(a) Not later than March 1, 2012, the commission shall institute a rulemaking proceeding for the purpose of considering and adopting a code of conduct, associated rules, and enforcement procedures, to govern the conduct of the electrical corporations relative to the consideration, formation, and implementation of community choice aggregation programs authorized in Section 366.2. The code of conduct, associated rules, and enforcement procedures, shall do all of the following:
(1) Ensure that an electrical corporation does not market against a community choice aggregation program, except through an independent marketing division that is funded exclusively by the electrical corporation’s shareholders and that is functionally and physically separate from the electrical corporation’s ratepayer-funded divisions.
(2) Limit the electrical corporation’s independent marketing division’s use of support services from the electrical corporation’s ratepayer-funded divisions, and ensure that the electrical corporation’s independent marketing division is allocated costs of any permissible support services from the electrical corporation’s ratepayer-funded divisions on a fully allocated embedded cost basis, providing detailed public reports of such use.
(3) Ensure that the electrical corporation’s independent marketing division does not have access to competitively sensitive information.
(4) (A) Incorporate rules that the commission finds to be necessary or convenient in order to facilitate the development of community choice aggregation programs, to foster fair competition, and to protect against cross-subsidization paid by ratepayers.
(B) It is the intent of the Legislature that the rules include, in whole or in part, the rules approved by the commission in Decision 97-12-088 and Decision 08-06-016.
(C) This paragraph does not limit the authority of the commission to adopt rules that it determines are necessary or convenient in addition to those adopted in Decision 97-12-088 and Decision 08-06-016 or to modify any rule adopted in those decisions.
(5) Provide for any other matter that the commission determines to be necessary or advisable to protect a ratepayer’s right to be free from forced speech or to implement that portion of the federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 that establishes the federal standard that no electric utility may recover from any person other than the shareholders or other owners of the utility, any direct or indirect expenditure by the electric utility for promotional or political advertising (16 U.S.C. Sec. 2623(b)(5)).
(b) The commission shall ensure that the code of conduct, associated rules, and enforcement procedures are implemented by no later than January 1, 2013.
(c) This section does not limit the authority of the commission to require that any marketing against a community choice aggregation plan shall be conducted by an affiliate of the electrical corporation, or to require that marketing against a community choice aggregator not be conducted by a marketing division of the electrical corporation, subject to affiliate transaction rules to be developed by the commission.
(Added by Stats. 2011, Ch. 599, Sec. 10. (SB 790) Effective January 1, 2012.)