BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 1017
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Date of Hearing: August 10, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Lorena Gonzalez, Chair
SB 1017
(Hill) - As Amended August 1, 2018
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|Policy |Utilities and Commerce |Vote:|9 - 5 |
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No
SUMMARY:
This bill modifies statutes that limit public access to utility
supplied documents at the California Public Utilities Commission
(PUC). Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires the PUC to develop rules consistent with the
California Public Records Act (PRA) for the expeditious
disclosure, of information related to all of the following:
a) Public health and safety emergencies;
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b) Public, employee, and contractor safety; and
c) Environmental degradation caused by loss of operational
control by a public utility.
2)Exempts specified personal employee information and
information for which the public interest would best be served
by nondisclosure from the PUC rule requirement.
3)Specifies that documents prohibited from public release by
state or federal law may not be released by the PUC.
4)Modifies the conditions under which a present or former
officer or employee is guilty of a misdemeanor for providing
prohibited documents to the public for specified purposes.
5)Specifies it is not a crime to release prohibited documents to
the Bureau of State Audits or to another state agency under a
confidentiality agreement.
FISCAL EFFECT:
Any additional costs are absorbable.
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose. According to the author, an antiquated law put in
place before the PRA makes it very difficult for the public to
get public records from the PUC. The author notes existing law
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requires the full Commission to vote to release documents that
have been designated by a utility as confidential. According
to the author, while there is no penalty for a utility to
designate clearly public information as confidential, PUC
staff is subject to a misdemeanor for release of this
information regardless of whether the utility's claim of
confidentiality has any validity. This bill requires the PUC
to establish public records policies consistent with the PRA.
2)Background. The California Constitution and the PRA require
that most government records be available to the public and,
as such, allow agencies, including the CPUC, wide latitude to
establish policies for public access to their records.
However, unique among other agencies, the PUC is also governed
by statute which states that no information furnished to the
PUC by a public utility except those matters specifically
required to be open to public inspection by this part, shall
be open to public inspection or made public except on order of
the PUC, or by the PUC or a Commissioner in the course of a
hearing or proceeding. Any present or former officer or
employee of the PUC who divulges any such information is
guilty of a misdemeanor.
As a result, the PUC rules provide that regulated entities can
stamp their documents and information as confidential (which
they routinely do) and place the burden on the PUC to
determine whether the claims of confidentiality are justified.
According to the PUC, utilities have claimed confidentiality
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on records including information filed publicly with other
agencies, a customer service manual that is distributed to
customers, newspaper advertisements, and hearing exhibits that
are contained in public testimony.
Analysis Prepared by:Jennifer Galehouse / APPR. / (916)
319-2081