With recent cases involving major utilities as an incentive, California’s Senate passed a bill (28-8) to restrict the use of confidential information in the California Public Utilities Commission.

SB 1488 sponsored by Sen. Debra Bowen would make all filings to the CPUC public unless the regulatory panel specifically designated them as confidential. The bill will be assigned to a lower house Assembly committee in the next few weeks; this Friday is the deadline for all new legislation getting out of its house of origin.

Bowen, the veteran head of the state Senate Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications Committee, was angered in recent years by specific cases involving Southern California Edison Co. and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. that kept data confidential — even from the CPUC commissioners — until just before a vote.

“The CPUC dictates what most people in this state pay for power, for water, for telephone service and much more,” Bowen said. “And there is no reason why the information that goes into the decision-making process should be kept secret.

“The CPUC was created to protect ratepayers, not multi-billion-dollar utility operations. If you want ratepayers to have confidence in the system and the decisions made by the PUC, you get there by making as much information as possible public — not by keeping everything under lock and key.”

A 1915 California law permitted CPUC-regulated companies to keep submittals confidential unless the regulatory panel required the information to be disclosed. Under this system, the CPUC doesn’t decide whether to make the information public, it just keeps it under wraps. SB 1488 will eliminate what Bowen called “a shield” and require the regulatory panel to adhere to a 1968 law that applies to every state agency except the CPUC.

If Bowen’s bill becomes law, everything will automatically be public until the CPUC acts to make it otherwise.

Recent examples cited by Bowen include Edison’s renewable power contracts as part of a short-term procurement plan that was submitted a year ago. And another Edison contract with a solar energy provider, which subsequently has been rejected by the CPUC, kept the prices and terms confidential until the regulatory commission energy unit staff document disclosed all but price.

PG&E’s utility last year filed a request for the CPUC to okay four contracts with biomass energy plants in which Bowen said “the key terms of the agreement were secret “– even from regulators — until the CPUC voted on the measure.

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