BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    



                                                                  AB 162
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   April 22, 2009

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                Kevin De Leon, Chair

                    AB 162 (Ruskin) - As Amended:  April 1, 2009 

          Policy Committee:                               
          UtilitiesVote:14-0

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program:  
          No     Reimbursable:               

           SUMMARY  

          This bill modifies and streamlines reporting requirements for  
          publicly-owned utilities (POUs) and other electricity providers.  
           Specifically, this bill:

          1)Requires every retail seller of electricity in California to  
            disclose it electricity sources to end-use customers annually  
            instead of quarterly and modifies the information included in  
            this report.

          2)Stipulates that compliance by a POU with the reporting  
            requirement in (1) constitutes compliance with reporting  
            requirements to the California Energy Commission (CEC) for the  
            renewable portfolio standard (RPS).

           FISCAL EFFECT  

          Negligible fiscal impact to the CEC.

           COMMENTS  

           Background and Purpose  .  SB 1305 (Sher)/Chapter 796 of 1997,  
          requires retail electricity suppliers to disclose on a quarterly  
          basis to customers the resources used to generate the  
          electricity they sell through what is known as the "power  
          content label."  In addition to the power content label, POUs  
          must comply with a several other CEC reporting requirements for  
          the following programs: the RPS-SB 107 (Simitian)/Chapter 464 of  
          2006, the California Solar Initiative-SB 1 (Murray)/Chapter 132  
          of 2006, and the Global Warming Solutions Act-AB 32  
          (N??ez)/Chapter 488 of 2006. These reports are mandated with  








                                                                  AB 162
                                                                  Page  2

          varying frequency.  According to the author's office, AB 162 is  
          intended to streamline the reporting process for POUs.  The bill  
          also modifies the power content label to allow customers to  
          compare how their POUs generation mix, by resource, compares  
          with statewide generation mix.

           Analysis Prepared by  :    Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081