Senate BillIntroducedPublic Utilities
SB 1011: Energy: Utility Infrastructure AI Safety, Oversight, and Workforce Protection Act.
What SB 1011 does, verified July 13, 2026
The bill requires utilities to oversee the implementation of a program to regulate automated decision systems in connection with certain utility functions. Privately owned utilities and publicly owned utilities that employ automated decision systems must maintain a structured process for qualified personnel to modify or override the output of these systems. These utilities are prohibited from deploying high-risk automated decision systems in their live operational environment without a safety plan and must operate these systems in staging mode before full deployment. In the event of an incident, utilities must report the incident and submit a root-cause report within 24 and 30 hours, respectively. Utilities must continuously monitor their high-risk automated decision systems and submit annual reports. Utilities must provide at least 180 days' advance notice to affected labor organizatio…
Bill journey
1IntroducedCurrent
2In CommitteePending
3First Chamber FloorPending
4Second ChamberPending
5GovernorPending
6ChapteredPending
Last action: Ordered to inactive file on request of Senator McNerney. (2026-05-28)Alert me
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Full contact details, staff, and committees with Connect, $16/moUnlockRecent actions15 total · showing 5
| May. 28, 2026 | Ordered to inactive file on request of Senator McNerney. |
| May. 19, 2026 | Read second time. Ordered to third reading. |
| May. 18, 2026 | Read second time and amended. Ordered to second reading. |
| May. 18, 2026 | From committee: Do pass as amended. (Ayes 5. Noes 2. Page 4261.) (May 14). |
| May. 08, 2026 | Set for hearing May 14. |
Latest bill textAmended version, May 18, 2026 · 1,725 words
| Amended IN Senate May 18, 2026 |
| Amended IN Senate April 22, 2026 |
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2025–2026 REGULAR SESSION
Senate Bill
No. 1011
| Introduced by Senator McNerney |
February 10, 2026 |
An act to add Chapter 11 12 (commencing with Section 8510) to Division 4.1 of the Public Utilities Code, relating to energy.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SB 1011, as amended, McNerney. Energy: Utility Infrastructure AI Safety, Oversight, and Workforce Protection Act.
Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission with regulatory jurisdiction over public utilities, including electrical corporations and gas corporations, while local publicly owned electric utilities are under the direction of their governing boards. Existing law requires every public utility to furnish and maintain adequate, efficient, just, and reasonable service, instrumentalities, equipment, and facilities, as are necessary to promote the safety, health, comfort, and convenience of its customers, its employees, and the public.
This bill would require the commission, on or before January 1, 2028, to adopt standards for an electrical or gas corporation’s use of artificial intelligence models, as provided. The bill would require the commission to direct an electrical or gas corporation to file a plan that demonstrates the corporation’s compliance with those standards. The bill would authorize the commission to prohibit an electrical or gas corporation’s use of an artificial intelligence model if the commission finds that deployment of the artificial intelligence model would negatively impact the provision of safe, affordable, and reliable electrical or gas service.
The bill would require each community choice aggregator or and local publicly owned electric utility to adopt a policy regarding its use of an artificial intelligence model that is consistent with the standards.
Under existing law, a violation of an order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime.
Because a violation of a commission action implementing those requirements would be a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. Additionally, by imposing new duties on local publicly owned electric utilities, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for specified reasons.
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1.
This act shall be known, and may be cited, as the Utility Infrastructure AI Safety, Oversight, and Workforce Protection Act.SEC. 2.
(a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(1) The electrical and gas infrastructure of the state is vital to public safety, economic stability, and environmental sustainability.
(2) The increasing use of artificial intelligence models within utility operations, including mapping, design, configuration, control, maintenance, and oversight, introduces new risks to reliability, safety, asset integrity, system-of-record accuracy, and workforce continuity.
(3) Licensed engineers, technical specialists, and field operations personnel possess professional judgment essential to safe utility operations. Artificial intelligence models should complement, not replace, that judgment.
(4) Workers in utility operations should have appropriate notice and training opportunities when technological change affects their roles.
(b) In enacting this act, it is the intent of the Legislature to establish consistent statewide standards for the safe, transparent, auditable, and equitable implementation of artificial intelligence models in utility infrastructure operations.
SEC. 3.
Chapter 12 (commencing with Section 8510) is added to Division 4.1 of the Public Utilities Code, to read:CHAPTER 12. Artificial Intelligence Models in Utility Infrastructure
8510.
(a) For purposes of this chapter,(b) “Artificial intelligence model” means an engineered or machine-based system that varies in its level of autonomy and that can, for explicit or implicit objectives, infer from the input it receives how to generate outputs that can influence physical or virtual environments.
(c) “Electrical corporation” has the same meaning as defined in Section 218.
(d) “Gas corporation” has the same meaning as defined in Section 222.
(e) “Local publicly owned electric utility” has the same meaning as defined in Section 224.3.
8511.
(a) As part of a new or existing proceeding, the commission shall, on or before January 1, 2028, adopt standards for an electrical corporation’s or gas corporation’s use of artificial intelligence models. The standards adopted by the commission shall do at least all of the following:(1) Establish disclosure requirements for an electrical corporation or gas corporation to specify the types of artificial intelligence models it uses and how those models are used by the electrical corporation or gas corporation.
