The bill requires the Office of the State Fire Marshal to convene a lithium battery working group to identify safety issues associated with lithium batteries and associated charging infrastructure located near or within residential and commercial occupancies that the 2025 California Building Standards Code did not address. The group must recommend practical responses — from informational bulletins and training to voluntary or mandatory building standards — for the State Fire Marshal and other agencies to consider.
The statute prescribes membership categories, a clear delivery date for initial research and recommendations (January 1, 2027), and an appropriation drawn from the Building Standards Administration Special Revolving Fund for operational costs, research, and materials. Two features to note: the bill gives the State Fire Marshal selection discretion over members and carves out a funding line (amount blank) that determines whether the working group can carry out technical research or independent testing.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill tasks the State Fire Marshal with convening a working group to identify lithium battery and charging‑infrastructure safety gaps not covered by the 2025 California Building Standards Code and to recommend solutions ranging from guidance to potential mandatory standards.
Who It Affects
The work touches fire agencies, local building departments, parking facility owners (stand‑alone and attached), commercial and apartment owners, licensed electrical contractors and electricians with specific energy storage certification, and academic experts on battery chemistry.
Why It Matters
Recommendations from this group could feed into building‑code changes or produce guidance that shifts compliance practices, retrofit needs, or training requirements for properties and contractors across California — particularly where EV charging or stationary storage is installed near occupied spaces.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The bill creates an advisory working group housed in the Office of the State Fire Marshal to catalogue safety risks tied to lithium batteries and their charging infrastructure when those systems are installed near or within residential and commercial occupancies. It focuses only on hazards not already addressed in the 2025 California Building Standards Code, and it requires the group to propose practical remedies that range from informational bulletins to mandatory building standards.
That list of possible outputs keeps the group’s role intentionally broad: it can deliver soft guidance or recommend formal code changes.
Membership is specified by category rather than named organizations, and the State Fire Marshal selects the actual representatives. The bill lists firefighting organizations, the California Building Standards Commission, local building departments, fire‑safety consultants, owners of parking facilities and properties, licensed electrical contractors, and an electrician with Energy Storage and Microgrid Training and Certification.
It also requires one professor with expertise in lithium battery chemistry, directing the State Fire Marshal to try to appoint a University of California professor first and only appoint an alternate if no UC candidate meets the criteria.The group must produce initial research, findings, and recommendations by January 1, 2027, and the statute authorizes an appropriation from the Building Standards Administration Special Revolving Fund to cover operational costs, research, guidance development, training materials, and formulation of potential building standards. The text leaves the appropriation amount blank, making the group’s capacity contingent on the eventual funding provided.
Because the bill frames the outputs as recommendations “for the State Fire Marshal and other impacted agencies to consider,” any mandatory standards would still need the usual adoption processes through the Building Standards Commission or other rulemaking bodies.Practically, the working group is positioned to translate technical safety questions — for example, battery chemistries, thermal runaway mitigation, ventilation, separation distances, and charging controls — into either guidance that owners and first responders can use immediately or into candidate code language for later formal adoption. The membership and funding choices in the bill shape whether the group can commission independent testing or remain largely a consultative forum relying on existing studies and stakeholder input.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The working group must deliver initial research, findings, and recommendations on or before January 1, 2027.
Membership is categorical and includes at least two representatives from California Professional Firefighters and one professor with lithium battery chemistry expertise, with a statutory preference for a University of California professor.
The bill authorizes an appropriation from the Building Standards Administration Special Revolving Fund (Section 18931.7) for the group's operations, but the statutory text leaves the appropriation amount blank.
Permissible outputs explicitly include informational bulletins, guidance documents, educational and training materials, and both voluntary and mandatory building standards.
The State Fire Marshal retains selection discretion for most seats — the statute names categories of stakeholders rather than fixed organizations and does not require inclusion of battery manufacturers or insurers.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Scope and required outputs of the working group
This subsection directs the State Fire Marshal to convene a working group to identify lithium battery and charging‑infrastructure safety issues not already addressed in the 2025 California Building Standards Code. It tells the group to recommend solutions and lists potential types of outputs — from informational bulletins to mandatory building standards — giving the group latitude to produce both short‑term guidance and code‑level proposals. Practically, that means the group may address technical mitigation measures, emergency response guidance, and candidate code language for later adoption.
