BILL ANALYSIS
SB 1414
Page 1
Date of Hearing: August 4, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
SB 1414 (Kehoe) - As Amended: August 2, 2010
Policy Committee: Utilities and
Commerce Vote: 14-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill, effective July 1, 2011, establishes deadlines for the
Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to act on any application for
a rehearing regarding a commission action. Specifically, this
bill:
1)For an application for rehearing filed more than 10 days
before the effective date of the order, deletes an existing
provision that, absent commission action, suspends the order
only for up to 60 days, after which the order becomes
effective and the application can be taken as denied. (The
order would thus be suspended indefinitely until such time as
the commission acted on the application.)
2)For an application for rehearing filed less than 10 days
before the effective date of the order, subjects the PUC to
the following:
a) The commission must act within 60 days of receiving an
application.
b) The PUC may to extend the 60-day period only up to 120
days in a single order.
c) The PUC is prohibited from extending, by more than one
year from the filing date, the period for acting on an
application without the applicant's consent, and absent the
applicant's consent, the applications is deemed denied by
operation of law if not acted upon by the commission within
one year.
SB 1414
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FISCAL EFFECT
In order to meet the bill's deadlines for newly-filed rehearing
petitions and eliminate the backlog of filed petitions
(currently 54) over three years, costs to the PUC for 2011-12,
2012-13, and 2013-14 will be about $640,000 for four attorneys
and one support staff, and thereafter annual costs will be about
$290,000 for two attorneys to address the expected ongoing
rehearing petition workload. [Public Utilities Reimbursement
Account]
[The PUC indicates that, over the last three years, an average
of 46 rehearing petitions have been filed. The commission's
staff of 8.5 attorneys dedicated to this activity have disposed
of an average of 36 petitions annually, or 4.5 per attorney.]
COMMENTS
1)Background . Under current law, parties and other entities
directly affected by an action, decision, or order of the PUC
may apply to the commission for a rehearing on their matter of
concern. Moreover, a party may petition a state appellate
court or the state Supreme Court to review a PUC decision, but
the party must first seek a rehearing by the PUC. The PUC has
no statutory deadline to act on rehearing applications, but
parties are allowed to file a writ of review after 60 days if
the PUC has not acted upon a rehearing application. Often, the
PUC will ask the court to stay any action until the PUC rules
on the application for rehearing. Under this scenario, the
court, exercising its discretion, generally declines review
until the PUC acts within a court-imposed deadline.
If the court declines review, the parties have no other
procedural recourse until the PUC acts on the application for
rehearing which can take several months or even a year.
Moreover, knowing the court will likely decline review of a
"deemed denied" application for rehearing, some parties are
reluctant to undertake the time and expense of appellate
litigation.
2)Purpose . The PUC has provided data on the disposition of
rehearing applications filed between 2007 and 2010. The data
SB 1414
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indicates that 60 days is not a sufficient timeframe for the
PUC to review rehearing applications, as less than 20% are
disposed of within this timeframe. According to the
commission, the backlog in the disposition of rehearing
applications is largely attributable to staffing and workload
constraints over the past several years. The state appellate
practice section at the PUC has had to deal with very complex
and controversial rehearing applications, including those
involving CEQA, climate change, and greenhouse gas issues.
Moreover, many of the delays in disposing of rehearing
applications occur due to ongoing settlement discussions with
the parties, changed circumstances, subsequent PUC action, or
legislation.
The Public Utilities Code section being amended by this bill
(Section 1733) has not been revised since 1973. SB 1414
updates this section to ensure the timeliness of rehearing
application review for parties seeking a rehearing or wishing
to resolve their issue in court.
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081