BILL REQ. #:  S-3731.1 

Read first time 01/09/2006.   Referred to Committee on Water, Energy & Environment.

     AN ACT Relating to utility charges; and amending RCW 80.28.080.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

Sec. 1   RCW 80.28.080 and 1985 c 427 s 2 are each amended to read as follows:
     No gas company, electrical company or water company shall charge, demand, collect or receive a greater or less or different compensation for any service rendered or to be rendered than the rates and charges applicable to such service as specified in its schedule filed and in effect at the time, nor shall any such company directly or indirectly refund or remit in any manner or by any device any portion of the rates or charges so specified, or furnish its product at free or reduced rates except to its employees and their families, and its officers, attorneys, and agents; to hospitals, charitable and eleemosynary institutions and persons engaged in charitable and eleemosynary work; to indigent and destitute persons; to national homes or state homes for disabled volunteer soldiers and soldiers' and sailors' homes: PROVIDED, That the term "employees" as used in this paragraph shall include furloughed, pensioned and superannuated employees, persons who have become disabled or infirm in the service of any such company; and the term "families," as used in this paragraph, shall include the families of those persons named in this proviso, the families of persons killed or dying in the service, also the families of persons killed, and the surviving spouse prior to remarriage, and the minor children during minority of persons who died while in the service of any of the companies named in this paragraph: PROVIDED FURTHER, That water companies may furnish free or at reduced rates water for the use of the state, or for any project in which the state is interested: AND PROVIDED FURTHER, That gas companies, electrical companies, and water companies may charge the defendant for treble damages awarded in lawsuits successfully litigated under RCW 80.28.240.
     No gas company, electrical company or water company shall extend to any person or corporation any form of contract or agreement or any rule or regulation or any privilege or facility except such as are regularly and uniformly extended to all persons and corporations under like circumstances.
     Except as provided in RCW 80.28.240, no gas company, electrical company, or water company shall charge, demand, collect, or receive compensation for any service from any person who has not entered into a written contract with such company for the provision of such service.