HBA-EDN, CBW, SEP H.B. 412 77(R)BILL ANALYSIS


Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 412
By: Zbranek
State Affairs
7/3/2001
Enrolled



BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE 

Prior to the 77th Legislature, state law prohibited a retail electric
utility from furnishing or making available retail electric utility service
to an area in which that service was being lawfully furnished by another
retail electric utility, unless the utility first obtained from the Public
Utility Commission (PUC) a certificate of convenience and necessity that
included the area in which the consuming facility was located.  In
addition, certificated municipally owned utilities were exempt from the
provision relating to dividing multiple certificated service areas if the
utility serving the area filed a request with the PUC by February 1, 2000,
requesting that areas within the certificated service area of the
municipally owned utility remain as presently certificated. Following the
enactment of the previous law, some municipally owned utilities failed to
meet the February 1, 2000, deadline to file the request.  House Bill 412
moves the deadline to October 1, 2001. 

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does
not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state
officer, department, agency, or institution. 

ANALYSIS

House Bill 412 amends the Utilities Code to change the filing date from
February 1, 2000, to October 1, 2001, by which a municipally owned utility
may request to maintain service area certification. 

EFFECTIVE DATE

June 14, 2001.