BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
AB 825 (Rendon) - Public Utilities Commission.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| |
| |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Version: July 16, 2015 |Policy Vote: E., U., & C. 11 - |
| | 0 |
| | |
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Urgency: No |Mandate: Yes (see staff |
| |comment) |
| | |
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Hearing Date: August 17, 2015 |Consultant: Marie Liu |
| | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: AB 825 would make a number of changes to the CPUC to
increase public access to documents and to ease participation in
proceedings.
Fiscal
Impact:
Cost pressures of $200,000 annually (special*) for the CPUC
commissioners to hold office hours at least once a month in
San Francisco or Los Angeles.
Ongoing costs of approximately $170,000 (special*) to increase
the amount of information available on the CPUC website.
AB 825 (Rendon) Page 1 of
?
Ongoing costs of approximately $200,000 (special*) for the
public advisor to have independent responsibility over the
CPUC website.
Unknown costs (special*) to post the transcripts of documents,
evidence, testimony, and proceedings online.
One-time costs of $157,000 annually for two years (special*)
for a proceeding to reopen its confidentiality practices.
Ongoing costs of $626,000 annually (special*) for hearings to
consider motions to make confidential documents public.
Unknown costs (special*) to require that the assigned
commissioner attend all hearings in a proceeding.
Ongoing costs between $450,000 and $850,000 (special*) to
appoint an inspector general from the State Auditor's office
to the CPUC.
Ongoing costs of $220,000 annually (special*) to provide legal
staff at the public advisor's office to ensure compliance with
the Public Records Act and the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act.
These costs may be offset by reduced workload in other CPUC
division to oversee compliance.
* Public Utilities Commission Utilities Reimbursement Account.
Background: The CPUC is governed by five members appointed by the Governor
and approved by the Senate Rules Committee. The CPUC is
generally empowered to regulate privately owned public utilities
in California. Policies and actions of the CPUC are generally
made through a proceeding. Each proceeding is assigned a lead
commissioner and an administrative law judge (ALJ). ALJs prepare
proposed decisions which may be adopted in whole or in part by
the commission.
AB 825 (Rendon) Page 2 of
?
Existing law requires the CPUC to hold at least one meeting per
month in San Francisco. Any information furnished to the CPUC by
a public utility is not open to public inspection except on
order of the CPUC in the course of a hearing or proceeding.
Existing law establishes the office of the public advisor,
appointed by the CPUC, in order to assist the public and
ratepayers who desire to testify before or present information
to the CPUC in any hearing or proceeding.
Proposed Law:
This bill would:
Require each commissioner to hold office hours and be
available to meet with members of the public at least once a
month in San Francisco or Los Angeles
Require that the CPUC have the following information on its
website:
o A summary of electricity procurement contracts
entered into by an electrical corporation during the
previous three years which have expenses that the CPUC
has approved as just and reasonable.
o A list of all pending proceedings involving public
utilities and whether any rate increase is being sought.
o Transcriptions and available summaries of documents
not subject to confidentiality.
o A list of all Public Records Act requests
o Advice letters approved by the CPUC.
AB 825 (Rendon) Page 3 of
?
o Reports of inspections and audits.
Require a utility to place on its own website, if they have
one, a summary of all rate application requests including the
contact information for an utility official who can discuss
the nature of the rate application.
Require that all documents that the CPUC distributes to any
service-of-process list be docketed and identified on the CPUC
website.
Require that all rate applications by public utilities include
a summary of the application that can be understood by the
utility's ratepayers.
For any document filed in a CPUC proceeding by a public
utility under a claim of confidentiality, (1) require that a
public version of that document be filed concurrently, (2)
allow any party to that proceeding to file a motion to make
public that document, (3) require the assigned ALJ to provide
direction to all parties in a proceeding as to what documents
may be filed under a claim of confidentiality.
Require the CPUC to open a proceeding to reexamine its
confidentiality practices under Decision 06-06-066.
Require the public advisor of the CPUC to be specifically
responsible for:
o Ensuring that the activities of the CPUC are
transparent to the public.
o Developing and making available public guides on how
to participate in CPUC proceedings.
AB 825 (Rendon) Page 4 of
?
o Updating, maintaining, and posting the CPUC's
service-of-process lists on its website.
o Overseeing the CPUC's website to ensure adequate
transparency for he public
Require that the office of the public advisor be funded by the
Public Utilities Reimbursement Account, which is funded by
fees on the regulated utilities.
Require the California State Auditor appoint an inspector
general for the CPUC who will report any findings to the
Legislature. The inspector general would have the authority to
audit and investigate the CPUC's activities. The costs for the
inspector's activities would be paid for by the Public
Utilities Reimbursement Account
Require that the assigned commissioner for a proceeding
convene an all-parties meeting as soon as practicable to
discuss the substantive manner to be decided in the proceeding
and prospects for resolving issues that would otherwise be
litigated.
Require that the assigned commissioner attend all hearings in
a proceeding.
Prohibit an attorney that is prosecuting a manner before the
CPUC in an adjudication hearing from meeting with any
commissioner regarding the matter unless all parties are
present.
Related
Legislation: SB 48 (Hill) would make various changes to the
internal governance, annual reporting requirements, and meeting
AB 825 (Rendon) Page 5 of
?
requirements of the CPUC. SB 48 has been referred to the
Assembly Committee on Appropriations.
SB 660 (Leno/Hueso) would make changes to the ex parte
communications at the CPUC. SB 660 has been referred to the
Assembly Committee on Appropriations.
