Emergency Telephone Users Surcharge Act: access line information.

The Emergency Telephone Users Surcharge Act imposes, on and after January 1, 2020, a surcharge on each access line for each month or part thereof for which a service user subscribes with a service supplier, at an amount no greater than $0.80, based on the Office of Emergency Services' estimate of the number of access lines to which the surcharge will be applied per month for a calendar year period, that it estimates, pursuant to a specified formula, will produce sufficient revenue to fund the current fiscal year's 911 costs. That act also imposes, on and after January 1, 2020, a surcharge of equal amount for each retail transaction in this state on the purchase of prepaid mobile telephony services. Existing law requires service suppliers to report the total number of access lines to the Office of Emergency Services, on or before August 1, for the previous period of January 1 to December 31, inclusive, for purposes of the surcharge. This bill would allow public disclosure of access line information provided by service suppliers to the Office of Emergency Services only if the information is aggregated such that no service supplier-specific information is disclosed or to the extent that the Federal Communications Commission or Public Utilities Commission lawfully disclose the same information to members of the public. Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.