AN ACT Relating to the regulation of petroleum prices; amending RCW 80.04.010, 80.01.040, 80.28.080, 80.28.090, and 80.28.100; and creating a new section.

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

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature recognizes the need to provide for the economic regulation of wholesale petroleum products to benefit the consuming motorist public and to provide for fair competition at the wholesale level of petroleum and gasoline marketing.

The legislature acknowledges that wholesale refiner-suppliers should receive a fair return on their investment. The legislature seeks to insure that gasoline and other liquid petroleum products are readily available at fair prices to all citizens of Washington state. Gasoline and other petroleum products are declared to be a vital necessity and essential to maintaining our quality of life and a vibrant transportation system.

Sec. 2. Section 1, chapter 229, Laws of 1987 and RCW 80.04.010 are each amended to read as follows:

As used in this title, unless specifically defined otherwise or unless the context indicates otherwise:

"Commission" means the utilities and transportation commission.

"Commissioner" means one of the members of such commission.

"Competitive telecommunications company" means a telecommunications company which has been classified as such by the commission pursuant to RCW 80.36.320.

"Competitive telecommunications service" means a service which has been classified as such by the commission pursuant to RCW 80.36.330.

"Corporation" includes a corporation, company, association or joint stock association.

"Person" includes an individual, a firm or partnership.

"Gas plant" includes all real estate, fixtures and personal property, owned, leased, controlled, used or to be used for or in connection with the transmission, distribution, sale or furnishing of natural gas, or the manufacture, transmission, distribution, sale or furnishing of other type gas, for light, heat or power.

"Gas company" includes every corporation, company, association, joint stock association, partnership and person, their lessees, trustees or receiver appointed by any court whatsoever, and every city or town, owning, controlling, operating or managing any gas plant within this state.

"Electric plant" includes all real estate, fixtures and personal property operated, owned, used or to be used for or in connection with or to facilitate the generation, transmission, distribution, sale or furnishing of electricity for light, heat, or power for hire; and any conduits, ducts or other devices, materials, apparatus or property for containing, holding or carrying conductors used or to be used for the transmission of electricity for light, heat or power.

"Electrical company" includes any corporation, company, association, joint stock association, partnership and person, their lessees, trustees or receivers appointed by any court whatsoever (other than a railroad or street railroad company generating electricity solely for railroad or street railroad purposes or for the use of its tenants and not for sale to others), and every city or town owning, operating or managing any electric plant for hire within this state. "Electrical company" does not include a company or person employing a cogeneration facility solely for the generation of electricity for its own use or the use of its tenants or for sale to an electrical company, state or local public agency, municipal corporation, or quasi municipal corporation engaged in the sale or distribution of electrical energy, but not for sale to others, unless such company or person is otherwise an electrical company.

"LATA" means a local access transport area as defined by the commission in conformance with applicable federal law.

"Private telecommunications system" means a telecommunications system controlled by a person or entity for the sole and exclusive use of such person, entity, or affiliate thereof, including the provision of private shared telecommunications services by such person or entity. "Private telecommunications system" does not include a system offered for hire, sale, or resale to the general public.

"Private shared telecommunications services" includes the provision of telecommunications and information management services and equipment within a user group located in discrete private premises in building complexes, campuses, or high-rise buildings, by a commercial shared services provider or by a user association, through privately owned customer premises equipment and associated data processing and information management services and includes the provision of connections to the facilities of a local exchange and to interexchange telecommunications companies.

"Radio communications service company" includes every corporation, company, association, joint stock association, partnership, and person, their lessees, trustees, or receivers appointed by any court, and every city or town making available facilities to provide radio communications service, radio paging, or cellular communications service for hire, sale, or resale.

"Telecommunications company" includes every corporation, company, association, joint stock association, partnership and person, their lessees, trustees or receivers appointed by any court whatsoever, and every city or town owning, operating or managing any facilities used to provide telecommunications for hire, sale, or resale to the general public within this state.

"Facilities" means lines, conduits, ducts, poles, wires, cables, cross-arms, receivers, transmitters, instruments, machines, appliances, pipelines, service stations, instrumentalities and all devices, real estate, easements, apparatus, property and routes used, operated, owned or controlled by any telecommunications company or wholesale refiner-supplier to facilitate the provision of telecommunications service or the sale of petroleum products.

"Telecommunications" is the transmission of information by wire, radio, optical cable, electromagnetic, or other similar means. As used in this definition, "information" means knowledge or intelligence represented by any form of writing, signs, signals, pictures, sounds, or any other symbols.

