This measure would declare February 19, 2014, as a Day of Remembrance in order to increase public awareness of the events surrounding the internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II.
Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations, as defined. The Reliable Electric Service Investments Act required the commission to require the state's 3 largest electrical corporations, until January 1, 2012, to identify a separate electrical rate component, commonly referred to as the public goods charge, to collect specified amounts to fund energy efficiency, renewable energy, and research, development, and demonstration programs that enhance system reliability and provide in-state benefits. Existing decisions of the commission institute an Electric Program Investment Charge, referred to as EPIC, to fund research, development, and demonstration programs. The California Constitution authorizes the commission to establish rules for all public utilities, subject to control by the Legislature. Existing law directs the commission to require every electrical, gas, water, wireless telecommunications service provider, and telephone corporation with annual gross revenues exceeding $25,000,000, and their regulated subsidiaries and affiliates, to implement a program developed by the commission to encourage, recruit, and utilize minority, women, and disabled veteran-owned business enterprises, as defined, in the procurement of contracts from those corporations or from their regulated subsidiaries and affiliates. The commission, by its rulemaking authority, has adopted General Order 156, applicable to certain electrical, gas, and telephone corporations, to effectuate these requirements. This bill would require the commission to establish a program to encourage the use of women, minority, and disabled veteran-owned businesses as prime contractors and subcontractors for all grants, contracts, subsidies, financing, and activities administered through the EPIC consistent with General Order 156 of the commission. Existing law requires the commission to provide to the Legislature a specified report on the progress of activities undertaken by certain entities in the implementation of women, minority, and disabled veteran-owned business enterprise development programs. This bill would require the commission to include in its 2014 report a status report on the commission's progress in increasing the participation of women, minorities, and disabled veteran-owned businesses, as specified.
(1) The Charter Schools Act of 1992 allows one or more persons seeking to establish a charter school within a school district to circulate a petition to that effect. The act allows a charter petition to be submitted to the governing board of a school district for review after the petition is signed by a number of parents or legal guardians of pupils that is equivalent to at least 12 of the number of pupils that the charter school estimates will enroll in the charter school for its first year of operation or is signed by a number of teachers that is equivalent to at least 12 of the number of teachers that the charter school estimates will be employed at the charter school during its first year of operation. This bill, with respect to charter petitions signed by teachers, would require instead that the petition be signed by a number of nonsupervisorial certificated staff and classified employees that combined is equivalent to at least 12 of the total number of nonsupervisorial certificated staff and classified employees that the charter school estimates will be employed at the school during its first year of operation. (2) The act allows a petition that proposes to convert an existing public school to a charter school that would not be eligible for a loan, as specified, to be circulated by one or more persons seeking to establish the charter school. The act allows such a petition to be submitted to the governing board of a school district for review after the petition is signed by not less than 50% of the permanent status teachers currently employed at the public school to be converted. This bill, instead, would require the petition to be signed by a number of permanent status nonsupervisorial certificated staff and permanent classified employees that combined is equivalent to at least 12 of the total number of permanent status nonsupervisorial certificated staff and permanent classified employees currently employed at the public school to be converted to a charter school. (3) The bill also would make conforming changes and other nonsubstantive changes.
(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.
Existing law, the Moore Universal Telephone Service Act, establishes the Universal Lifeline Telephone Service program to provide low-income households with access to affordable basic residential telephone service. This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to that provision.
Existing law requires that an inmate released on parole or postrelease supervision be returned to the county of last legal residence and requires the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide specified items of information to local law enforcement agencies regarding an inmate paroled or placed on postrelease supervision in their jurisdiction. Existing law also provides that the department shall not return to prison, place a parole hold on, or report any parole violation to the Board of Parole Hearings regarding any person to whom all of specified criteria apply. This bill would require the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, not less than 45 days prior to the release of such an inmate, or as soon as practicable, to notify, via the Law Enforcement Automated Data System (LEADS) , the local law enforcement agency of the jurisdiction to which the inmate is to be released regarding the scheduled release.