(2) Require an electrical corporation or gas corporation to identify the employee job classifications impacted by any planned implementation of an artificial intelligence model and efforts taken to ensure effective education, training, and retention for impacted employees.
(3) Identify steps an electrical corporation or gas corporation shall take to ensure that artificial intelligence models do not impact utility safety, affordability, and reliability.
(4) Establish requirements for human review and approval for the deployment and use of artificial intelligence models to ensure that electrical and gas services are safe, affordable, and reliable, including requirements for the placement of human review in the deployment of artificial intelligence models.
(5) Ensure that deployment of artificial intelligence models do does not displace utility employees needed for the safe, affordable, and reliable provision of electrical and gas services. For any job classification identified as responsible for human review and approval of an artificial intelligence model, the electrical corporation or gas corporation shall demonstrate that its workforce plan maintains sufficient personnel in that job classification to ensure that human review and approval processes are not rendered nominal by understaffing. the electrical corporation or gas corporation shall maintain staffing levels sufficient to support meaningful human review and approval processes, as determined by the commission.
(6)Establish requirements for human review and approval of any artificial intelligence model that does any of the following:
(A)Makes or directly implements operational decisions affecting the mapping, design, configuration, operation, maintenance, or oversight of electrical or gas infrastructure without a mandatory human approval step integrated into the operational workflow before implementation.
(B)Generates recommendations that the electrical corporation or gas corporation has configured to be automatically implemented without case-by-case human review.
(C)Performs any act that could directly and foreseeably result in physical harm to a person or a service interruption or outage, or impact on public safety.
(b)The requirements for human review and approval of artificial intelligence models in subdivision (a) shall ensure staff conducting the review and approval meet all of the following criteria:
(1)Have relevant expertise in the operational area affected by the artificial intelligence model.
(2)Have been provided sufficient information, time, and access to data to meaningfully evaluate the artificial intelligence model’s output or recommendations.
(3)Retain unimpeded authority to reject, modify, or defer implementation of the artificial intelligence model without adverse consequence to the reviewer.
(4)Have not been subject to a workflow design, performance metric, or operational pressure that renders rejection of the system output functionally impractical.
(6) Identify and establish requirements for human review and approval of any use of artificial intelligence that is high risk, safety sensitive, or would have a material operational impact.
(c)
(b) The commission may prohibit an electrical corporation’s or gas corporation’s use of an artificial intelligence model if the commission finds that deployment of the artificial intelligence model would negatively impact the provision of safe, affordable, and reliable electrical or gas service.
(d)
(c) The commission shall direct an electrical corporation or gas corporation to file a plan that demonstrates the corporation’s compliance with the standards adopted pursuant to this section. The commission may request records as it deems necessary to verify compliance with the standards adopted pursuant to this section.
(e)
(d) The commission shall ensure that a plan filed by an electrical corporation pursuant to subdivision (d) (c) may be reviewed by the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety to ensure that any artificial intelligence model used for wildfire mitigation is consistent with the electrical corporation’s wildfire mitigation plan developed pursuant to Section 8386.
(f)
(e) The commission shall ensure that impacted bargaining units are consulted in the development of plans filed pursuant to subdivision (d). (c).
(g)
(f) (1) Each community choice aggregator established pursuant to Section 366.2 shall adopt a policy regarding its use of an artificial intelligence model.
(2) A policy adopted pursuant to this subdivision shall be consistent with the standards adopted by the commission pursuant to subdivision (a).
(h)
(g) (1) Each local publicly owned electric utility shall adopt a policy regarding the its use of an artificial intelligence model.
(2) A policy adopted pursuant to this subdivision shall be consistent with the standards adopted by the commission pursuant subdivision (a).
8515.
(a) This chapter establishes minimum safety and governance standards of artificial intelligence models.(b) This chapter does not limit, waive, or alter any rights, remedies, or obligations under state or federal law, including the National Labor Relations Act (29 U.S.C. Sec. 151 et seq.), the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act (Chapter 10 (commencing with Section 3500) of Division 4 of Title 1 of the Government Code), the Ralph C. Dills Act (Chapter 10.3 (commencing with Section 3512) of Division 4 of Title 1 of the Government Code), or any collective bargaining agreement, with respect to technological change, staffing, workload, training, or working conditions.
8519.
The provisions of this chapter are severable. If any provision of this chapter or its application is held invalid, that invalidity shall not affect other provisions or applications that can be given effect without the invalid provision or application.SEC. 4.
No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution because a local agency or school district has the authority to levy service charges, fees, or assessments sufficient to pay for the program or level of service mandated by this act or because costs that may be incurred by a local agency or school district will be incurred because this act creates a new crime or infraction, eliminates a crime or infraction, or changes the penalty for a crime or infraction, within the meaning of Section 17556 of the Government Code, or changes the definition of a crime within the meaning of Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution.Text of SB 1011 as amended, from the official record. Connect Plus keeps every version and highlights what changed.Compare versions