AMENDED IN SENATE AUGUST 13, 2026

AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY MARCH 19, 2026

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2025–2026 REGULAR SESSION

97

Introduced by Assembly Member Rogers

(Coauthors: Assembly Members Bauer-Kahan, Boerner, Connolly, Petrie-Norris, and Ward)

February 9, 2026

An act to add Section 365.4 to the Public Utilities Code, relating to electricity.

Vote: majority   Appropriation: no   Fiscal committee: yes   Local program: yes

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Existing law authorizes the commission to fix the rates and charges for every public utility and requires that those rates and charges be just and reasonable.

This bill would require the commission to ensure that all data serving as a basis for any decision or ruling issued by the commission, or in any proposal or analysis provided by commission staff, for the determination or application of a calculation methodology for any nonbypassable charge imposed on customers of a load-serving entity to recover costs associated with contracts, electrical corporation-owned generation, or any other resource or value included in that charge and any other charge derived from those costs, is made available to load-serving entities and ratepayer advocates on behalf of customers. The bill would require the commission to require an electrical corporation corporation, member association, load-serving entity, or other party, in submitting a proposal or analysis for the determination or application of a calculation methodology for any nonbypasssable charge imposed on customers of a load-serving entity to recover costs associated with contracts, electrical corporation-owned generation, or any other resource or value included in that charge and any other charge derived from those costs, to make all data serving as a basis for that proposal or analysis available to load-serving entities and ratepayer advocates on behalf of customers. The bill would require that the data exclude any information that can reasonably be used to identify an individual, family, household, residence, or nonresidential customer. The bill would require that the data to meet specified requirements, including that it is made available through a public disclosure, except for market-sensitive data, as provided.

Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime.

Because the above prohibition provisions would be a part of the act, and because a violation of a commission action implementing the above prohibition provisions would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

Section 365.4 is added to the Public Utilities Code, to read:

365.4.

(a) The commission shall ensure that all data serving as a basis for any decision or ruling issued by the commission, or in any proposal or analysis provided by commission staff, for the determination or application of a calculation methodology for any nonbypassable charge imposed on customers of a load-serving entity to recover costs associated with contracts, electrical corporation-owned generation, or any other resource or value included in that charge and any other charge derived from those costs, is made available to load-serving entities and ratepayer advocates on behalf of customers.

(b) The commission shall require an electrical corporation corporation, member association, load-serving entity, or other party, in submitting a proposal or analysis for the determination or application of a calculation methodology for any nonbypassable charge imposed on customers of a load-serving entity to recover costs associated with contracts, electrical corporation-owned generation, or any other resource or value included in that charge and any other charge derived from those costs, to make all data serving as a basis for that proposal or analysis available to load-serving entities and ratepayer advocates on behalf of customers.

(c) For purposes of subdivisions (a) and (b), a the data shall exclude any information that can reasonably be used to identify an individual, family, household, residence, or nonresidential customer. A charge imposed on customers of a load-serving entity includes any charge determined or applied pursuant to subdivision (f), (g), or (h) of Section 366.2, and any other nonbypassable charge authorized by the commission to recover the costs of contracts or resources procured for the benefit of bundled customers, and collected from unbundled customers, regardless of whether the charge is expressly enumerated in those subdivisions.

(d) Data provided pursuant to subdivisions (a) and (b) shall meet all of the following requirements:

(1) It shall be made through a public disclosure, except for market-sensitive data, which shall be made through disclosure to a nonmarket participant reviewing representative pursuant to the terms of a reasonable, commission-approved nondisclosure agreement.

(2) It shall be made available to load-serving entities and ratepayer advocates concurrent with any proposal or analyses from the electrical corporation, the commission’s staff, a member association, a load-serving entity, or any other party, or any commission-adopted decision or ruling. This requirement may be met through adoption of data sharing practices mutually agreed to by parties at the outset of a proceeding.

(3) It shall be made available in native file format.

(e) A failure to comply with this section, or the identification of good faith errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in data disclosed pursuant to this section, shall not, by itself, invalidate, impair, stay, or otherwise affect the validity of any calculation methodology, charge, decision, or ruling adopted by the commission, unless the failure, good faith error, omission, or inaccuracy constitutes one or more of the grounds specified in Section 1757 or 1757.1.

(f) For purposes of this section, “load-serving entity” has the same meaning as defined in Section 380.

SEC. 2.

No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to Section 6 of Article XIIIB of the California Constitution because the only costs that may be incurred by a local agency or school district will be incurred because this act creates a new crime or infraction, eliminates a crime or infraction, or changes the penalty for a crime or infraction, within the meaning of Section 17556 of the Government Code, or changes the definition of a crime within the meaning of Section 6 of Article XIIIB of the California Constitution.