Press Release

Senator Wiener Introduces Bill to Streamline Clean Energy Permitting

SB 1097 will streamline permitting for clean energy projects and transmission upgrades as California races to deploy enough clean energy to offset rising costs and meet climate goals.

SAN FRANCISCO – Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) introduced SB 1097, legislation to streamline permitting for clean energy projects and transmission upgrades. California is facing an unprecedented energy crisis, and supply disruptions from the war in the Middle East mean costs are unlikely to fall anytime soon. The state needs to rapidly deploy clean energy and transmission capacity as quickly as possible to lower costs and meet its climate goals. SB 1097 will speed deployment by allowing more projects to receive streamlined CEQA review.

California has set a target of generating 90% of its electricity from clean energy by 2035, and 100% by 2045. As of 2023, California was generating 67% of its electricity with clean energy. To meet the state goal, a recent Stanford study found that the state must triple its clean energy generation capacity and build five times its current battery capacity by 2045. Meanwhile, CEQA lawsuits have delayed solar and wind projects in Santa Barbara, San Diego, Kern, and Imperial Counties among others.

“Trump’s illegal war has triggered the biggest energy supply crunch in history, and we need to triple down on clean energy if we want to keep energy prices low,” said Senator Wiener. “We need to be building clean energy and transmission as fast as possible, but far too many projects are getting caught up in permitting delays and lawsuits. California must use every lever available to lower costs while tackling the climate crisis. SB 1097 will slash the red tape so that we can make the clean energy progress we need to stabilize energy prices and meet our climate goals.”

Californians are facing staggeringly high energy costs. PG&E alone raised rates nearly 40% between 2022 and 2025. As a result, California now has the second highest electricity rates in the nation after Hawaii.

That cost crisis will only be accelerated by the Trump Administration’s illegal war in the Middle East. Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, warns that the war in the Middle East has created “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market,” and that prices are likely to remain high for some time.

Not only does California need to ramp up its clean energy generation and storage capacity, but the state is also lagging on interconnection of its existing projects. In 2024, new operating projects in CAISO spent an average of 9.2 years in the interconnection queue, the longest of all the ISOs evaluated by an outlook published in May. Lack of transmission access is severely hindering the rapid uptake of clean energy technologies needed to meet the state’s climate goals.

Existing transmission facilities can be upgraded and complemented by advanced transmission technologies to increase the throughput of existing transmission right of ways at lower cost than adding new lines. One study found that transmission owners can up to double the capacity of existing lines by swapping out conventional aluminum conductor steel reinforced (ACSR) cables with a variety of advanced conductor technologies. Many of these technologies have additional benefits, including resilience to high temperatures and wildfires due to substantially reduced sag, and reduced losses of 10-30 percent. 

Despite these clear benefits, advanced reconductoring projects are currently subject to the same permitting requirements as new build. As a result, utilities have no real incentive to consider advanced reconductoring and will pursue new build instead. 

SB 1079 would expedite the construction of clean energy projects by: 

  • Providing a new CEQA exemption for advanced reconductoring of existing transmission lines so long as the project stays within the existing easement
  • Reducing costs and expediting the construction of clean energy generation, storage, and transmission projects that have a minimal impact on the environment by aligning the standard of review for a lead agency’s determination to adopt a Negative Declaration (ND) or a Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND) to parity with the existing standard of review for Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs). This change will allow more projects to complete streamlined CEQA review through an ND or an MND.
  • Require challenges to negative declaration or mitigated negative declarations to be resolved in court in 270 days or less to the extent possible

SB 1097 is sponsored by the Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC) and the Abundance Network.

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