BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1108
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Date of Hearing: May 6, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Kevin De Leon, Chair
AB 1108 (Fuentes) - As Amended: May 4, 2009
Policy Committee:
UtilitiesVote:11-2
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill modifies several provisions of law regarding utility
service infrastructure in mobilehome parks where the park owner
is a master-meter customer of an investor-owned utility (IOU)
and the tenants are submetered. Specifically, this bill:
1)Grants the PUC the authority to order the master-meter
customer to maintain or repair facilities upon finding that
the customer has failed to maintain or repair its submeter
facilities.
2)Authorizes the PUC to order that the rate differential
(discount) to master-meter customers be held in trust and
expended for maintenance and repair of the submeter facilities
following the finding in (1).
3)Requires a master-meter customer to separately bill each user
for gas or electric service, or both, and for rent.
4)Prohibits a master-meter customer from charging a user of
electricity or gas any late charge for gas or electric service
as a result of nonpayment or delayed payment of rent.
5)Requires the owner of a master-metered mobilehome park to
transfer ownership and operational responsibility for the gas
or electric system to the gas or electric IOU.
FISCAL EFFECT
Costs to the PUC for investigating the condition of sub-metered
infrastructure, on a complaint-driven basis, and to establish
AB 1108
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that the rate differential should be held in trust are unknown
but would be significant. This workload would depend on the
number of complaints. The PUC estimates a need for four
positions at a special fund cost of about $500,000 annually.
[Public Utilities Reimbursement Account] Furthermore, the PUC
indicates additional unknown costs for ratemaking proceedings so
that the IOUs taking over submeter infrastructure can recover
their costs.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . According to the author's office, this bill is
intended to ensure that submetered mobilehome park residents
are provided safe, reliable electric service at rates which
are no higher than those applied to comparable customers being
served directly by the utility while at the same time
improving public safety and grid reliability.
2)Background . Over 2,000 mobilehome park owners provide
electricity to their tenants through a master meter, i.e. the
park owner receives electricity from the utility at a master
meter and the electricity is then distributed to tenants
through infrastructure owned by the park owner and a sub-meter
located at each tenant's mobilehome. The tenants are billed by
the park owner for their electricity use in the same way a
utility would bill the tenant if the tenant was directly
served by a utility.
Current law requires that the utility company give the park
owner a discount (differential) in order to recover the costs
of operating the system. The differential is set as an amount
per occupied space. PG&E currently provides a differential of
$21.76 per month per occupied space. Current law does not
provide a mechanism, however, to ensure that any of this money
is used to maintain utility infrastructure. This bill seeks
to provide such a mechanism by granting the PUC the authority
to order that the money be held in trust if there is a finding
that the park owner has not adequately maintained the
infrastructure.
AB 622 (Conroy), Chapter 424, Statutes of 1996, required gas
and electric corporations to assume ownership of
master-metered systems in mobilehome parks upon the completion
of a specified process. AB 622 required the mobilehome park
owner to pay the costs of an engineering evaluation and the
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costs of upgrading the system. Some mobilehome park owners
claim that the AB 622 requirements have made the transfer of
the systems cost-prohibitive, and in fact, no systems have
been transferred since the passage of AB 622 thirteen years
ago. This bill repeals the AB 622 requirements and instead
requires that the utilities assume ownership of these systems
under terms to be determined by the PUC.
3)Contradictory Provisions . The bill's provisions regarding
adequate maintenance and proper use of differential revenue
are contradictory to the provisions requiring utility
take-over of submetered distribution systems. The author is
working on amendments to address these contradictions.
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081