Newsom vetoes a CPUC watchdog bill and signs a data-center law package
Serguey Asael Shinder1 min readCalifornia Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed, on 19 September 2026, AB 353, which would have created an inspector general for the Public Utilities Commission. He said he understood the desire for more oversight but that the bill had "flaws", would undermine the independence of the Public Advocate's Office by granting staff access to internal deliberations and litigation strategy, and carried reorganisation costs "in the tens of millions" that were not in this year's budget. He also vetoed AB 1761, which would have required utilities and the PUC to disclose all data behind the Power Charge Indifference Adjustment fee, a bill championed by community-choice electricity providers.
On 21 September he signed a package aimed at data centers, including strengthened energy-reporting requirements and a mandate for regulators to create new rate structures.
What it means
Two vetoes and a signing, read together, are a stance on who watches the utilities. The governor blocked new oversight machinery for the CPUC while adding obligations on data centers. The consistent thread is cost and existing-agency turf — he leaned on budget impact and on not disturbing the Public Advocate's role, rather than on the merits of oversight itself.
Data-center rate structures are the part with the longest tail. Requiring regulators to build new rate designs for large loads is how a state decides whether data centers pay for the grid they trigger or spread it across everyone's bill. The instruction is set; the numbers come later, in the rate cases.
A vetoed disclosure bill keeps a contested fee opaque. The Power Charge Indifference Adjustment is a long-running fight between incumbent utilities and community-choice providers; killing the data-disclosure bill leaves that argument where it was, which is itself a decision.