BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
SB 512 (Hill) - Public Utilities Commission
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|Version: January 4, 2016 |Policy Vote: E.U.&C. 10 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: January 19, 2016 |Consultant: Marie Liu |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: SB 512 would make various changes to the governance of
the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).
Fiscal
Impact:
Ongoing costs of up to $120,000 annually to the Public
Utilities Reimbursement Account (special) to have at least six
meetings in Sacramento.
Ongoing costs of $65,000 annually to the Public Utilities
Reimbursement Account (special) to evaluate and report to the
Legislature on the performance of the commission and the
executive director.
SB 512 (Hill) Page 1 of
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One-time costs of $263,000 for two years to the Public
Utilities Reimbursement Account (special) for a proceeding to
develop rules for the seeking of views of interested parties
for all proceedings.
Ongoing costs of $450,000 annually to the Public Utilities
Reimbursement Account (special) to views of those likely to be
affected by a proceeding.
Unknown one-time and ongoing costs, potentially the hundreds
of thousands to millions of dollars, to the Public Utilities
Reimbursement Account (special) to upgrade and maintain
information technology systems to fulfill public information
requirements.
Background: The CPUC is established in the California Constitution and is
governed by five full-time commissioners, appointed by the
governor and confirmed by the Senate, and staffed by
approximately 1,000 individuals. The CPUC regulates
privately-owned electric, natural gas, telecommunications,
water, railroad, rail transit, and passenger transportation
companies. CPUC staff includes four personal advisors to each
commissioner, except five to the president, as well as the 42
judges of the Administrative Law Division - attorneys, engineers
and accountants who prepare the docket for all CPUC official
filings, including maintenance of the official record of
proceedings.
Proposed Law:
This bill would require several changes to the governance of
the CPUC and the disclosure of information to the public.
Specifically, this bill would:
Require that the CPUC hold at least six sessions a year in
Sacramento.
Require all prepared written testimony and advice letter
filings, protests, and responses to be part of the public
docket and posted on the CPUC's website.
Make specific information on the CPUC's processes available to
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the public on its website.
Require the CPUC to prepare an annual report with specific
information, including a workplan for the preceding year and
an evaluation of the performance of the commission and the
executive director in the previous calendar year. This report
would be required to be available to the public on the CPUC
website.
Revise the required content of the existing annual Legislative
report regarding on the duration of cases.
Apply the Administrative Adjudication Code of Ethics to the
CPUC's administrative law judges.
Generally require the CPUC to seek the views of all parties
likely to be affected by a proceeding before institution that
proceeding.
Related
Legislation: The provisions of this bill are substantially
similar to provisions in SB 48 (Hill), which was passed by the
legislature but vetoed by the governor. In his veto statement,
Governor Brown stated, "I support the intent of [SB 18, 48, and
AB 825] and many of their proposed reforms, however some
additional work is needed to ensure that they achieve their
intended purposes and can be effectively implemented."
Staff
Comments: In order to have at least six meetings in Sacramento
instead of San Francisco, the CPUC estimates annual costs of
approximately $120,000. This cost would include travel costs for
approximately 40 people including CPUC staff and commissioners.
The CPUC notes that it would attempt to reserve free rooms for
meetings that meet its space and technology requirements, which
may lower these costs, but its ability to do so is not a
certainty.
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This bill would require the CPUC to post thousands of additional
documents on its website. Under the CPUC's current IT system,
rudimentary compliance with this bill's provisions could
potentially be achieved through the manual collection and
posting of the necessary documents. Assuming this could be done
with no major changes to its IT system, staff estimates that
this would result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in
additional workload. However, the CPUC notes that it has
substantial agency-wide IT needs and as such, it has submitted a
budget change proposal in the Governor's proposed 216-17 budget
that requests $5.4 million to implement a new agency-wide
technology platform (eFiling Administration Support, aka eFAST)
that will allow the hosting of the information required by this
bill on its website among many other functions. The cost of this
system would be spread proportionately among the CPUC's special
funds should it be approved. Staff notes that this bill does not
require the development of eFAST or an equivalent system and
therefore the costs associated with developing an agency-wide
new system are not attributable to this bill. However, should
the eFAST system be approved and developed, there will be no
costs to the CPUC to comply with the additional posting
requirements proposed by this bill.
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