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AB-1362 Electricity: load-serving entities: rate and program information.(2019-2020)

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Date Published: 10/02/2019 09:00 PM
AB1362:v92#DOCUMENT

Assembly Bill No. 1362
CHAPTER 395

An act to add Section 365.3 to the Public Utilities Code, relating to electricity.

[ Approved by Governor  October 02, 2019. Filed with Secretary of State  October 02, 2019. ]

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


AB 1362, O’Donnell. Electricity: load-serving entities: rate and program information.
Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Existing law authorizes a community choice aggregator to aggregate the electrical load of electricity consumers within its boundaries and within the service territory of an electrical corporation. Existing law requires an electrical corporation to cooperate fully with any community choice aggregator that investigates, pursues, or implements community choice aggregation programs, including providing appropriate billing and electrical load data, which includes electrical consumption data, as defined. Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime.
This bill would require the commission to post, in a consolidated location on its internet website, residential electric rate tariffs and programs of electrical corporations, electric service providers, and community choice aggregators to enable customers and local governments to compare rates, services, environmental attributes, and other offerings. The bill would require this information to also be available and easily accessible on those electricity providers’ internet websites. The bill would require each of those electricity providers to make available to the commission all information about its residential electric rate tariffs and programs.
Because the provisions of this bill would be a part of the Public Utilities Act and because a violation of a commission action implementing its requirements would therefore be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. Because the bill would impose new reporting and posting requirements upon community choice aggregators, which are entities of local government, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for specified reasons.
Vote: MAJORITY   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: YES   Local Program: YES  

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


SECTION 1.

 Section 365.3 is added to the Public Utilities Code, to read:

365.3.
 (a) The commission shall post, in a consolidated location on its internet website, each load-serving entities’ residential electric rate tariffs and programs to enable customers and local governments to compare rates, services, environmental attributes, and other offerings. The documents posted shall include, but not be limited to, joint comparison rates for each of the community choice aggregators and investor-owned utilities and the disclosures required of retail sellers pursuant to Sections 398.4 and 398.5. This information shall also be available and easily accessible on the load-serving entities’ internet websites.
(b) Pursuant to subdivision (a), each load-serving entity shall make available to the commission all information about its residential electric rate tariffs and programs.
(c) Dissemination of publicly available and factual information pursuant to subdivision (a) by a load-serving entity to a customer shall not constitute a violation of Section 707.
(d) For purposes of this section, “load-serving entity” has the same meaning as in Section 380.

SEC. 2.

 No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution because a local agency or school district has the authority to levy service charges, fees, or assessments sufficient to pay for the program or level of service mandated by this act or because costs that may be incurred by a local agency or school district will be incurred because this act creates a new crime or infraction, eliminates a crime or infraction, or changes the penalty for a crime or infraction, within the meaning of Section 17556 of the Government Code, or changes the definition of a crime within the meaning of Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution.