Gas corporation: service connections.

Under existing law the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including gas corporations. This bill would require the Public Utilities Commission, if it determines that a moratorium on new natural gas service connections is necessary to prevent substantial and imminent harm or to ensure gas system reliability, to provide a report to specified policy committees of the Legislature and the affected gas corporation stating the necessity for the action. The bill would require the report to the policy committees to contain certain information. The bill would require a gas corporation, upon receiving a report from the commission that an action is pending to suspend new gas service connections, to immediately notify potential or current customers that may experience a service impact as a result of the proposed suspension. The bill would require the commission to present to the policy committees, at specified yearly information hearings, the status of the natural gas service connections and efforts to provide natural gas supply. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.