BILL ANALYSIS Ó
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
SB 859 (Padilla)
Hearing Date: 05/23/2011 Amended: 05/10/2011
Consultant: Mark McKenzie Policy Vote: Pub Saf 6-1; Jud
4-0
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BILL SUMMARY: SB 859 would authorize the Department of Motor
Vehicles (DMV) to disclose the address of electric vehicle
owners to electrical corporations and local public utilities
only for purposes of tracking electric vehicle charging points.
This authority would be subject to the following limitations:
DMV may only disclose the type of vehicle and address of
the owner, but not the owner's name.
DMV must provide a disclosure to the owner at the time
of vehicle registration stating that his or her address
will be shared with electric utilities.
The address information will only be used to identify
where an electric vehicle is registered, and not for any
other reason.
The electric utility would be prohibited from selling,
sharing, or disclosing the address information.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 Fund
DMV disclosures over $150 over $300 over $300 Special*
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* Motor Vehicle Account
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STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to
the Suspense File.
Existing law requires all residence address information in DMV
records confidential and may not be disclosed to any person
except a court, law enforcement, or other governmental agency.
Existing law provides exceptions to this requirement for
insurance companies seeking accident information, vehicle
manufacturers issuing safety and warranty information, vehicle
dealers for purposes of completing registration transactions,
SB 859 (Padilla)
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and for specified statistical research purposes. DMV has
records for approximately 93,000 electric vehicles currently
registered in California.
SB 859 would allow electric vehicle owners' residence address
information in DMV records to be disclosed to an electrical
corporation or a local publicly owned utility for purposes of
tracking vehicle charging points, as specified. The bill is
intended to provide electric utilities with an additional
information tool to address impacts to electrical grid safety,
reliability, and efficiency prior to any adverse consequences.
Specifically, the bill would provide utilities with a tool to
monitor and plan for increased demands to electrical
distribution systems as more electric vehicle charging stations
are installed.
This bill requires DMV to provide disclosure at the time of
registration to electric vehicle owners that their residence
address information is required by law to be shared with
electric corporations and public utilities. The current
language would require this disclosure to be provided at each
annual registration, including initial and renewal transactions,
as well as transfers of ownership. DMV indicates that there is
no additional room on the front or back of billing notices or
application forms to include the disclosure, and billing
envelopes already include the maximum of three mandatory
inserts. Segregating out this specific population of electric
vehicle owners and flagging their records with DMV's antiquated
computer systems presents other challenges. Staff estimates
that DMV programming costs to identify these records could be
over $250,000. The addition of this disclosure would result in
increased postage costs, and adding a page to the billing notice
would also come at a substantial cost of well over $100,000. If
DMV determined that programming changes are infeasible, they
would likely find it more cost efficient to simply include the
disclosure in all vehicle registration notices, thereby
increasing printing and postage costs even more. Either route
is likely to result in substantial costs to DMV, likely in
excess of $300,000.
Staff recommends an amendment to require DMV to send an annual
disclosure to owners of electric vehicles, rather than requiring
the disclosure at the time of registration. DMV indicates that
the increased flexibility of this approach would reduce costs to
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approximately $60,000 annually. Staff notes, however, that the
provision to require disclosure at the time of registration,
among other protections, was amended into the bill in the Senate
Judiciary Committee due to privacy concerns. The author and
Committee may wish to consider whether an annual notice that is
not tied to vehicle registration provides sufficient protections
without violating the will of the policy committee. It should
be noted that the bill prohibits the release of a vehicle
owner's name with the address, and that existing regulations
authorize DMV to release confidential address information
without disclosure to a vehicle owner under specified
circumstances.