BILL NUMBER: AB 2763	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Gatto

                        FEBRUARY 19, 2016

   An act to amend Section 1001 of the Public Utilities Code,
relating to public utilities.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 2763, as introduced, Gatto. Public utilities: certificates of
public convenience and necessity.
   The Public Utilities Act empowers the Public Utilities Commission
with regulatory authority over public utilities, including gas
corporations, as defined. The act defines "gas plant" for purposes of
the act, unless the context requires otherwise, to include all real
estate, fixtures, and personal property, owned, controlled, operated,
or managed in connection with or to facilitate the production,
generation, transmission, delivery, underground storage, or
furnishing of gas, natural or manufactured, except propane, for
light, heat, or power.
   The Public Utilities Act prohibits any gas corporation from
beginning the construction of, among other things, a line, plant, or
system, or of any extension thereof, without having first obtained
from the commission a certificate that the present or future public
convenience and necessity require or will require that construction.
   This bill would explicitly include language in the provisions
specific to the issuance of these certificates reiterating that the
definition of gas plant, described above, applies to those
provisions. This bill would make other nonsubstantive changes.
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

  SECTION 1.  Section 1001 of the Public Utilities Code is amended to
read:
   1001.   (a)    No railroad corporation whose
railroad is operated primarily by electric energy, street railroad
corporation, gas corporation, electrical corporation, telegraph
corporation, telephone corporation, water corporation, or sewer
system corporation shall begin the construction of a street railroad,
or of a line, plant, or system, or of any extension thereof, without
having first obtained from the commission a certificate that the
present or future public convenience and necessity require or will
require  such   the  construction. 

   This 
    (b)     This  article shall not be
construed to require any such corporation to secure such  a 
certificate for an extension within any city or city and county
within which it has  theretofore   previously
 lawfully commenced operations, or for an extension into
territory either within or without a city or city and county
contiguous to its street railroad, or line, plant, or system, and not
 theretofore   previously  served by a
public utility of like character, or for an extension within or to
territory already served by it, necessary in the ordinary course of
its business.  If 
    (c)     If  any public utility, in
constructing or extending its line, plant, or system, interferes or
is about to interfere with the operation of the line, plant, or
system of any other public utility or of the water system of a public
agency, already constructed, the commission, on complaint of the
public utility or public agency claiming to be injuriously affected,
may, after hearing, make such order and prescribe such terms and
conditions for the location of the lines, plants, or systems affected
as to it may seem just and reasonable. 
   (d) For purposes of this article, "gas plant" shall have the same
meaning as specified in Section 221.