California has just taken a major step toward accelerating its clean-energy future: on October 6, 2025, the Governor signed AB 39 (the Local Electrification Planning Act, or “LEPA”) into law.
For cities and counties with 75,000 or more residents, LEPA requires that—by no later than January 1, 2030 (and as early as January 1, 2027)—they adopt a locally tailored electrification plan, decarbonization plan, community energy plan, or other similar plan (or integrate such into their next general plan update).
What the Law Requires
Under LEPA, local plans must include:
- Goals, objectives, policies, and feasible implementation measures — not just aspirational language.
- Identification of opportunities to expand EV (electric vehicle) charging and other zero-emission vehicle fueling infrastructure to serve current and future residents, visitors, businesses, and governmental entities.
- Strategies for placing charging infrastructure in residential, retail, commercial parking facilities, public street corridors, and public lots/structures — including public-charging corridors on streets where needed.
- Planning for building electrification and decarbonization: new and existing buildings, incentivizing/subsidizing property owners, removing barriers to electrification.
- Inclusion of distributed clean energy resources — rooftop solar, community solar, microgrids, battery storage — to support increased electricity demand and reliability.
- Planning for medium- and heavy-duty vehicle fleet electrification (public and private), including identifying where fleet charging infrastructure and grid upgrades may be needed.
- A requirement to address equity: investments must prioritize disadvantaged communities, low-income households, and small businesses so they are not left behind in the transition.
Why This Matters — and What It Means for Local Governments
- LEPA makes electrification a mandatory element of local planning for any city or county with 75,000+ population. This moves EV charging and clean-energy infrastructure from “nice-to-have” to “required.”
- It gives local jurisdictions the flexibility to tailor their plans to unique community needs — but also the responsibility to produce concrete strategies and investments, not just broad goals.
- For many municipalities, adopting electrification now (e.g., at municipal facilities, public buildings, city-owned parking) will serve as a learning ground: refining permitting, installation, grid coordination, community engagement, and help build internal capacity and institutional knowledge well ahead of broader public and private rollout.
- Because LEPA’s scope includes disadvantaged communities, renters, small businesses, and street-parked residents, it creates an opportunity for equity-centered infrastructure planning — making clean transportation and clean buildings more accessible to all residents.
How SPURR Can Help: The PAVE Program
At SPURR, we recognized that many public agencies lack the internal expertise, procurement capacity, or procurement scale to implement EV and clean-energy infrastructure at speed. That is why we launched our Procurement Assistance for Vehicle Electrification (PAVE) program — to help agencies plan, procure, and deploy charging infrastructure efficiently and cost-effectively.
The PAVE Program offers:
- Turnkey procurement and installation of EV charging infrastructure — from site analysis, road-mapping, design and permitting, to installation, commissioning, and ongoing maintenance.
- Access to competitively sourced pricing through aggregated procurement for public agencies — saving time and reducing cost and complexity compared to traditional procurement routes.
- Support navigating regulatory and technical requirements, grant/incentive pull-through (where eligible), grid and charging-management systems, and long-term operations.
For cities, counties, school districts, special districts, and other public agencies — especially those now required to comply with LEPA — PAVE offers a ready-made mechanism to accelerate their transition and meet statutory requirements.
Call to Action
If your city or county is approaching the LEPA deadline (January 1, 2030), now is the time to start planning. Whether you’re just beginning to explore electrification or ready to lay down concrete commitments, SPURR is here to help. I encourage you to reach out to SPURR today at PAVE@spurr.org to learn more about how PAVE can support your LEPA-compliant electrification plan — and help your community move toward a cleaner, more equitable energy future.
External Links / Resources
- Local Electrification Planning Act (AB 39) — bill text and full legislative summary.
- CalMatters summary of AB 39.
- SPURR PAVE Program overview.