Staff
Comments: Public office hours requirement: The CPUC estimates
that the requirement for each commissioner to hold office hours
at least once a month in San Francisco or Los Angeles will
require additional staff, particularly to ensure compliance with
ex parte rules and to provide the commissioner with legal
support and analytical staff to address constituent concerns, at
an annual cost of $200,000. However, staff notes that this
provision is not increasing the commissioners' responsibilities
other than making them more accessible. While this accessibility
may lead to additional work and inquires, that workload would be
associated with existing responsibilities of the commissioners.
As such, these costs could be interpreted as cost pressures.
Requirements for information to be posted on the CPUC website:
This bill would require a number of items to be placed on the
CPUC's website. While some of this information, such as advice
letters approved by the CPUC and reports of inspections and
audits, can be done with minimal staff workload and costs.
However, the requirement that summaries of electricity
procurement contracts and transcripts will likely result in the
need for an additional $170,000 annually for one position. Staff
notes that the CPUC does not currently receive information from
the IOUs regarding procurement contracts, with the exception of
Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards contacts. Thus the
requirement that procurement contracts be posted on the website
will involve the collection and summarization of a large amount
of new information.
Staff notes that the bill requires that a list of all pending
proceedings before the CPUC be posted on its website along with
a summary as to any amount of rate increase being sought. Since
December 2014, a list of pending proceedings has been posted on
the CPUC website and has been updated monthly. Should there be
pressure for the CPUC to update this list more frequently, there
AB 825 (Rendon) Page 6 of
?
could be additional IT costs.
The requirement for the posting of transcripts and available
summaries of documents, evidence, testimony, and proceedings
could have additional unknown costs because the court reporter
bargaining agreement requires a per-transcript charge. It is
unclear how the per-transcript charges would be assessed if the
transcripts were made available on-line. Staff notes that
allowing webcasting and video archives of hearings to be
available instead of a transcript might lower costs.
Confidentiality practices and procedures: This bill would also
require the CPUC to reopen its existing decision (D. 06-06-066)
on its confidentiality practices. The CPUC estimates that this
requirement would necessitate an administrative law judge for
two years at an annual cost of $157,000 annually.
Section 6 of this bill would establish a process for the filing
and contesting of confidential documents. The costs associated
with this section are mostly associated with the required
hearings with written findings and conclusions when there is a
motion to make a document public. In 2014, there were 175
motions on confidentiality matters. The CPUC anticipates that
the number of motions would increase with the passage of this
bill. The cost of holding these hearings as required by the bill
is estimated to be $626,000 annually for 4.5 positions.
The CPUC notes that the bill's requirement that the assigned
commissioner attend all hearings in a proceeding is likely to be
very difficult and extremely costly to comply and may result in
the slowing of proceedings. In 2014, there were 99 new
proceedings plus 30 re-opened proceedings, of which 59 had
hearings. There are five CPUC commissioners. However, the CPUC
did not submit specific costs to these provisions.
Inspector general costs: The costs associated with appointing an
inspector general to the CPUC would have uncertain costs
depending on the number of audits and investigations that would
be conducted. Assuming that there would be one to three audits
AB 825 (Rendon) Page 7 of
?
or investigations a year, this provision will result in $450,000
to $850,000 in additional costs to the CPUC. Staff notes that
the CPUC received appropriations in the 2015-16 Budget Act for a
number of auditors. However, those positions would not fulfill
the bill's requirement for an inspector general.
Increased responsibilities of the public advisor: The public
advisor would have increased responsibilities under this bill.
Specifically, the requirement that the public advisor have the
responsibility for ensuring that the activities of the CPUC are
in compliance with the Public Records Act and Bagley-Keene Open
Meeting Act would necessitate legal staff and support in the
public advisor's office, which does not currently exist, at a
cost of about $220,000 annually. Staff notes that the CPUC
already has staff overseeing compliance with Bagley-Keene and
the Public Records Act. To the extent that the bill shifts these
responsibilities to the public advisor's office, there
potentially should be a decrease in staffing costs in other CPUC
divisions.
This bill would also require the public advisor to have
independent responsibility for overseeing the CPUC website in
order to ensure adequate transparency. The CPUC estimates that
this responsibility could necessitate two new positions in the
public advisors office at an annual cost of approximately
$200,000. Similar to the legal staff for the office discussed
above, these costs may be somewhat duplicative of staffing
workload already within the CPUC. Because the bill requires that
the public advisor's office have independent responsibility over
the website, duplicative costs may be inherently required by the
bill.
The requirement for the public advisor to update, maintain, and
post the service-of-process lists on the website could
potentially have costs depending on how this requirement is
interpreted. If this requirement can be satisfied by just
posting the list itself on the website, there will be no costs
to the CPUC as this list is already compiled by the CPUC's
Docket Office. However, if this requirement is interpreted to
require the public advisor to actually electronically serve
documents to the service-of-process list, the CPUC could have
AB 825 (Rendon) Page 8 of
?
millions of dollars of new costs to develop necessary IT
systems.
This bill would require that the Office of the Public Advisor's
costs be paid for by the Public Utilities Commission Utilities
Reimbursement Account. Currently the office is paid for by this
account, but as distributed administration costs so that the
other CPUC funds pay a pro rata share of the office by
reimbursing the account. It is unclear if the bill would affect
the current practice. Unless it is the author's intent that the
Office of the Public Advisor only be paid for by the Utilities
Reimbursement Account, staff recommends that this provision be
stricken from the bill.
This bill contains codified findings and declarations. In the
interest of code clarity and efficiency, staff recommends this
bill be amended to place the findings and declarations in an
uncodified section of the bill.
This bill constitutes a state mandate as it creates a new crime.
However, under the California Constitution, costs associated
with this mandate are not reimbursable.
-- END --