Membership categories and appointment discretion
This subsection prescribes the categories of members: firefighting associations, the California Building Standards Commission, two representatives from California Professional Firefighters, local building departments, fire‑safety consultants, parking facility owners, commercial and apartment owners, one licensed electrical contractor, and one electrician with Energy Storage and Microgrid Training and Certification. It also requires one professor with battery chemistry expertise and instructs the State Fire Marshal to try to appoint a University of California professor first. The State Fire Marshal makes the actual selections, which concentrates appointment power in that office and allows flexible representation but also raises questions about which organizations get seats.
Delivery timeline for initial research and recommendations
This short subsection imposes a firm deadline: the working group must deliver its initial research, findings, and recommendations by January 1, 2027. The date creates a compressed timeframe for technical assessment and stakeholder consultation — a practical constraint that may limit the scope of original testing and favor literature reviews, stakeholder submissions, and expert synthesis.
Funding source and permitted uses
The statute directs an appropriation from the Building Standards Administration Special Revolving Fund to the Office of the State Fire Marshal, listing allowed uses such as operational costs, research, guidance and training development, and formulation of potential building standards. The text leaves the appropriation amount blank, so implementation depends on a subsequently provided sum; the designated uses, however, permit the funding to cover both administrative and substantive technical work if money is made available.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Infrastructure across all five countries.
Explore Infrastructure in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- State Fire Marshal and other state agencies — they receive consolidated research and actionable recommendations that can inform guidance or code proposals without conducting the technical legwork themselves.
- Firefighters and first responders — the group's focus on battery‑specific hazards can produce targeted training and response protocols that reduce firefighter risk during lithium battery incidents.
- Local building departments — they gain guidance and potential model code language that can standardize inspections and permit reviews for battery and charging systems.
- Property owners and parking facility operators who proactively adopt best practices — clearer guidance reduces uncertainty about compliance and liability when installing charging or storage systems.
Who Bears the Cost
- Apartment and commercial property owners and parking facility operators — potential code changes or recommended retrofits could require installations (ventilation, separation, suppression) that raise construction or renovation costs.
- Licensed electrical contractors and certified electricians — new standards or training materials will create compliance and training obligations, and contractors may need to develop new competencies or certifications.
- The Building Standards Administration Special Revolving Fund — an appropriation reduces the fund’s balance and redirects resources that might otherwise support other building standards work.
- Local building departments and inspection staff — if the working group’s recommendations become mandatory, local jurisdictions may bear added inspection and enforcement workload without guaranteed additional resources.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill pits two legitimate objectives against each other: the urgent need to reduce lithium battery fire risk in occupied buildings versus the economic and practical costs of stricter design, retrofit, or operational requirements. Stronger standards and mandatory measures can materially improve safety but raise construction, retrofit, and compliance costs that affect housing affordability, parking operations, and the pace of energy storage and EV deployment; the working group is supposed to reconcile safety with cost‑effectiveness, but its choices — membership, methods, and funding — will determine which side of that trade‑off dominates.
Two implementation frictions stand out. First, the appropriation amount is blank in the statute, so the working group’s ability to commission testing, hire technical staff, or run broad stakeholder outreach depends entirely on whether the legislature later allocates sufficient funds.
A small appropriation would constrain the effort to desk research and stakeholder submissions; a larger one would allow for independent testing and modeling that produce firmer technical bases for code proposals.
Second, the bill limits the group to hazards “not already addressed” in the 2025 California Building Standards Code. That carve‑out reduces duplication but invites interpretive disputes about what the 2025 code covers, potentially narrowing the inquiry or provoking procedural fights over scope.
The selection‑by‑category membership model ensures representation from many affected parties, yet the absence of mandated seats for battery manufacturers, product testing labs, or insurers could skew deliberations away from supply‑side technical data and cost modeling. Finally, recommendations are advisory — the statute does not itself change code; any mandatory standards would require follow‑on rulemaking and possible cost‑benefit analysis under existing building‑code adoption processes.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.