AB 2903

Bill Subjects

Abstract

(1) Existing law establishes the Public Utilities Commission, with regulatory jurisdiction and authority over public utilities, including common carriers, electrical corporations, gas corporations, telephone corporations, and water corporations. Existing law prohibits a commissioner from holding an official relation to or having a financial interest in a person or corporation subject to regulation by the commission and requires the commission to adopt an updated conflict of interest code and statement of incompatible activities by February 28, 1998. This bill would prohibit an executive of a public utility from serving as a commissioner within 2 years after leaving the employment of the utility. The bill would require the commission to maintain an updated conflict of interest code and statement of incompatible activities. (2) Existing law requires the office of the commission to be in the City and County of San Francisco. This bill would require the commission to report, as specified, to the relevant policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature by March 31, 2017, on options to locate operations and staff outside of the commission's San Francisco headquarters. (3) Existing law requires the Governor to designate the president of the commission from among its members and requires the president to direct the executive director, the attorney, and other staff of the commission, except for the independent Office of Ratepayer Advocates. Existing law authorizes the executive director to employ those officers, administrative law judges, experts, engineers, statisticians, accountants, inspectors, clerks, and employees as the executive director deems necessary to carry out the provisions of the Public Utilities Act or to perform the duties and exercise the powers conferred upon the commission by law. This bill would authorize the executive director to authorize commission employees to undertake temporary training and development assignments with other agencies, departments, and commissions that undertake coordinated activities with the commission, including the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission, the State Air Resources Board, and the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources. The bill would require the executive director to work with the University of California, the California State University, and other postsecondary educational institutions to develop curriculum and training necessary or useful to candidates for employment with the commission. The bill would require the commission to appoint a chief administrative law judge and an internal auditor, to hold office at the pleasure of the commission and to perform specified functions. The bill would shift responsibility for keeping a full and true record of all proceedings of the commission from the executive director to the chief administrative law judge. (4) Existing law places various responsibilities upon the commission to ensure that public utility services are provided in a manner that protects the public safety and the safety of utility employees. This bill would require the commission to appoint a Deputy Executive Director for Safety to hold office at its pleasure. The deputy executive director would have primary responsibility for implementing the authority of the commission to initiate an investigation into a safety-related matter and to exercise the emergency authority of the commission to ensure the safety of the public. (5) The California Constitution authorizes the commission to establish rules, examine records, and prescribe a uniform system of accounts for all public utilities. The Public Utilities Act requires the commission to inspect and audit the books and records of electrical corporations, gas corporations, heat corporations, telegraph corporations, telephone corporations, and water corporations for regulatory and tax purposes. This bill would authorize the commission to conduct financial and performance audits of any entity or program created by any order, decision, motion, settlement, or other action of the commission. If the commission undertook an audit pursuant to this authority, the bill would require the commission to transmit a copy of the audit report to the Legislature and to the Governor immediately upon completion of the audit and to make the report available to the public. (6) This bill would require the commission to appoint an independent ombudsman for ethics who would be required to receive complaints and comments from employees of the commission and members of the public concerning how the commission is carrying out its functions. The ombudsman, or staff under the direction of the ombudsman, would be responsible for instituting a program of enhanced ethics training for all commissioners and employees of the commission, including training concerning the commission's conflict of interest code, statement of incompatible activities, and limitations upon ex parte communications. (7) Existing law requires the commission to establish an office of the public advisor and requires the office of the public advisor to assist members of the public and ratepayers who desire to testify before or present information to the commission in any hearing or proceeding of the commission. This bill would require the public advisor to receive complaints and comments from members of the public concerning how the commission is carrying out its functions and to compile, no less than once annually, and make public on the commission's Internet Web site the number and nature of complaints and comments from members of the public. The public advisor would be required to maintain the confidentiality of the identity of a member of the public who makes a complaint or comment unless the member of the public expressly indicates a desire to communicate his or her identity to the commission. (8) The Nuclear Facility Decommissioning Act of 1985 requires the commission to undertake certain steps relative to the decommissioning of a nuclear powerplant by an electrical corporation. This bill would require the commission to advocate before the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission for expedited relocation of any spent fuel stored at the San Onofre nuclear generating station, the Diablo Canyon Units 1 and 2 powerplant, and the Humboldt Bay Unit 3 powerplant to an independent, offsite spent fuel storage installation. (9) This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to transfer the duties and responsibilities of the commission over passenger stage corporations, charter-party carriers of passengers, transportation network companies, household goods carriers, vessel common carriers, private carriers, for-hire vessels, and commercial air operators to state departments within the Transportation Agency in a manner consistent with Article XII of the California Constitution and would require the Governor, by January 31, 2018, to propose the specific budget and statutory changes needed to complete the transfer of the duties and responsibilities to the Transportation Agency by no later than July 1, 2018. (10) This bill would require the California Research Bureau in the California State Library, by January 1, 2018, to conduct a study of telecommunications service governance to determine what regulatory structure would provide the appropriate regulatory oversight of telecommunications services and to assess the overarching goals of the various programs carried out by federal and state agencies, including the commission. The bill would require the bureau to include a discussion of whether the commission, as a whole, is strategically aligned towards a clearly articulated public goal. The bill would require the study to take into account the history of telecommunications service regulation in the state and changes in technology to make recommendations for guiding principles that clearly define California's goals for the regulation of the telecommunications industry. (11) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.