CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2017–2018 REGULAR SESSION

Senate Bill No. 819

Introduced by Senators Hill, Dodd, McGuire, and Wiener
(Principal coauthors: Assembly Members Levine and Wood)
(Coauthor: Senator Allen)

January 03, 2018

An act to add Section 748 to the Public Utilities Code, relating to electricity.


LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


SB 819, as introduced, Hill. Electrical corporations: rates.
Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations and gas corporations. Existing law authorizes the commission to establish rules for all public utilities, subject to control by the Legislature. Existing law authorizes the commission to fix the rates and charges for every public utility and requires that those rates and charges be just and reasonable. Existing law prohibits a gas corporation from recovering any fine or penalty in any rate approved by the commission.
This bill would prohibit an electrical corporation from recovering a fine or penalty through a rate approved by the commission.
The Public Utilities Act authorizes the commission to ascertain and fix just and reasonable standards, classifications, regulations, practices, measurements, or service to be furnished, imposed, observed, and followed by specified public utilities, including all electrical corporations. If the commission finds, after a hearing, that the rules, practices, equipment, appliances, facilities, or service of any public utility, or the methods of manufacture, distribution, transmission, storage, or supply employed by the public utility, are unjust, unreasonable, unsafe, improper, inadequate, or insufficient, the act requires that the commission determine and, by order or rule, fix the rules, practices, equipment, appliances, facilities, service, or methods to be observed, furnished, constructed, enforced, or employed.
This bill would prohibit an electrical corporation from recovering through a rate approved by the commission an uninsured expense resulting from damages caused by the electrical corporation’s, or its agent’s, commission-regulated facility if the commission determines that the electrical corporation, or its agent, did not reasonably construct, maintain, manage, control, or operate the facility.
Vote: MAJORITY   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: YES   Local Program: NO  

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:


SECTION 1.

 Section 748 is added to the Public Utilities Code, to read:

748.
 (a) An electrical corporation shall not recover through a rate approved by the commission either of the following:
(1) A fine or penalty.
(2) An uninsured expense resulting from damages caused by the electrical corporation’s, or its agent’s, commission-regulated facility if the commission determines that the electrical corporation, or its agent, did not reasonably construct, maintain, manage, control, or operate the facility. The commission’s determination of whether those damages were caused by the facility shall not be admissible in a court action for damages brought against the electrical corporation or its agent.
(b) It is the intent of the Legislature that this section not limit or alter the commission’s authority or obligations under the Public Utilities Act, including to require that all charges be just and reasonable and that each electrical corporation demonstrate to the commission that all costs that the electrical corporation seeks to recover from customers through a rate approved by the commission have been reasonably and prudently incurred.