HBA-CBW, SEP H.B. 412 77(R) BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 412 By: Zbranek State Affairs 2/26/2001 Introduced BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Current law prohibits a retail electric utility from furnishing or making available retail electric utility service to an area in which that service is being lawfully furnished by another retail electric utility, unless the utility first obtains from the Public Utility Commission (PUC) a certificate of convenience and necessity that includes the area in which the consuming facility is located. In addition, certificated municipally owned utilities are exempt from the provision relating to dividing multiply 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 current 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 On passage, or if the Act does not receive the necessary vote, the Act takes effect September 1, 2001.