SB 38

Bill Subjects

Abstract

The existing restructuring of the electrical industry within the Public Utilities Act provides for the establishment of an Independent System Operator and a Power Exchange as nonprofit public benefit corporations. Existing law requires the Independent System Operator, within 6 months after receiving approval for its operation by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, to provide a report to the Legislature and the Electricity Oversight Board containing specified matter. This bill would repeal this reporting requirement, and would abolish the Power Exchange. Electrical restructuring makes legislative findings and declarations in order to provide guidance to the Public Utilities Commission in carrying out restructuring. This bill repeals those legislative findings and declarations. Electrical restructuring states the intent of the Legislature that individual customers not experience rate increases as a result of the allocation of transition costs, as specified, and requires the Public Utilities Commission to implement a methodology for calculating certain Power Exchange energy credits. This bill would repeal this provision. Electrical restructuring required the commission to identify and determine those costs and categories of costs for generation-related assets and obligations that were being collected in commission-approved rates on December 20, 1995, that might become uneconomic as a result of a competitive generation market. Electrical restructuring requires each electrical corporation to propose a cost recovery plan to the commission for the recovery of the uneconomic costs of an electrical corporation's generation-related assets and obligations, requires that the plan contain specified matter, and requires that the plan set rates for each customer class, rate schedule, contract, or tariff option, at levels equal to the level as shown on electric rate schedules as of June 10, 1996, provided that rates for residential and small commercial customers be reduced so that these customers receive rate reductions of no less than 10% for 1998 continuing through 2002. Electrical restructuring prohibits the commission, upon the termination of the 10% rate reduction for residential and small commercial customers, from subjecting those residential and small commercial customers to any rate increase or future rate obligations solely as a result of the termination of the 10% rate reduction. Electrical restructuring authorizes an electrical corporation to apply to the commission for a determination that certain transition costs, as defined, may be recovered through fixed transition amounts, which constitute transition property, as defined, and provides, until December 31, 2015, for the issuance of financing orders by the commission, and provides for the issuance of rate reduction bonds utilizing the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank, to be repaid out of rates. This bill would repeal these provisions. Electrical restructuring requires the commission to establish an effective mechanism that ensures recovery of specified transition costs from all existing and future consumers in the service territory in which the utility provided electricity services as of December 20, 1995, except that the costs shall not be recoverable for new customer load or incremental load of an existing customer where the load is being met through a direct transaction and the transaction does not otherwise require the use of transmission or distribution facilities owned by the utility. This bill would provide that competition transition charges that are authorized by the commission prior to January 1, 2015, continue to apply to all existing and future consumers in the service territory in which the utility provided electricity services as of December 20, 1995, subject to the exception described above. Electrical restructuring directed the commission to authorize direct transactions between electricity suppliers and end-use customers, subject to implementation of nonbypassable charges, as specified. Other provisions reference these charges as a nonbypassable charge, while other provisions reference these charges as an obligation to pay uneconomic costs, as specified. This bill would replace the various references to the specified statutory charges with "competition transition charges." Electrical restructuring requires any electrical corporation serving agricultural customers with multiple meters to conduct research based on a statistically valid sample of those customers and meters to determine the typical simultaneous peak load of those customers and to report the results to those customers and the commission by July 1, 2001. Electrical restructuring requires the commission to consider the research results in setting future electrical distribution rates for those customers. This bill would repeal this provision. Electrical restructuring requires the commission to allow recovery of reasonable employee related transition costs incurred and projected for severance, retraining, early retirement, outplacement, and related expenses for the employees in order to mitigate potential negative impacts on utility personnel directly affected by restructuring. This bill would repeal this provision. Existing law requires, for an electric generating facility sold by an electrical corporation in a transaction initiated prior to December 31, 2001, and approved by the commission by December 31, 2002, that the selling utility contract with the purchaser for the selling utility, an affiliate, or a successor corporation to operate and maintain the facility for at least 2 years, and authorizes the commission to require these conditions for transactions initiated on or after January 1, 2002. This bill would repeal this provision. Existing law, enacted as part of restructuring, prescribes how energy prices paid to nonutility electrical generators, known as qualifying facilities under federal law, by an electrical corporation based on the commission's "short run avoided cost energy methodology" are to be determined, subject to applicable contractual terms. Existing law authorizes a nonutility electrical generator using renewable fuels that entered into a contract with an electrical corporation prior to December 31, 2001, specifying fixed energy prices for 5 years of electrical output to negotiate a contract of an additional 5 years of fixed energy payments upon expiration of the initial 5-year term, at a price to be determined by the commission. This bill would repeal this provision. This bill would repeal a provision authorizing an electrical corporation that was also a gas corporation that served fewer than 4,000,000 customers as of December 20, 1995, to file a rate cap mechanism that includes a Fuel Price Index Mechanism, as specified, which authorization became inoperative on December 31, 2001. This bill would strike references to these repealed statutes.