Department of Water Resources: refunding bonds.

Existing law authorizes the Department of Water Resources to administer contracts entered into before January 1, 2003, for the purchase of electricity, and to sell electricity to retail end-use customers and, with certain exceptions, local publicly owned utilities, at not more than the department's acquisition costs. Existing law requires the department to recover those costs through the issuance of bonds, in an amount up to $13,423,000,000, or as otherwise specified, to be repaid by ratepayers. Existing law authorizes the department to refund those bonds and specifies that the refunding of bonds to obtain a lower interest rate is not subject to the aggregate amount of bonds authorized to be issued. This bill would grant additional authority to the department to refund those bonds, including the authority to refund bonds bearing a variable interest rate with bonds bearing interest at a fixed interest rate and to refund bonds if a national recognized rating agency reduces or withdraws, or proposes to reduce or withdraw, the rating assigned to specified securities. The bill would specify that refunding bonds issued by the department pursuant to this program before January 1, 2010, are deemed to have been issued for one or more of these authorized purposes.