S T A T E O F N E W Y O R K
________________________________________________________________________
10763
I N A S S E M B L Y
April 1, 2026
___________
Introduced by M. of A. KAY -- read once and referred to the Committee on
Energy
AN ACT to amend the public service law, in relation to reducing the
response time for securing downed wires to one hour upon notice
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, REPRESENTED IN SENATE AND ASSEM-
BLY, DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
Section 1. Subparagraph (xi) of paragraph (a) of subdivision 21 of
section 66 of the public service law, as separately amended by chapter
743 of the laws of 2022 and chapter 38 of the laws of 2024, is amended
to read as follows:
(xi) appropriate safety precautions regarding electrical hazards,
including plans to PHYSICALLY RESPOND TO AND promptly secure downed
wires within [thirty-six hours] ONE HOUR of notification of the location
of such downed wires from a municipal emergency [official] RESPONDER;
§ 2. Paragraph (c) of subdivision 21 of section 66 of the public
service law, as added by section 4 of part X of chapter 57 of the laws
of 2013, is amended to read as follows:
(c) The commission is authorized to open an investigation to review
the performance of any corporation in restoring service or otherwise
meeting the requirements of the emergency response plan during an emer-
gency event. If, after evidentiary hearings or other investigatory
proceedings, the commission finds that the corporation failed to reason-
ably implement its emergency response plan or the length of such corpo-
ration's outages were materially longer than they would have been,
because of such corporation's failure to reasonably implement its emer-
gency response plan, THE CORPORATION SHALL BE SUBJECT TO A FINE IN AN
AMOUNT TO BE DETERMINED BY THE DEPARTMENT PURSUANT TO SUBDIVISION TWO OF
SECTION TWENTY-FIVE OF THIS CHAPTER, AND the commission may deny the
recovery of any part of the service restoration costs caused by such
failure, commensurate with the degree and impact of the service outage;
provided, however, that nothing herein limits the commission's authority
to otherwise commence a proceeding pursuant to sections twenty-four,
twenty-five and twenty-five-a of this chapter.
§ 3. This act shall take effect immediately.
EXPLANATION--Matter in ITALICS (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
Open Legislation is a forum for New York State legislation. All comments are subject to review and community moderation is encouraged.
Comments deemed off-topic, commercial, campaign-related, self-promotional; or that contain profanity, hate or toxic speech; or that link to sites outside of the nysenate.gov domain are not permitted, and will not be published. Attempts to intimidate and silence contributors or deliberately deceive the public, including excessive or extraneous posting/posts, or coordinated activity, are prohibited and may result in the temporary or permanent banning of the user. Comment moderation is generally performed Monday through Friday. By contributing or voting you agree to the Terms of Participation and verify you are over 13.
Create an account. An account allows you to sign petitions with a single click, officially support or oppose key legislation, and follow issues, committees, and bills that matter to you. When you create an account, you agree to this platform's terms of participation.