Electric utilities; recovery of costs of undergrounding distribution lines.

Declares that the replacement of any subset of an investor-owned electric utility's existing overhead distribution tap lines that have, in the aggregate, an average of nine or more total unplanned outage events-per-mile over a preceding 10-year period with new underground facilities in order to improve electric service reliability is in the public interest. The measure also provides that there shall be a rebuttable presumption that (i) the conversion of such facilities will provide local and system-wide benefits, (ii) the new underground facilities are cost beneficial, and (iii) the costs associated with the new underground facilities are reasonably and prudently incurred. An enactment clause provides that the measure shall apply to any applications pending with the Commission regarding new underground facilities on or after January 1, 2017. Another enactment clause directs an investor-owned incumbent electric utility to provide written notice to any cable operator of a cable television system that has attached its facilities to its poles that will be replaced in a project to underground existing overhead distribution tap lines not less than 90 days prior to relocating the utility's overhead distribution lines. The clause also establishes a procedure for negotiating a common shared underground easement.