On March 9, 2026, the First Appellate District affirmed in full its previous opinion in Center for Biological Diversity v. Public Utilities Commission (Case No. A167721). The affirmed First Appellate District opinion was appealed to the California Supreme Court, which issued an opinion  in August 2025 not on the issues specific to the CPUC’s action on NEM 3.0’s net billing tariff and related matters (See CPUC D. 22-12-056; See Proceeding Docket for R. 20-08-020), but on how appellate courts are to apply the judicial review standards found in Public Utilities Code § 1757 and 1757.1 to the CPUC. The California Supreme Court remanded the case to the First Appellate District, which just affirmed its previous opinion, filed on December 20, 2023 and last modified on January 1, 2024 (you can read my analysis on this opinion here and other blogs about this case here). The following discusses this and other appellate case updates.

The docket’s Scheduled Action page shows that remitter or the return of the case to the CPUC to carry out the opinion is ordered for April 11, 2025, 30 days after it filed its affirmed opinion. Center for Biological Diversity consequently has 30 days to file a writ of review petition to the California Supreme Court challenging the affirmed opinion. Such a writ will likely rest on arguing that the California Supreme Court’s August 2025 opinion was incorrectly applied with regards to how the standard of review should be applied to the CPUC in its net bill tariff decision. Stated another way, the 1^st Appellate District did not find issue with its original decision and leaves it to whether the California Supreme Court sees an error that needs correcting to facilitate its recent opinion on the judicial review standards of CPUC actions specific to the law and record in this CPUC proceeding.

If the California Supreme Court does not grant the writ of review, then the CPUC’s decision will be amended to follow the First Appellate District’s opinion. The net billing tariff and all related findings and orders of the CPUC decision will then be finalized. This would create continuity for all systems interconnected under the net billing tariff since April 15, 2025.

Update on Remaining Energy Related Appellate Petitions:

At the California Supreme Court, this places Shell North Energy North America’s December 2025 writ of review petition to the California Court as the first case, if the petition is granted, to ask for application of the expanded understanding of judicial review under the August 2025 California Supreme Court’s Center for Biological Diversity v. Public Utilities opinion to the CPUC. The Supreme Court of California extended the deadline to accept or deny the petition to April 2, 2026.

The Shell Energy North America petitions stem from the CPUC decision on the resource adequacy (RA) program, the RA deficiency rule, and load serving entity (LSE) expansion rule.  The appeal to the California Supreme asks for review of CPUC authority to regulate load serving entities like electric service providers (ESP) and community choice aggregators (CCAs). The Shell petition court record can be found here:

• Shell Energy North America (US) v. Public Utilities Commission (Supreme Court Case No. S294605; First Appellate District, Div. 2 Case No. A169967)

At the appellate level, CalCCA petition filed on December 12, 2025 could be the next application of the California Supreme Court’s Center for Biological Diversity v. Public Utilities Commission opinion in the 3^rd District. This petition challenges the CPUC decisions (D. 25-06-049 ; Rehearing Denied by D. 25-10-061) that changed how the calculation for the exit fee unbundled community choice aggregator (CCA) and Direct Access Provider/Electric Service Provider (DAP/ESP) customers pay under the public charge indifference adjustment (PCIA) exit fee arguing this change was retroactive ratemaking:

• California Community Choice Association v. Public Utilities Commission (Third Appellate District, Case No. C105174; Petition found Here).

Additionally, the following writ of reviews were denied March 3, 2026, dealing with Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant:

• San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace v. Public Utilities Commission (Second Appellate District, Case No. B348439; Petition Found Here); and
• Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility v. Public Utilities Commission (Second Appellate District, Case No. B348428).

These two petitions sought review of CPUC action (D. 24-12-033; Modification and Denial of Rehearing D.25-07-041; Proceeding A. 24-03-018) on extending the operation and cost recovery for the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant pursuant to SB 846 (2022) (D. 24-12-033; Modification and Denial of Rehearing D.25-07-041; Proceeding A. 24-03-018). This is a highly regulated area of decision making by the CPUC. It is unknown whether these denials will be appealed to the California Supreme Court.