Public Utilities Commission: safety investigations.

The California Constitution establishes the Public Utilities Commission with regulatory authority over public utilities and authorizes the commission to establish its own procedures, subject to statutory limitations or directions and constitutional requirements of due process. The Public Utilities Act requires the commission to publish and maintain certain documents and information and make specified materials available on the commission's Internet Web site. The act requires the commission to submit certain information about its activities to the Governor and the Legislature no later than February 1 of each year, including a work plan describing its scheduled ratemaking proceedings, an accounting of its transactions and proceedings, and a report on the number of cases where resolution of the case exceeded the time periods prescribed in scoping memos and on the number of days that commissioners presided in hearings. This bill would require the commission, beginning February 1, 2016, to annually publish a report that includes all investigations into gas or electric service safety incidents reported, pursuant to commission requirements, by any gas corporation or electrical corporation including the month of the safety incident, the reason for the investigation, the facility type involved, and the owner of the facility. The bill would require that the report succinctly describe safety investigations concluded during the prior calendar year and investigations that remain open. The bill would require that the work plan submitted to the Governor and the Legislature include a summary of staff safety investigations concluded during the prior calendar year and staff safety investigations that remain open for any gas corporation or electrical corporation, with a link to the Internet Web site with the report that contains the above-described information that the commission is required to annually report.