Public utilities: voice communications: Moore Universal Telephone Service Act.

(1) Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, as defined. Existing law allows the commission to charge and collect a fee of $75 for filing each application for a certificate of public convenience and necessity, or for the mortgage, lease, transfer, or assignment of a certificate. This bill would instead require the fee to not exceed the reasonable costs to the commission for filing these applications. The bill would authorize the fee in an amount not to exceed $500 and would authorize the commission to adjust this fee based on the Consumer Price Index. (2) Existing law establishes the Public Utilities Commission Utilities Reimbursement Account in the General Fund and generally provides that all fees and charges collected under the Public Utilities Code, except penalties, from each public utility be paid into the fund. Other existing law provides that specified fees, including, but not limited to, the fee for filing each application for a certificate of public convenience and necessity, or for the mortgage, lease, transfer, or assignment of a certificate, are required to be paid at least once each month into the State Treasury to the General Fund. This bill would repeal the provision that requires certain fees to be paid at least once each month into the State Treasury to the General Fund. (3) Existing law, the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, establishes a program of cooperative federalism for the regulation of telecommunications to attain the goal of local competition, while implementing specific, predictable, and sufficient federal and state mechanisms to preserve and advance universal service, consistent with certain universal service principles. Under the act, universal service is an evolving level of telecommunications services that the Federal Communications Commission is required to establish periodically, taking into account advances in telecommunications and information technologies and services. Pursuant to the act, the Federal Communications Commission has established and revised a lifeline program that is available for qualifying low-income consumers. The Moore Universal Telephone Service Act establishes the Universal Lifeline Telephone Service program in order to provide low-income households with access to affordable basic residential telephone service. Existing law establishes the Universal Lifeline Telephone Service Trust Administrative Committee Fund in the State Treasury. The Moore Universal Telephone Service Act requires the commission to annually designate a class of lifeline service necessary to meet minimum residential communications needs, to set the rates and charges for that service, to develop eligibility criteria for that service, and to assess the degree of achievement of universal service, including telephone penetration rates by income, ethnicity, and geography. This bill would require the commission to adopt rules by June 1, 2014, authorizing an alternative provider of voice communications service to voluntarily participate in the state lifeline program pursuant to the Moore Universal Telephone Service Act. The bill would require that the rules, among other things, not prevent or delay any alternative provider of voice communications service from participating based on the technology utilized to provide service and provide reimbursement to all participating lifeline providers on a nondiscriminatory basis. The bill would prohibit the commission, in exercising its delegated authority under federal law to designate eligible telecommunications carriers, or in exercising its authority to authorize an alternative provider of voice communications service to participate in the state lifeline program, to deny a request to be designated as a lifeline provider based on the requesting entity providing any Voice over Internet Protocol or Internet Protocol enabled service. The bill would provide that a lifeline provider, including a lifeline provider that is not a telephone corporation, is eligible for reimbursement from the Universal Lifeline Telephone Service Trust Administrative Committee Fund. (4) The Public Utilities Act prohibits any telephone corporation from beginning the construction of, among other things, a line, plant, or system, or of any extension thereof, without having first obtained from the commission a certificate that the present or future public convenience and necessity require or will require that construction. This bill would prohibit the commission from denying or revoking a certificate of public convenience and necessity applied for by or issued to a telephone corporation that provides retail or wholesale telecommunications services on the grounds that the telephone corporation also provides Voice over Internet Protocol service or any other unregulated service. (5) Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime. Because the provisions of this bill would be a part of the act and would require action by the Public Utilities Commission to implement its requirements, and because the bill would expand the class of lifeline providers, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program by expanding the scope of a crime. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. (6) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.