SECTION 1.

 The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) It is the policy of the state that California’s climate goals, greater environmental protection, and improvements in public health, particularly in communities overburdened with air pollution, can be achieved through increased use of electricity as a source of power rather than continued reliance on fossil fuels. Among other things, expanded electrification of the transportation sector and equipment and appliances within buildings, as well as the increased use of energy produced from renewable sources and stored energy, would assist in meeting the state’s environmental goals.

(b) As codified in Section 25328 of the Public Resources Code, the state has established a goal of reaching 100 percent zero-emission vehicles for new passenger vehicle sales by 2035 and for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles by 2045. In addition, the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission and the State Air Resources Board anticipate as many as 8,000,000 electric vehicles in California by 2030. To meet the state’s climate and air quality goals, especially in areas where there is a concentration of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles and other goods movement equipment, electrical corporations and local publicly owned electric utilities must be able to proactively plan and build electrical grid upgrades to accommodate the level of electric vehicle charging associated with these goals and projections.

(c) Decarbonized energy use in buildings, mainly by converting space and water heating from natural gas to electricity, also supports the state’s climate, environmental, and public health policies. In addition, electrifying more building energy uses reduces the emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants more effectively if the electricity comes from zero-carbon sources.

(d) Improvements in zero-carbon generation technologies are enabling cleaner electricity to be used on a greater scale, but delivering that energy to meet the anticipated increases in demand will require constructing and installing additional electrical system infrastructure.

(e) For all of these climate, environmental, and public health reasons, there is a critical need to bring new electrical grid infrastructure online more quickly. This infrastructure includes (1) expanding utility infrastructure in existing utility rights-of-way and (2) developing new utility infrastructure within two miles of a source of increased or additional electrical demand related to electric vehicle charging facilities, building electrification projects, or vehicle fleets electrification projects, or a renewable generation source, which would provide reliable transmission or transformation infrastructure to interconnect to, or deliver power from, that source.