BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    �



                                                                  AB 2187
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   May 16, 2012

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                Felipe Fuentes, Chair

                    AB 2187 (Bradford) - As Amended:  May 1, 2012 

          Policy Committee:                              
          UtilitiesVote:13-0
                        Natural Resources                       8-0

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program: 
          No     Reimbursable:               

           SUMMARY  

          This bill exempts renewable energy contracts entered into by 
          electric service providers (ESPs) before January 14, 2011, 
          rather than before June 1, 2010, from product content 
          restrictions for purposes of meeting the state's Renewable 
          Portfolio Standard (RPS) requirements. 

           FISCAL EFFECT 

          Minor absorbable costs to the Public Utilities Commission to 
          modify an existing commission decision.

           COMMENTS  

          Background and Purpose  . The 2011 legislation (SBX1 2) which 
          codified the current 33% by 2020 RPS goal also established three 
          product content categories (or "buckets"), which place the 
          highest value on renewable energy that is directly delivered 
          into California, because it has the greatest economic, 
          environmental and reliability benefits. Though SBX1 2 was 
          approved by the Legislature in March 2011, the bill was 
          identical to SB 722 from the prior session, which established 
          the June 1, 2010 deadline for contracts to be exempt from the 
          proposed balanced portfolio requirements.

          Several ESPs, however, executed contracts between June 1, 2010 
          and January 14, 2011 that do not meet the criteria of the first 
          (highest priority) bucket and are instead subject to the 
          limitations of the third (lowest priority) bucket, making the 
          contracts less valuable and potentially unusable for RPS 








                                                                  AB 2187
                                                                  Page  2

          compliance. AB 2187 grandfathers these ESP contracts, i.e. 
          exempts them from the RPS' balanced portfolio requirements.

           Analysis Prepared by  :    Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081