BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2447
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 3, 2004
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON UTILITIES AND COMMERCE
Sarah Reyes, Chair
AB 2447 (Diaz) - As Amended: April 29, 2004
SUBJECT : Public Utilities Commission: information practices.
SUMMARY : Requires the California Public Utilities Commission
(CPUC) to post on its Internet website information regarding
reports to the Legislature. Specifically, this bill requires
CPUC to place on its Internet website a listing of the reports
that it is required to file with the Legislature and its current
completion status. The reports are to be placed on CPUC website
for at least five (5) years from the delivery of the report to
the Legislature, excluding one-time reports, which are to be
placed on the website for at least 10 years upon delivery to the
Legislature.
EXISTING LAW requires CPUC to provide various reports to the
Legislature on telecommunication competition, CPUC annual work
plans, electricity costs for agriculture, annual compilation of
rules and procedures, clearinghouse for women and minorities
business database, and utility expenditures on regulatory and
other authorized CPUC activities.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown.
COMMENTS :
Purpose of this bill: According to the author, the Legislature,
through statutory changes, resolutions or budget actions through
either the Supplemental Report of the Budget or the Budget Bill,
often requires CPUC to report on various programs or activities
of CPUC. Those reports while filed with the Secretary of the
Senate or the Chief Clerk of the Assembly often go unnoticed by
the general public or interested stakeholders. This bill seeks
to provide public disclosure of the various reports in an
accessible manner, but also to provide an easy way for the
Legislature to monitor and track CPUC's compliance with
reporting orders.
CPUC already posts some reports on their Internet website.
Currently, CPUC already posts some of its reports it is required
to file to the Legislature on its website. Would this bill
AB 2447
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place an additional administrative burden on CPUC to track the
status of each report required to be filed to the Legislature?
Also, this bill should require that CPUC do this under existing
resources.
CPUC is already having trouble meeting all their reporting
requirements and in some cases do not even file necessary
reports to the Legislature because of the lack of resources or
the time it takes to write each report. In the future the
committee may want to review all the statutory reporting
requirements that CPUC is responsible for and determine which
ones are no longer needed.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
None on file.
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Daniel Kim / U. & C. / (916) 319-2083