BILL ANALYSIS 1
1
SENATE ENERGY, UTILITIES AND COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
DEBRA BOWEN, CHAIRWOMAN
AJR 2 - Havice Hearing Date:
August 6, 2002 A
As Amended: January 15, 2002 Non-FISCAL
J
R
2
DESCRIPTION
Existing law requires the California Public Utilities Commission
(CPUC) to designate and rank categories of customers who provide
critical and essential services ("essential users"). These
customers are exempt from rotating electrical outages.
This resolution memorializes Congress to designate defense
contractors as "operating in the national interest."
BACKGROUND
Since the early 1980's, the CPUC has designated certain
facilities necessary for the health, safety and security of the
public as "essential users." This designation requires the
utility to exempt the customer, and all other customers sharing
the same circuit, from planned outages. According to the most
recent CPUC list, customers designated essential and normally
exempt from rotating outages include:
1.Government and other agencies providing essential fire,
police, and prison services.
2.Government agencies essential to the national defense.
3.Hospitals and skilled nursing facilities.
4.Communication utilities, as they relate to public health,
welfare and security, including telephones.
5.Navigation communication, traffic control, and landing and
departure facilities for commercial air and sea operations.
6.Electric utility facilities and supporting fuel and fuel
transportation services critical to continuity of electric
power system operation.
7.Radio and television broadcasting stations used for
broadcasting emergency messages, instructions, and other
public information related to the electric curtailment
emergency.
The electric distribution grid is comprised of circuits which
generally serve several thousand customers. When a planned
outage is instituted, power is cut to the entire circuit, so
exempting an essential customer from an outage also exempts
every other customer on that circuit.
For example, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) has about 2,600
essential customers, but because the entire circuit serving the
essential customer is exempt from outages, about 2.4 million
customers are exempt from outages. The result is that 48% of
the load served by PG&E is exempt from outages, meaning when a
rotating outage is called, the remaining 52% of the load has to
bear the inconvenience. The numbers are similar for Southern
California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E).
The CPUC's goal is to keep at least 40% of load eligible for
rotating outages. Outage exemptions are limited to those
circumstances where the public health and safety are at risk -
exemptions for economic hardship aren't permitted.
Adding more people or businesses to the outage exemption list
will concentrate the inconvenience on fewer customers for longer
periods of time. Historic and current utility practice is to
limit rotating outages to one to two hours. The utility shuts
down a particular circuit for a maximum of one hour, but at the
customer end, that shutdown means the power is actually out for
one to two hours. If fewer circuits are available to rotate
among during an outage, any necessary outages will have to be
longer, more frequent, or both.
This resolution memorializes Congress to designate contractors
engaged in "vital defense work" as "operating in the national
interest." According to the author, this is so defense
contractors may be exempt from electrical service interruptions.
COMMENTS
1.What does the designation mean? The Committee has been unable
to identify any direct effect of an "operating in the national
interest" designation on whether a customer receives a
exemption from rotating outages. There is no existing
requirement on the CPUC to add a customer so designated to the
list of essential customers.
Even if there was, which customers may be exempt from outages
is a state decision, so asking for an act of Congress to
compel the state to take an action that's within the state's
authority to begin with is a bit of a circuitous route to get
an exemption.
If the author's intent is to exempt defense contractors from
rotating outages, it may be more effective to send a
resolution to the CPUC requesting that it consider adding
defense contractors to its list of essential users.
2.Previous legislation. SB 68X (Battin), Chapter 2, Statutes of
2001, requires the CPUC, when establishing priorities among
types or categories of electrical or gas customers for
exemption from rotating outages, to consider the potential
effect of extreme temperatures on the health and safety of
residential customers. In April, the CPUC issued a decision
in which it declined to adopt a priority for residential
customers based on exposure to extreme temperatures.
SB 1055 (Morrow), Chapter 447, Statutes of 2001, requires the
CPUC to consider jeopardy or imminent danger to public health
and safety that creates substantial likelihood of severe
health risk requiring medical attention. SB 1055 also
required the CPUC to consider the effect of providing a high
priority to some customers on those customers who do not
receive a high priority.
ASSEMBLY VOTES
Assembly Floor (66-0)
Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee
(10-0)
POSITIONS
Sponsor:
Author
Support:
Aerojet General, Inc.
American Legion Department of California Legislative Committee
California Space Authority
Oppose:
None on file
Lawrence Lingbloom
AJR 2 Analysis
Hearing Date: August 6, 2002