BILL ANALYSIS
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 162|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 162
Author: Ruskin (D)
Amended: 6/9/09 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE ENERGY, U.&C. COMMITTEE : 11-0, 7/7/09
AYES: Padilla, Benoit, Calderon, Corbett, Cox, Kehoe,
Lowenthal, Simitian, Strickland, Wiggins, Wright
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : Senate Rule 28.8
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 79-0, 5/4/09 (Consent) - See last page for
vote
SUBJECT : Electrical generation: disclosure of sources
SOURCE : Northern California Power Agency
DIGEST : 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 above
constitutes compliance with reporting requirements to the
California Energy Commission for the renewable portfolio
standard.
CONTINUED
AB 162
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ANALYSIS : As part of the 1996 electric industry
restructuring, retail electricity suppliers are required to
disclose information about the energy resources used to
generate the electricity they sell. The purpose was to
provide customers with specific information that details
the generation sources used by energy service providers
compared to an average of other providers' generation
sources.
In recent years, POUs have seen an increase in reporting
requirements. Some of the programs that require reporting
are the Renewables Portfolio Standard [SB 107 (Simitian),
Chapter 464, Statues of 2006], The California Solar
Initiative [SB 1 (Murray), Chapter 132, Statues of 2006],
and the Global Warming Solutions Act [AB 32 (Nunez),
Chapter 488, Statues of 2006]. The Northern California
Power Agency has found the reporting to be unnecessarily
complicated, time-consuming, and costly.
Comments
Purpose of bill . The purpose of the bill is to streamline
the reporting process. It does this for the POUs and
investor-owned utilities by making a quarterly report into
an annual report. It does this for the California Energy
Commission by deleting unnecessary reports.
Net System Power (NSP) . One of the reports which this bill
eliminates is the NSP report. NSP represents the mix of
generation resources not included in the utility disclosure
filings, and are used to serve California load. When the
NSP report requirement was established the expectation was
that most of the electricity purchases would come from the
Power Exchange, where it was difficult to track specific
sources of power. The NSP report was intended to fill in
that information gap. But the Power Exchange went bankrupt
during the 2000 energy crisis. Power purchases have
increasingly been made on a bilateral basis, making it far
easier to track the source of power. The amount of NSP has
dropped by more than 60 percent since 1998, making the NSP
report less useful. Moreover, the California Energy
Commission, which performs the NSP calculation, believes
the NSP report does not provide an accurate picture of
power sources.
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This bill replaces the term NSP with "Unspecified sources
of power" which is defined as electricity that is not
traceable to a specific generation source. The unspecified
source of power will be listed on the Power Content Label,
but a determination and reporting of the composition of the
unspecified sources of power is no longer required.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
SUPPORT : (Verified 7/22/09)
Northern California Power Agency (source)
American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees, AFL-CIO
California Municipal Utilities Association
City of Los Angeles
PG&E
Sempra Energy
Southern California Edison
Southern California Power Authority
Union of Concerned Scientists (if amended)
ASSEMBLY FLOOR :
AYES: Adams, Ammiano, Anderson, Arambula, Beall, Bill
Berryhill, Tom Berryhill, Blakeslee, Block, Blumenfield,
Brownley, Buchanan, Caballero, Charles Calderon, Carter,
Chesbro, Conway, Cook, Coto, Davis, De La Torre, De Leon,
DeVore, Duvall, Emmerson, Eng, Evans, Feuer, Fletcher,
Fong, Fuentes, Fuller, Furutani, Gaines, Galgiani,
Garrick, Gilmore, Hagman, Hall, Harkey, Hayashi,
Hernandez, Hill, Huber, Jeffries, Jones, Knight,
Krekorian, Lieu, Logue, Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma, Mendoza,
Miller, Monning, Nava, Nestande, Niello, Nielsen, John A.
Perez, V. Manuel Perez, Portantino, Price, Ruskin, Salas,
Saldana, Silva, Skinner, Smyth, Solorio, Audra
Strickland, Swanson, Torlakson, Torres, Torrico, Tran,
Villines, Yamada, Bass
NO VOTE RECORDED: Huffman
DLW:mw 7/23/09 Senate Floor Analyses
AB 162
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SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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