The first of several proposals was introduced last Tuesday in the California Assembly to reform the increasingly crowded group of agencies dealing with energy. The bill would make the state regulatory commission “more responsive to public need” by putting time limits on how long the panel can put off making decisions on key issues that arise in not only energy, but also water, transportation and telecommunications. Decisions would be required within 90 days of a proposed decision being issued.

“The bill will end the California Public Utilities Commission’s practice of ignoring deadlines and delaying final decisions for months on end,” said the still unnumbered bill’s sponsor, Assemblyman Joseph Canciamilla, a representative in the heavily industrialized east San Francisco Bay town of Pittsburg, CA. He criticized the CPUC for having a “culture of inaction.”

“There are many unresolved problems with how California regulates energy,” Canciamilla said. “This is only a small first step in fixing the problems, but assuring that the CPUC is held accountable is an important start.”

Canciamilla spokesman Edward Randolph insisted that the proposal was not solely aimed at the CPUC’s lack of actions on key issues related to last year’s energy crisis and its remediation measures this year. “Over the last year, in looking not just at energy but also at water, telecom, etc., there has just seemed to be a chronic problem with the CPUC in meeting statutory deadlines and in terms of the commission, itself, making decisions in a timely manner,” Randolph said.

This proposal recognizes that an earlier bill from another Assembly member would consolidate energy agencies in the state, including the CPUC, and abandon the six-month-old state power authority (California Consumer Power and Conservation Financing Authority). Assembly member Canciamilla “shares in a lot of (other legislators’) beliefs that there is a need to take a careful look at the interactions of all the energy agencies to see where redundancies can be reduced and things streamlined,” said Randolph, noting that to that end this new proposal can be a “vehicle” in the state legislature for that discussion.

With at least a half-dozen different state agencies involved in the energy sector, the lawmakers are trying to “actually make sense of things,” Randolph said, and to “see whether we have a uniform energy policy, which we clearly don’t have right now.” The deadline for submitting legislative proposals on a regular (non-emergency) basis is the end of this week (Feb. 22), so Canciamilla’s proposal will be assigned a number after that deadline has passed, but Randolph said the lawmaker has several other energy bills planned, including so-called “spot bills” that become placeholders for future issues as they arise.

“The energy crisis showed that many parts of the current system are broken,” said Canciamilla in his news announcement on the legislative proposal. “One of the clearest problems has been a culture of inaction and delay by the CPUC.”

In recent years, the CPUC has “repeatedly postponed votes where draft decisions had been prepared and awaited only a vote by the commission,” the legislator said. “These delays mean that rate rulings necessary to resolve the energy crisis were delayed for months. The delays have also permitted utilities to continue practices that harm consumers and avoid millions of dollars in fines.”

Under the provisions of the proposed new law, when the CPUC failed to act within the 90-day limit, it would be required to report its failure to the governor, and if it did not have “legitimate explanations” for its inaction, the governor and legislature could impose sanctions, which at this early point are left unspecified.

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