also paying some of the highest electricity bills in the country to the for-profit electric company whose equipment is suspected of starting the Eaton Fire.

[1] SB 907, in 2019, moved evaluation of the utilities' plans out of the PUC to the newly created Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety to start in July 2021 because the Legislature lacked confidence that the PUC would competently review the utilities' WMPs.

[2] Note ALL the audits only involved WMP (wildfire mitigation plan) spending. The audits tracked only 2019-2020 spending reports and records versus the authorized spending for the 2018-2019 GRCs (PG&E's GRC comparison was 2017 to 2018). SO the audit period focused on only 2 years of utility WMP spending requests -- 2019-2020.

The PUC concluded that for the utilities' 2018 WMP spending, the PUC could not determine whether the spending requested and authorized was actually spent and if so on what. That 2019 PUC decision concluded that 2018 utility WMP spending was a "black box" which the PUC could not assess. Nonetheless, in its first 2019 WMP spending decision, the PUC approved all the 2018 spending and told the utilities to do better in the future and specifically to keep better records and accounts.

[3] While the audits question over $3.4B in spending, their top line disallowances recommend that the PUC NOT allow the utilities to keep the $2.5B unless and until the utilities can prove that they spent the money, that for the money that was diverted to other programs that the utilities prove that they were NOT authorized other amounts for those same programs (double dipping) and that the utilities prove that the costs the utilities estimated were the actual costs that they incurred. The audits conclude that they could not audit most of the accounts for lack of basic record keeping and for switches of expense tracking midway through the audit which they found to be significant deficiencies.

SOURCE Consumer Watchdog