BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair S
2011-2012 Regular Session B
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SB 859 (Padilla)
As Introduced February 18, 2011
Hearing date: April 12, 2011
Vehicle Code
MK:dl
VEHICLES: RECORDS: CONFIDENTIALITY
HISTORY
Source: California Electric Transportation Coalition
Prior Legislation: SB 938 (Huff) - Chapter 280, Statutes 2010
AB 2039 (Arambula) - Chapter 91, Statutes 2008
AB 1706 (Strickland) - Not heard in Assm. Trans.
2005
AB 118 (Frommer) -As introduced 2003
AB 130 (Campbell) - Not heard in Assm. Trans. 2003
AB 246 (Cox) - Not heard in Assm. Trans. 2003
AB 184 (Lowenthal) - Chapter 720, Statutes 2003
AB 1675 (Longville) - Chapter 649, Statutes 2003
AB 84 (Hertzberg) - Chapter 809, Statutes 2001
AB 1029 (Oropeza) - Chapter 486, Statutes 2001
AB 151 (Longville) - Vetoed 2000
AB 298 (Battin) - Held in Assm. Trans.
2000
AB 1310 (Granlund) - Vetoed 2000
AB 1358 (Shelley) - Chapter 808,
Statutes 2000
AB 1864 (Correa) - Held Assm.
Appropriations 2000
SB 171 (Knight) - Vetoed 1998
AB 1941 (Bordonaro) - Chapter 880,
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Statutes 1996
AB 191(Cannella) - Died in Senate
Committee on Criminal Procedure 1996
AB 3033 (Baca) - Died in Senate
Committee on Criminal Procedure 1996
AB 3391 (Ducheny) - 1996; Never heard
AB 688 (Frusetta) - Died, Senate
Committee on Criminal Procedure 1996
AB 1396 (Poochigian) - Died, Sen.
Committee on Criminal Procedure 1996
AB 1931 (Conroy) - Chapter 77,
Statutes 1994
AB 3454 (Speier) - Chapter 395,
Statutes 1994
AB 3161 (Frazee) - Chapter 838,
Statutes 1994
AB 1268 (Martinez) - Chapter 1268,
Statutes 1993
AB 2367 (Polanco) - Chapter 1291,
Statutes 1993
SB 274 (Committee on Transportation)
- Chapter 1292, Statutes 1993
SB 602 (1992) - Chaptered
AB 1779 (1989) - Chaptered
Support: San Diego Gas and Electric Company; California
Municipal Utilities Association; Sacramento Municipal
Utility District; Southern California Edison
Opposition:None known
KEY ISSUE
SHOULD AN ELECTRICAL CORPORATION BE ALLOWED ACCESS TO CONFIDENTIAL
DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES (DMV) INFORMATION FOR THE PURPOSES OF
TRACKING ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING POINTS?
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PURPOSE
The purpose of this bill is to allow an electrical corporation
access to confidential DMV information for the purposes of
tracking electric vehicle charging points.
Existing law provides except where a specific provision of law
prohibits the disclosure of records or information or provides
for confidentiality, all records of the DMV relating to the
registration of vehicles, other information contained on an
application for a driver's license, abstracts of convictions,
and abstracts of accident reports required to be sent to DMV in
Sacramento, except for abstracts of accidents where, in the
opinion of a reporting officer, another individual was at fault,
shall be open to public inspection during office hours. All
abstracts of accident reports shall be available to law
enforcement agencies and courts of competent jurisdiction.
(Vehicle Code § 1808.)
Under existing law , the residential addresses of certain public
employees and their families are confidential. (Vehicle Code §§
1808.4 and 1808.6 - began in 1977.)
Existing law provides that the release of such confidential
information, for all other persons specified, is a misdemeanor
and punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 and/or by up to one
year in a county jail. (Vehicle Code § 1808.45.)
Existing law states that all residence addresses in any record
of the DMV are confidential and shall not be disclosed to any
person, except a court, law enforcement agency, or other
governmental agency, or as authorized in section 1808.22 of the
Vehicle Code. (Vehicle Code §§ 1808.21 - added in 1989.)
Existing law states that any person may seek suppression of any
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DMV registration or driver's license record if he or she can
show that he or she is the subject of stalking or a threat of
death or great bodily injury. The suppression will be for a
period of one year renewable for two more, one-year periods.
