BILL NUMBER: SB 396	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Senator Battin

                        FEBRUARY 17, 2005

   An act to add Section 1702.5 to the Public Utilities Code,
relating to telecommunications.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   SB 396, as introduced, Battin.   Telecommunications: extended area
service.
   Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory
authority over public utilities and can establish its own
procedures, subject to statutory limitations or directions and
constitutional requirements of due process. The existing Public
Utilities Act authorizes any person or corporation, and certain other
entities, to bring a complaint before the commission claiming that a
public utility is in violation of a provision of law or an order or
rule of the commission, and imposes certain additional requirements
upon the commission to entertain a complaint as to the reasonableness
of any rates or charges of any gas, electrical, water, or telephone
corporation. An existing decision of the commission prohibits the
filing of new complaints to establish new extended area service
routes in the state that allow the extension of the geographic reach
of local toll-free telephone calls.
   This bill would, notwithstanding that decision of the commission,
require the commission to allow the filing of complaint cases seeking
to establish new extended area service routes within the state.
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: no.


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


  SECTION 1.  Section 1702.5 is added to the  Public Utilities Code ,
to read:
   1702.5.  (a) Notwithstanding the commission's Decision Number
98-06-075, the commission shall allow the filing of complaint cases
seeking to establish new extended area service routes within the
state.(b) For the purposes of this section, "extended area service"
means telephone service authorized in certain designated communities
that extends the geographic reach of a local toll-free calling area.