Randy Howard, executive director of the Northern California Power Agency, and Travas Deal, CEO of Colorado Springs Utilities, on Jan. 8 testified before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries at a hearing to discuss federal wildfire policy, including the Fix Our Forests Act.
In addition to testifying for NCPA, Howard represented APPA at the hearing.
Full Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR), Subcommittee Chair Harriet Hageman (R-WY), and members of the committee were very appreciative and impressed with the expertise of Howard, Deal and the other witnesses, which included Ea’mon O’Toole, director of the Family Farm Alliance, and Madelene McDonald, senior watershed scientist for Denver Water.
APPA supports H.R. 471, the House version of the Fix Our Forests Act, and S. 1462, the Senate version of FOFA, even though the Senate version does not include a categorical exclusion for work along power line corridors on federal lands.
In his testimony, Howard highlighted the importance of a categorical exclusion (CE) for work along power line corridors, and Westerman shared his frustration that the Senate removed that provision from their version of the bill. He said he is hopeful that the Senate will work to include a specific CE for utilities to implement hazard tree removal expeditiously before the vegetation falls on power lines and starts the next wildfire.
Both Howard and Deal highlighted the critical work their organizations do to ensure utilities are prepared to respond to wildfires and to build back stronger.
Howard said that standards often require replacing fire-damaged equipment with the exact same equipment rather than hardening their infrastructure with newer, fire-resistant equipment.
Westerman noted that this does not make sense and would expose infrastructure to the same risks if another fire breaks out.
Deal and Howard both mentioned the need for additional funding to implement comprehensive forest management and hazard tree mitigation projects that will maintain safety without significantly raising electric rates.
They stressed that public power utilities must pass capital costs on to ratepayers by raising rates, and that the risks and damage associated with wildfires will significantly affect the balance utilities maintain when designing and implementing rate schedules.
Howard urged Congress to reform strict liability for wildfire damages and noted that many public power utilities are struggling to find insurers willing to assume liability for lawsuits arising from utilities being held liable for wildfire damage, even if the utility-owned infrastructure did not cause the wildfire.
APPA recently met with the U.S. Forest Service to discuss this issue and seek a solution that reduces utility burdens and prevents potential rate increases from large settlement or recovery payments.
The hearing also focused on remediation following a wildfire to prevent contamination of water supplies. Deal mentioned that, since CSU also supplies water, its customers are especially prone to wildfire damage from unmanaged forests, which affects all services provided by the utility.
Howard and Deal also advocated for the Senate to pass its version of FOFA. They said the utility sector would benefit immensely from the bill’s provision to move forward quickly and mitigate wildfire-related service risks, even though the Senate bill does not include the specific power line corridor CE.