(Vehicle Code § 1808.21(d).)
Existing law provides that specified financial institutions and
insurance companies can get access to DMV record information for
specified purposes relating to vehicle accidents and with
specified restrictions. (Vehicle Code § 1808.22)
Existing law provides that vehicle manufacturers can have access
to DMV record information for the purposes of issuing safety and
warranty information. Automobile dealers can have access to the
information for the purpose of completing registration
transactions and documents. (Vehicle Code § 1808.23)
Existing law gives DMV the authority to require any document
filed with the department to be signed under penalty of perjury.
(Vehicle Code §1652(b))
This bill provides that an electrical corporation or a local
publicly owned utility can access DMV record information if the
utility, or its agent, requests and uses the information only
for the tracking of electrical vehicle points.
RECEIVERSHIP/OVERCROWDING CRISIS AGGRAVATION
For the last several years, severe overcrowding in California's
prisons has been the focus of evolving and expensive litigation.
As these cases have progressed, prison conditions have
continued to be assailed, and the scrutiny of the federal courts
over California's prisons has intensified.
On June 30, 2005, in a class action lawsuit filed four years
earlier, the United States District Court for the Northern
District of California established a Receivership to take
control of the delivery of medical services to all California
state prisoners confined by the California Department of
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Corrections and Rehabilitation ("CDCR"). In December of 2006,
plaintiffs in two federal lawsuits against CDCR sought a
court-ordered limit on the prison population pursuant to the
federal Prison Litigation Reform Act. On January 12, 2010, a
three-judge federal panel issued an order requiring California
to reduce its inmate population to 137.5 percent of design
capacity -- a reduction at that time of roughly 40,000 inmates
-- within two years. The court stayed implementation of its
ruling pending the state's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Monday, June 14, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear
the state's appeal of this order and, on Tuesday, November 30,
2010, the Court heard oral arguments. A decision is expected as
early as this spring.
In response to the unresolved prison capacity crisis, in early
2007 the Senate Committee on Public Safety began holding
legislative proposals which could further exacerbate prison
overcrowding through new or expanded felony prosecutions.
This bill does not appear to aggravate the prison overcrowding
crisis described above.
COMMENTS
1. Need for This Bill
According to the author:
Over the next ten years at least 1 million PEVs are
expected to hit the road in California. As PEVs enter
California markets, utilities, municipal governments,
PEV charging service providers, and other organizations
are working together on infrastructure rollouts to
support charging at homes and in public, and to ensure
that PEV charging integrates smoothly into the
electricity grid.
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Although PEVs can actually be plugged in to a standard
home outlet for charging (referred to as Level 1
charging), that mode can take as long as 20 hours to get
a full charge. Most PEV owners will want to have a
Level 2 charger installed at home to bring the charging
time down to 4 to 8 hours. Level 2 and Level 3 (which
can charge in less than 30 minutes) chargers will be
installed in public locations and at many workplaces to
accommodate charging needs away from home when the PEV
can't quite get to its location and to also relieve
"charging anxiety" for the PEV owner.
Unlike traditional vehicle fuel, every time a PEV is
plugged into a Level 2 or Level 3 charger, that charging
has a ripple effect across the electricity distribution
and transmission grid and, therefore, affects all
ratepayers. The charging of that PEV at Level 2 is
equivalent to adding a new house onto the distribution
grid.
Consequently, the deployment of PEVs will place new
demands on the state's electric system, but managed
properly, that demand can benefit ratepayers and car
owners alike. If that service is not managed
efficiently, it will cost all ratepayers in the form of
higher electric rates and diminish the environmental
benefits of PEVs by increasing greenhouse gas and other
emissions associated with the generation of electricity.
However, a well-planned electric vehicle charging
infrastructure can ensure that the distribution grid has
the capacity necessary to handle the charging of the
vehicles and can also shift a significant amount of
charging to off-peak times. The result is that the need
for the new building of new power plants is minimized
and the utilization of existing plants is increased.
Regardless of where charging occurs - in public or at
home - it is important to avoid adverse impacts on the
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electricity grid and associated costs for utility
customers. Consequently, utilities must actively
participate in a data-driven public infrastructure
planning process to help avoid distribution-level
impacts of PEV charging. To ensure that they have the
data necessary to facilitate this planning, a
multi-prong strategy is being developed to outreach with
owners of PEVs at several different points including
time of purchase and when a building permit is pulled to
install a PEV charger. However, there are many ways
that a PEV car may come into a new neighborhood
including a move by a PEV owner or the purchase of a PEV
from a private party. This bill is necessary to
facilitate the tracking of these cars and the potential
charging impact on the distribution grid.
