AN
ACT Relating to mandatory measured telecommunications service; and amending RCW
80.04.130.
BE IT
ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
Sec.
1. RCW
80.04.130 and 1997 c 368 s 14 are each amended to read as follows:
(1)
Whenever any public service company shall file with the commission any
schedule, classification, rule or regulation, the effect of which is to change
any rate, charge, rental or toll theretofore charged, the commission shall have
power, either upon its own motion or upon complaint, upon notice, to enter upon
a hearing concerning such proposed change and the reasonableness and justness
thereof, and pending such hearing and the decision thereon the commission may
suspend the operation of such rate, charge, rental or toll for a period not
exceeding ten months from the time the same would otherwise go into effect, and
after a full hearing the commission may make such order in reference thereto as
would be provided in a hearing initiated after the same had become effective.
The commission shall not suspend a tariff that makes a decrease in a rate,
charge, rental, or toll filed by a telecommunications company pending
investigation of the fairness, justness, and reasonableness of the decrease
when the filing does not contain any offsetting increase to another rate,
charge, rental, or toll and the filing company agrees to not file for an
increase to any rate, charge, rental, or toll to recover the revenue deficit
that results from the decrease for a period of one year. The filing company
shall file with any decrease sufficient information as the commission by rule
may require to demonstrate the decreased rate, charge, rental, or toll is above
the long run incremental cost of the service. A tariff decrease that results
in a rate that is below long run incremental cost, or is contrary to commission
rule or order, or the requirements of this chapter, shall be rejected for
filing and returned to the company. The commission may prescribe a different
rate to be effective on the prospective date stated in its final order after
its investigation, if it concludes based on the record that the originally
filed and effective rate is unjust, unfair, or unreasonable.
For
the purposes of this section, tariffs for the following telecommunications
services, that temporarily waive or reduce charges for existing or new
subscribers for a period not to exceed sixty days in order to promote the use
of the services shall be considered tariffs that decrease rates, charges,
rentals, or tolls:
(a)
Custom calling service;
(b)
Second access lines; or
(c)
Other services the commission specifies by rule.
The
commission may suspend any promotional tariff other than those listed in (a)
through (c) of this subsection.
The
commission may suspend the initial tariff filing of any water company removed
from and later subject to commission jurisdiction because of the number of
customers or the average annual gross revenue per customer provisions of RCW
80.04.010. The commission may allow temporary rates during the suspension
period. These rates shall not exceed the rates charged when the company was
last regulated. Upon a showing of good cause by the company, the commission
may establish a different level of temporary rates.
(2)
At any hearing involving any change in any schedule, classification, rule or
regulation the effect of which is to increase any rate, charge, rental or toll
theretofore charged, the burden of proof to show that such increase is just and
reasonable shall be upon the public service company.
(3)
The implementation of mandatory local measured telecommunications service is a
major policy change in available telecommunications service. The commission
shall not accept for filing a price list, nor shall it accept for filing
or approve, prior to June 1, ((1998)) 2001, a tariff filed by a
telecommunications company which imposes mandatory local measured service on
any customer or class of customers, except that, upon finding that it is in the
public interest, the commission may accept for filing a price list or it may
accept for filing and approve a tariff that imposes mandatory measured
service for a telecommunications company's extended area service or foreign
exchange service. This subsection does not apply to land, air, or marine
mobile service, or to pay telephone service, or to any service which has been
traditionally offered on a measured service basis.
(4)
The implementation of Washington telephone assistance program service is a
major policy change in available telecommunications service. The
implementation of Washington telephone assistance program service will aid in
achieving the stated goal of universal telephone service.
(5)
If a utility claims a sales or use tax exemption on the pollution control
equipment for an electrical generation facility and abandons the generation
facility before the pollution control equipment is fully depreciated, any
tariff filing for a rate increase to recover abandonment costs for the
pollution control equipment shall be considered unjust and unreasonable for the
purposes of this section.
