Public Utilities Commission: procedures: rehearings.

(1) Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has regulatory authority over public utilities and can establish its own procedures, subject to statutory limitations or directions and constitutional requirements of due process. Existing law authorizes any party to an action or proceeding, or any stockholder or bondholder or other party pecuniarily interested in the public utility affected by an order or decision of the CPUC, to apply for a rehearing with respect to any matter determined in the action or proceeding and specified in the application for rehearing. Existing law prohibits a cause of action arising out of any order or decision of the CPUC from accruing in a court to a corporation or person unless the corporation or person has filed an application to the CPUC for a rehearing within a specified amount of time after the date of issuance of the order or decision. Existing law provides that any application for a rehearing made 10 days or more before the effective date of a CPUC order as to which a rehearing is sought, shall be either granted or denied before the effective date of the order, or the order is suspended until the application is granted or denied. Existing law provides that, absent a further order of the CPUC, the suspension ceases after 60 days, the order becomes effective, and the party making the application is authorized to take the application as having been denied. Existing law provides that if the application for rehearing is made less than 10 days before the effective date of the order as to which a rehearing is sought, and the application is not granted within 60 days, the party making the application is authorized to take the application as having been denied, unless the effective date of the order is extended for the period of the pendency of the application. For applications for rehearing filed on or after January 1, 2011, if the commission has not acted on the application within 120 days, this bill would authorize the commission, by order, to extend the period for acting on the application, but would prohibit any single order to extend the period for more than an additional 120 days. (2) Existing law requires the CPUC to submit an annual report on the number of cases where resolution exceeded the time periods prescribed in scoping memos and the days that commissioners presided in hearings. This bill would additionally require the CPUC to include data on the disposition of applications for rehearing in that report. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 321.6 of the Public Utilities Code, proposed by AB 2769, to be operative only if AB 2769 and this bill are both chaptered and become effective on or before January 1, 2011, and this bill is chaptered last.