BILL ANALYSIS 1
SENATE ENERGY, UTILITIES AND COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
DEBRA BOWEN, CHAIRWOMAN
AB 1889 - Chu Hearing Date: June 22, 2004
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As Amended: April 27, 2004 FISCAL B
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DESCRIPTION
This bill repeals an obsolete statute, enacted by AB 811
(Keeley), Chapter 408, Statutes of 1999, which requires the
California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to establish a
Power Exchange energy credit (PX credit) that is calculated
according to actual hourly data for customers with time-of-use
meters.
BACKGROUND
Direct access customers must pay their local utility for
transmission and distribution services associated with
delivering the power the customer buys from an energy service
provider.
AB 1890 (Brulte), Chapter 854, Statutes of 1996, requires these
charges to be determined residually by subtracting a credit for
the commodity portion of the bill. When the PX was operating,
the credit was calculated according to the PX price and was
referred to as the PX credit. The statute this bill repeals
prescribed a calculation method which benefited customers with
certain load profiles.
COMMENTS
1.Repeal appears to have no effect beyond code clean-up. The PX
ceased its essential market functions in 2001 pursuant to an
order of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and
declared bankruptcy shortly thereafter. While the PX is still
in the latter stages of winding up its affairs, it is no
longer operating as an electricity trading venue. There is no
basis to calculate the PX credit, it is no longer used to
determine prevailing electricity costs, and there is no need
for a statute to prescribe the way it is calculated.
2.Should other PX statutes be repealed as well? Previous
substantial energy bills (SB 1876 (Bowen) and SB 888 (Dunn))
proposed to repeal obsolete PX-related statutes, including the
statute this bill repeals. These PX repeals generated no
controversy. The author and the committee may wish to
consider whether this bill should repeal these other
PX-related statutes (i.e. Public Utilities Code Sections 338,
355 and 356) and remove references to the PX in other statutes
(i.e. Public Utilities Code Sections 216, 330, 331, 335, 339,
340, 341.2, 341.5, 359, 361, 365, 367, 373, 376, and 390).
PRIOR VOTES
Assembly Floor (72-0)
Assembly Appropriations Committee (20-0)
Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee (12-0)
POSITIONS
Sponsor:
Southern California Edison
Support:
None on file
Oppose:
None on file
Lawrence Lingbloom
AB 1889 Analysis
Hearing Date: June 22, 2004