COM/CAB/tcg Date of Issuance 2/5/2010
BEFORE THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Order Instituting Rulemaking on the Commission's Own Motion to address the issue of customers' electric and natural gas service disconnection. |
FILED PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION FEBRUARY 4, 2010 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA RULEMAKING 10-02-005 |
ORDER INSTITUTING RULEMAKING
TO ESTABLISH WAYS TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER NOTIFICATION
AND EDUCATION TO DECREASE THE NUMBER OF GAS
AND ELECTRIC UTILITY SERVICE DISCONNECTIONS
1. Summary
We open this rulemaking to continue our efforts to reduce the number of residential gas and electric utility service disconnections due to nonpayment by improving customer notification and education. The economic crisis currently existing in California and a recent increase in utility service disconnections has led us to reexamine utility disconnection rules and practices. We want to identify more effective ways for the utilities to work with their customers and develop solutions that avoid unnecessary disconnections without placing an undue cost burden on other customers.
In this rulemaking, we require Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), Southern California Edison Company (SCE), and San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E), and Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) to implement the following interim practices no later than five business days from the mailing of this order:
1) All customer service representatives (CSRs) must inform any customer that owes an arrearage on a utility bill that puts the customer at risk for disconnection that the customer has right to arrange for a bill payment plan extending a minimum of three months in which to repay the arrearage. CSRs may exercise discretion as to extending the three months up to twelve months1 depending on the particulars of a customer's situation and ability to repay the arrearage. CSRs may work with customers to develop a shorter repayment plan, as long as the customer is informed of the three-month option. Customers must keep current on their utility bills while repaying the arrearage balance.
2) Once a customer has established credit as a customer of that utility, the utility must not require that customer to pay additional reestablishment of credit deposits with the utility for either slow-payment/no-payment of bills or following a disconnection.
3) Each utility is authorized to file a Tier 1 advice letter to establish a memorandum account to track any significant additional costs associated with complying with the new practices initiated with this rulemaking, including the operations and maintenance charges associated with implementing the practices as well as any uncollectables that are in excess of those projected in the utility's last general rate case. As part of this proceeding, the Commission will consider the process for determining the categories and amounts of costs in the memorandum account that should be considered reasonable for recovery, as well as the appropriate methods for recovery.
The utilities and parties will have an opportunity to comment on these interim practices and their efficacies, as well as sunset provisions if appropriate, while the parties continue to explore and dialogue about other solutions to assist customers to pay their utility bills and avoid disconnection of service. The Commission recognizes that each utility has been implementing its own respective program on outreach and education to reduce the number of unnecessary disconnections; however, there has been no consistency or uniformity across all utilities. The Commission is initiating this Rulemaking to incorporate the productive and effective practices that each utility can share so that all gas and electric utilities have the benefit of implementing best practices in this area.
1 Each utility may implement a repayment plan schedule that exceeds twelve months, but we are not currently requiring any utility to extend the schedule beyond three months.
