AB 1918

Bill Subjects

Abstract

(1) Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical, gas, water, and telephone corporations. Existing law authorizes the commission to establish rules for all public utilities, subject to control by the Legislature. Existing law directs the commission to require every electrical, gas, water, and telephone corporation with annual gross revenues exceeding $25,000,000, and their regulated subsidiaries and affiliates, to implement a program developed by the commission to encourage, recruit, and utilize minority-, women-, and disabled veteran-owned business enterprises, as defined, in the procurement of contracts from those corporations or from their regulated subsidiaries and affiliates, and to require the reporting of certain information. The commission, by rulemaking, has adopted General Order 156, applicable to certain electrical, gas, and telephone corporations, to effectuate these requirements. This bill would extend the minority-, women-, and disabled veteran-owned business enterprises procurement requirements to wireless telecommunications service providers with gross annual revenues of more than $25,000,000 and would encourage each electrical, gas, water, wireless telecommunications service provider, and telephone corporation that is not required to submit a plan to voluntarily adopt a plan for increasing women, minority, and disabled veteran business enterprise procurement in all categories. (2) Existing law requires the commission to recommend a program and legislation for carrying out the policy of aiding the interests of women, minority, and disabled veteran business enterprises in order to preserve specified objectives. This bill would require the commission, in regards to disabled veteran business enterprises, to ensure that those recommended programs and legislation are consistent with the disabled veteran business enterprise certification eligibility requirements imposed by the Department of General Services and that the recommendations include only those disabled veteran business enterprises certified by the Department of General Services. (3) Existing law requires the commission, by rule or order, to adopt criteria for verifying and determining eligibility of women, minority, and disabled veteran business enterprises for procurement contracts. This bill would instead require the commission to adopt the Department of General Services' disabled veteran business enterprise certification eligibility requirements for verifying and determining eligibility of disabled veteran business enterprises for procurement contracts and would prohibit the commission from deeming eligible those disabled veteran business enterprises that are not certified by the Department of General Services. (4) Existing law requires any person or corporation that falsely represents a business as a women, minority, or disabled veteran business enterprise in the procurement of, or the attempt to procure, contracts from certain electrical, gas, water, or telephone corporations to receive a prescribed punishment. This bill would add wireless telecommunications service providers to that list of corporations and would instead require the punishment for falsely representing a business as a disabled veteran enterprise to conform to penalties imposed pursuant to specified law. (5) This bill would incorporate additional changes in Sections 8281 and 8283 of the Public Utilities Code proposed by AB 2758 of the 2009–10 Regular Session that would become operative only if AB 2758 and this bill are both enacted and become effective before January 1, 2011, and this bill is enacted after AB 2758. (6) Under existing law, a violation of any rules or orders of the commission is a crime. In addition, any person or corporation who falsely represents a business as a woman, minority, or disabled veteran business enterprise for the purposes of the programs discussed above is subject to criminal penalties. Because a violation of the requirements of the bill would be a crime under those provisions, this 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 a specified reason.