2. Background of DMV Confidentiality
Vehicle Code section 1808.4 was added by statute in 1977 to
provide confidentiality of home addresses to specified public
employees and their families.
In 1989, Vehicle Code section 1808.21 was added to make all
residence addresses confidential within the Department of Motor
Vehicle files. Vehicle Code section 1808.21(a) states the
following:
The residence address in any record of the department is
confidential and cannot be disclosed to any person
except a court, law enforcement agency, or other
governmental agency, or as authorized in Section 1808.22
or 1808.23.
This section was further amended in 1994 to allow individuals
under specific circumstances to request that their entire
records be suppressed. Any individual who is the subject of
stalking or who is experiencing a threat of death or great
bodily injury to his or her person may request their entire
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record to be suppressed under this section.
Upon suppression of a record, each request for information about
that record has to be authorized by the subject of the record or
verified as legitimate by other investigative means by the DMV
before the information is released.
A record is suppressed for a one-year period. At the end of the
one-year period, the suppression is continued for a period
determined by the department and if the person submits
verification acceptable to the department that he or she
continues to have reasonable cause to believe that he or she is
the subject of stalking or that there exists a threat of death
or great bodily injury to his or her person.
According to the DMV, however, all residence addresses are
suppressed and only persons authorized by statute can access
this information.
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Under sections 1808.4 and 1808.6, the home addresses of specific
individuals are suppressed and can only be accessed through the
Confidential Records Unit of the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Under section 1808.21, the residence address portion of all
individuals' records are suppressed but can be accessed by a
court, law enforcement agency, or other governmental agency or
other authorized persons.
Sections 1808.22 and 1808.23 authorize specified entities access
to DMV confidential records if they swear under penalty of
perjury that the information will be used only for the specified
purposes. Financial institutions can have access to information
provided they have a written waiver from the person whose
information is sought. Insurance companies can have access
either because the person has signed a written waiver or for the
purposes of getting information regarding a vehicle involved in
an accident. Vehicle manufacturers can also receive information
for purposes relating to safety, warranty and recall information
and vehicle dealers can have access for purposes of completing
registration and transaction documents.
3. Access to DMV Information by Utilities
This bill would allow an electrical corporation to access DMV
confidential records for the purposes of tracing electric
vehicle charging points. According to the author, DMV tracks
vehicle by the fuel used so the information accessed would be
limited to a list of only electrical vehicles. Electrical
corporations will use the addresses of owners of electrical
vehicles to track the effect of charging vehicles on the
distribution grid. The hope is that when they receive this
information they can upgrade the portions of the electrical grid
where it is necessary before it faces a problem. Utilities can
receive information on initial sales directly from the dealers
but not the resale. Utilities also are not able to determine
that a vehicle is purchased by watching increases in utility
uses in individual homes because monthly increases could be for
many reasons and may or may not be temporary, whereas a purchase
of a PEV will indicate a continued greater impact on the system.
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The sponsor of this bill, California Electric Transportation
Coalition (CalETC), states that access to DMV information by the
utilities is necessary for the "sole purpose of maintaining grid
safety, reliability and efficiency." CalETC further states that
the information will "help to ensure that localized transformer
impacts associated with plug-in electric vehicles are addressed
prior to adverse consequences, including potential localized
outages due to electricity demand increases."
SHOULD AN ELECTRICAL CORPORATION BE ALLOWED ACCESS TO
CONFIDENTIAL DMV INFORMATION FOR THE PURPOSES OF TRACKING
ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING POINTS?
4. Privacy Issues
The confidentiality provisions covering DMV information are in
place to keep the information private and to protect people from
having their information used inappropriately. As noted,
exceptions have been made to give access to organizations which
needed limited access to the information for limited purposes.
The law requires the business or organization to swear under
penalty of perjury and to limit their use for the specified
purposes. Existing law also specifies that the information
cannot be used for direct marketing, or solicitation for the
purchase of any consumer product. Are these safeguards
appropriate and enough in the case of information being given to
utility companies?
This bill is double referred to Senate Judiciary Committee for
further analysis of the privacy issues that it may raise.
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