Utilities: disconnection of residential service.

Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations, gas corporations, and water corporations, while local publicly owned utilities are under the direction of their governing boards. Existing law prohibits an electrical corporation, gas corporation, or water corporation from terminating a customer's residential service for nonpayment of a delinquent account in certain circumstances, including, among other circumstances, unless the corporation first gives notice to the customer of the delinquency and impending termination, during the pendency of an investigation by the corporation of the customer's dispute or complaint, or when the customer has been granted an extension of the period for payment of a bill. Existing law prohibits a public water system that supplies water to more than 200 service connections from discontinuing a customer's residential service for nonpayment until a payment by the customer has been delinquent for at least 60 days. This bill would require an electrical corporation, local publicly owned electric utility, gas corporation, local publicly owned gas utility, water corporation, or local agency that owns a public water system to postpone the disconnection of a customer's residential service for nonpayment of a delinquent account when the temperature will be 32 degrees Fahrenheit or cooler, or 95 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer, within the utility's service area during the 24 hours after that service disconnection would occur, as specified. The bill would require each of those utilities to notify its residential ratepayers of that requirement and to create an online reporting system available through its internet website, if it has one, that enables its residential ratepayers to report when their utility service has been disconnected in violation of that requirement, as specified. The bill would require the PUC to establish a citation program to impose a penalty on an electrical corporation or gas corporation that violates that requirement, and require each local publicly owned electric utility and local publicly owned gas utility to annually report to the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission the number of residential service connections it disconnected for nonpayment of a delinquent account. The bill would authorize the State Water Resources Control Board to enforce the requirement that a water corporation and local agency that owns a public water system postpone a disconnection of a customer's residential service, as specified. Under existing law, a violation of any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the PUC is a crime. Because a violation of a PUC action implementing this bill's requirements would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. In addition, to the extent the bill would impose new requirements on local publicly owned utilities or local agencies that own public water systems, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. 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 specified reasons.