BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    



                                                                  AB 1889
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   April 21, 2004

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                   Judy Chu, Chair

                  AB 1889 (Chu) - As Introduced:  February 5, 2004 

          Policy Committee:                               
          UtilitiesVote:12-0 (Consent)

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program:  
          No     Reimbursable:               

           SUMMARY  

          This bill repeals an obselete requirement that the Public  
          Utilities Commission (PUC) establish a Power Exchange energy  
          credit (PX credit) based on actual hourly data for customers  
          with time-of-use (TOU) meters.

           FISCAL EFFECT  

          Negligible fiscal impact.

           COMMENTS  

           1)Purpose  .  The author indicates that, since the Power Exchange  
            is no longer administering energy credits for direct access  
            customers, this code section is no longer needed.  The author  
            also believes this bill would have no impact on the Power  
            Exchange bankruptcy proceedings and would have no bearing on  
            direct access customers seeking energy credit payments owed to  
            them during the operation of the power exchange.

           2)Background  .  The Power Exchange was established as a part of  
            the AB 1890 electrical restructuring of 1996 and charged with  
            organizing a set of competitive auctions open on a  
            nondiscriminatory basis to all energy suppliers. As a result  
            of the state's energy crisis, the Power Exchange filed for  
            bankruptcy in January 2001. At the time the PX was operating,  
            the utilities were required to generate a bill for  
            transmission and distribution services and for the competition  
            transition charge (CTC). AB 1890 required that these charges  
            be determined residually by subtracting a credit, or otherwise  
            known as the PX credit, for the commodity portion of the bill  








                                                                  AB 1889
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            before the energy service provider could bill the customer. 


           Analysis Prepared by :    Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081