BILL NUMBER: AB 380	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Nunez

                        FEBRUARY 11, 2005

   An act to add Section 380 to the Public Utilities Code, relating
to electricity.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 380, as introduced, Nunez.   Electricity: electrical
restructuring: resource adequacy.
   The California Constitution establishes the Public Utilities
Commission, and provides it with jurisdiction over all public
utilities. The Constitution grants the commission certain general
powers over all public utilities, subject to control by the
Legislature, and authorizes the Legislature, unlimited by the other
provisions of the Constitution, to confer additional authority and
jurisdiction upon the commission, that is cognate and germane to the
regulation of public utilities.
   The existing Public Utilities Act imposes various duties and
responsibilities on the commission with respect to the purchase of
electricity and requires the commission to review and adopt a
procurement plan and a renewable energy procurement plan for each
electrical corporation pursuant to the California Renewables
Portfolio Standard Program.  Existing law relative to electrical
restructuring, authorizes electrical service to be provided, in
certain circumstances, by electric service providers, as defined, and
community choice aggregators, as defined.
   This bill would require the commission, in consultation with the
Independent System Operator, to establish resource adequacy
requirements to ensure that adequate physical generating capacity,
dedicated to serving all load requirements, is available to meet peak
demand plus requisite planning and operating reserves, and would
require the commission to implement and enforce these resource
adequacy requirements in a nondiscriminatory manner on all load
serving entities.  The bill would require that the cost of meeting
resource adequacy requirements, including the costs associated with
system reliability and local area reliability found reasonable by the
commission, be fully recoverable from all customers taking service
from an electrical corporation on a nonbypassable basis at the time
the commitment to incur the cost is made or thereafter. The bill
would require that all load serving entities, including electric
service providers and community choice aggregators, are subject to
the same requirements for resource adequacy, resource diversity,
cost-effective energy efficiency, and the renewables portfolio
standard, as are applicable to an electrical corporation.
   Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or an
order or direction of the commission is a crime.
   Because the provisions of this bill would be part of the act and
an order or other action of the commission would be required to
implement certain of the provisions, this bill would impose a
state-mandated local program by creating new crimes.

  The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local
agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the
state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that
reimbursement.
   This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this
act for a specified reason.
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: yes.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:


  SECTION 1.  Section 380 is added to the  Public Utilities Code , to
read:
   380.  (a) The commission, in consultation with the Independent
System Operator, shall establish resource adequacy requirements to
ensure that adequate physical generating capacity dedicated to
serving all load requirements is available to meet peak demand and
planning and operating reserves, at or deliverable to locations and
at times as may be necessary to ensure local area reliability and
system reliability, at just and reasonable rates.(b) All electrical
load serving entities, including nonutility electric service
providers and community choice aggregators, shall be subject to the
same requirements for resource adequacy, resource diversity,
cost-effective energy efficiency, and the renewables portfolio
standard program, that are applicable to electrical corporations
pursuant to this section, or otherwise as required by law, or by
order or decision of the commission.
   (c) The commission shall implement and enforce these resource
adequacy requirements in a nondiscriminatory manner as to all load
serving entities. The electrical corporation's costs of meeting those
resource adequacy requirements, including the costs associated with
system reliability and local area reliability, that are found
reasonable by the commission, shall be fully recoverable from those
customers taking service from the electrical corporation, at the time
the commitment to incur the cost is made or thereafter, on a fully
nonbypassable basis pursuant to rates that are just and reasonable,
as determined by the commission.
  SEC. 2.
  No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to Section 6 of
Article XIII B of the California Constitution because the only costs
that may be incurred by a local agency or school district will be
incurred because this act creates a new crime or infraction,
eliminates a crime or infraction, or changes the penalty for a crime
or infraction, within the meaning of Section 17556 of the Government
Code, or changes the definition of a crime within the meaning of
Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution.