Public Utilities Commission: reports: financing orders.

The California Constitution establishes the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) , with jurisdiction over all public utilities. The California Constitution grants the PUC certain general powers over all public utilities, subject to control by the Legislature, and authorizes the Legislature to confer additional authority and jurisdiction upon the PUC that is cognate and germane to the regulation of public utilities. Existing law requires the PUC to submit various reports to the Legislature, legislative committees, and the Governor, as specified. This bill would change the date by which the PUC must submit specified reports, change the contents of specified reports, renumber various codified reporting provisions, and repeal the provisions requiring the PUC to submit specified reports. The bill would repeal a reporting requirement of electrical corporations and the PUC with respect to the 21st Century Energy System Decision, as defined. The bill would repeal a requirement that the PUC conduct a zero-based budget for all of its programs by January 10, 2015. Existing law also requires the Legislative Counsel to annually prepare, publish, and maintain an electronic list of all reports that state and local agencies are required or requested by law to prepare and file with the Governor or the Legislature, or both, in the future or within the preceding year. This bill would require the Legislative Counsel to revise the list by deleting specified reports from the list. Existing law requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) to submit to the PUC and to any local publicly owned electric utility recommendations designed to reduce wasteful, unnecessary, or uneconomic energy consumption resulting from specified practices, including differential rate structures, cost-of-service allocations, disallowances of business expenses for advertising or promotional activities that encourage the use of electricity, peakload pricing, and other pricing measures. Existing law requires the PUC and local publicly owned electric utilities to review and consider the recommendations of the Energy Commission and, within 6 months after the date they receive them, to report to the Governor and the Legislature their actions and reasons therefor with respect to each recommendation. This bill would repeal these requirements. Existing law relative to restructuring of the electrical industry authorizes an electrical corporation to apply to the commission for a determination that certain transition costs, as defined, may be recovered through fixed transition amounts, which would constitute transition property, as defined, and provides, until December 31, 2016, for the issuance of financing orders and provides for the issuance of rate reduction bonds to be paid out of rates. This bill would extend the authorization for the issuance of these financing orders from December 31, 2016, to June 30, 2022. The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 establishes the State Air Resources Board (state board) as the state agency responsible for monitoring and regulating sources emitting greenhouse gases. Existing law requires the state board to report to the Governor and the Legislature by December 31, 2011, on the reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases resulting from the increase of new electrical generation that utilizes excess waste heat through combined heat and power systems and recommend policies that further the goals of the Waste Heat and Carbon Emissions Reduction Act. This bill would repeal this reporting requirement. This bill would also make various minor or nonsubstantive changes, including, but not limited to, shifts in the responsibilities of various divisions of the PUC. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Sections 454.55 and 454.56 of the Public Utilities Code, proposed by AB 1330, that would become operative only if this bill and AB 1330 are chaptered and become effective on or before January 1, 2017, and this bill is chaptered last.