BILL NUMBER: AB 435	AMENDED
	BILL TEXT

	AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY  APRIL 14, 2009

INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member De La Torre

                        FEBRUARY 24, 2009

   An act to  amend Section 1001 of   add
Section 327.1 to  the Public Utilities Code, relating to public
utilities.



	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 435, as amended, De La Torre. Public utilities: 
certificates of convenience and necessity.  
transmission facilities: environmental review.  
   Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory
authority over public utilities and can establish its own
procedures, subject to statutory limitations or directions and
constitutional requirements of due process.  
   This bill would require the commission to study the efficacy of
conducting concurrent environmental review of proposed transmission
facilities by federal and state agencies.  
   Existing law prohibits a 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 corporation from
beginning construction of a street railroad or a line, plant, or
system or extension of a line, plant, or system without having
obtained from the Public Utilities Commission a certificate that the
present or future public convenience and necessity require or will
require the construction.  
   This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to this
provision. 
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee:  no
  yes  . State-mandated local program: no.


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

   SECTION 1.    Section 327.1 is added to the 
 Public Utilities Code   , to read:  
   327.1.  The commission shall study the efficacy of conducting
concurrent environmental reviews of proposed transmission facilities
by federal and state agencies.  
  SECTION 1.    Section 1001 of the Public Utilities
Code is amended to read:
   1001.  (a) A 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
not 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 the
construction.
   (b) This article does not require a corporation of the kind listed
in subdivision (a) to secure the certificate for an extension within
any city or city and county within which it has theretofore 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 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 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 an
order and prescribe the terms and conditions for the location of the
lines, plants, or systems affected that to it may seem just and
reasonable.