Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed Assembly Bill 1761, legislation sponsored by the California Community Choice Association (CalCCA) that would have established greater transparency requirements for the data used to calculate the Power Charge Indifference Adjustment (PCIA), a charge imposed on millions of electricity customers in California.
Introduced by Assemblymember Chris Rogers (D-Santa Rosa), AB 1761 passed the Assembly 65-9 and the Senate 40-0 before being returned by the Governor without his signature. The veto, issued September 20, comes as California continues to grapple with high electricity costs and as the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) considers changes to the PCIA charge. CalCCA has argued that customers and the electricity providers serving them should have meaningful access to the underlying data, assumptions, and methodologies used to establish PCIA charges.
“We are deeply disappointed that the Governor has vetoed a bill that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and was designed simply to bring greater transparency and accountability to a charge that affects millions of California electricity customers,” said CalCCA Chief Executive Officer Beth Vaughan. “Customers should not be asked to pay a charge that they cannot independently evaluate.”
For CalCCA, the veto also comes amid a broader pattern of regulatory and legislative decisions that the association says have placed Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) customers at a disadvantage relative to ‘bundled’ Investor-Owned Utility (IOU) customers. In recent months, CalCCA has challenged CPUC decisions involving PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E that it says shift costs to CCA customers, including decisions affecting the PCIA. CalCCA has argued that these actions undermine the statutory principle of ratepayer indifference and the level playing field that California law established between Community Choice energy providers and IOUs.
In his veto message, Governor Newsom expressed concern that AB 1761 could result in improper dissemination of market-sensitive information while at the same time suggesting the CPUC already has processes for making applicable data available, including through confidentiality procedures. CalCCA’s experience, however, is that access to the information underlying PCIA calculations has been inconsistent and can require repeated disputes before the CPUC. Moreover, the Commission itself withholds key inputs to the PCIA charge.
CalCCA’s analysis supporting AB 1761 documents multiple examples of the types of errors increased transparency could prevent. In a 2019 PG&E proceeding, CalCCA identified $73 million in errors, including a $16 million increase in costs for CCA customers. More recently, in 2025, PG&E identified an accounting error that would have resulted in an estimated $217 million in additional costs for CCA customers. CalCCA has also raised concerns that, in an ongoing PCIA rulemaking, the CPUC withheld information underlying a proposal and its rate impacts and did not respond to a Public Records Act request seeking that information.
AB 1761 was specifically structured to address this problem. The bill would have required the CPUC and investor-owned utilities to disclose data used to calculate PCIA costs, including cost inputs, forecasting assumptions, and methodologies. CalCCA’s proposal also supported ongoing protections for market-sensitive information through Commission-approved nondisclosure agreements.
The PCIA is intended to ensure that customers who leave investor-owned utility generation service, including customers served by Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs), continue to pay their share of certain legacy power costs. Because Community Choice customers are required to pay the charge, CalCCA has argued that CCA representatives need sufficient access to the underlying information to verify its accuracy, evaluate proposed changes, and forecast customer costs.
CalCCA will continue to advocate for greater transparency in the CPUC’s ongoing PCIA proceedings. The association has identified access to IOU and CPUC data as an issue for consideration in the next phase of the Commission’s PCIA rulemaking. Learn more about the PCIA and CalCCA’s advocacy efforts here: https://cal-cca.org/pcia/.
About CalCCA
Launched in 2016, the California Community Choice Association (CalCCA) represents California’s community choice electricity providers before the state Legislature and at regulatory agencies, advocating for a level playing field and opposing policies that unfairly discriminate against CCAs and their customers. There are 25 operational CCA programs in California serving more than 15 million customers—over one-third of the state’s population—in more than 200 cities and counties statewide. For more information, visit www.cal-cca.org.