"Water system" includes all real estate, easements, fixtures, personal property, dams, dikes, head gates, weirs, canals, reservoirs, flumes or other structures or appliances operated, owned, used or to be used for or in connection with or to facilitate the supply, storage, distribution, sale, furnishing, diversion, carriage, apportionment or measurement of water for power, irrigation, reclamation, manufacturing, municipal, domestic or other beneficial uses for hire.

"Water company" includes every corporation, company, association, joint stock association, partnership and person, their lessees, trustees or receivers appointed by any court whatsoever, and every city or town owning, controlling, operating, or managing any water system for hire within this state: PROVIDED, That for purposes of commission jurisdiction it shall not include any water system serving less than one hundred customers where the average annual gross revenue per customer does not exceed three hundred dollars per year, which revenue figure may be increased annually by the commission by rule adopted pursuant to chapter ((~~34.04~~)) 34.05 RCW to reflect the rate of inflation as determined by the implicit price deflator of the United States department of commerce: AND PROVIDED FURTHER, That such measurement of customers or revenues shall include all portions of water companies having common ownership, regardless of location or corporate designation. However, water companies exempt from commission regulation shall be subject to the provisions of chapter 19.86 RCW.

"Cogeneration facility" means any machinery, equipment, structure, process, or property, or any part thereof, installed or acquired for the primary purpose of the sequential generation of electrical or mechanical power and useful heat from the same primary energy source or fuel.

"Public service company" includes every gas company, electrical company, telecommunications company, wholesale refiner-supplier, and water company. Ownership or operation of a cogeneration facility does not, by itself, make a company or person a public service company.

"Local exchange company" means a telecommunications company providing local exchange telecommunications service.

"Department" means the department of social and health services.

The term "service" is used in this title in its broadest and most inclusive sense.

"Wholesale refiner-supplier" means any person, corporation, or affiliate owned or controlled by an entity that refines crude oil into liquid petroleum products or owns all or part of a pipeline.

"Petroleum" or "petroleum products" means gasoline and liquid petroleum, however modified, except aviation fuel, bunker fuel, and home heating fuel.

Sec. 3. Section 80.01.040, chapter 14, Laws of 1961 as amended by section 10, chapter 450, Laws of 1985 and RCW 80.01.040 are each amended to read as follows:

The utilities and transportation commission shall:

(1) Exercise all the powers and perform all the duties prescribed therefor by this title and by Title 81 RCW, or by any other law.

(2) Regulate in the public interest, as provided by the public service laws, the rates, services, facilities, and practices of all persons engaging in the transportation by whatever means of persons or property within this state for compensation, and related activities; including, but not limited to, air transportation companies, auto transportation companies, express companies, freight and freight line companies, motor freight companies, motor transportation agents, private car companies, railway companies, sleeping car companies, steamboat companies, street railway companies, toll bridge companies, storage warehousemen, and wharfingers and warehousemen.

(3) Regulate in the public interest, as provided by the public service laws, the rates, services, facilities, and practices of all persons engaging within this state in the business of supplying any utility service or commodity to the public for compensation, and related activities; including, but not limited to, electrical companies, gas companies, irrigation companies, telecommunications companies, wholesale refiner-suppliers, and water companies.

(4) Make such rules and regulations as may be necessary to carry out its other powers and duties.

Sec. 4. Section 80.28.080, chapter 14, Laws of 1961 as last amended by section 2, chapter 427, Laws of 1985 and RCW 80.28.080 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, wholesale refiner-supplier, 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.

Sec. 5. Section 80.28.090, chapter 14, Laws of 1961 and RCW 80.28.090 are each amended to read as follows:

No gas company, electrical company, wholesale refiner-supplier, or water company shall make or grant any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any person, corporation, or locality, or to any particular description of service in any respect whatsoever, or subject any particular person, corporation or locality or any particular description of service to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage in any respect whatsoever.

Sec. 6. Section 80.28.100, chapter 14, Laws of 1961 and RCW 80.28.100 are each amended to read as follows:

(1) No gas company, electrical company, wholesale refiner-supplier, or water company shall, directly or indirectly, or by any special rate, rebate, drawback or other device or method, charge, demand, collect or receive from any person or corporation a greater or less compensation for gas, electricity, liquid petroleum, or water, or for any service rendered or to be rendered, or in connection therewith, except as authorized in this chapter, than it charges, demands, collects or receives from any other person or corporation for doing a like or contemporaneous service with respect thereto under the same or substantially similar circumstances or conditions.

(2) Wholesale refiner-suppliers shall not discriminate by price or any form of compensation among classes of trade or between different geographical areas of the state, unless the difference reflects actual costs associated with manufacturing, marketing, or transportation.

(3) The difference between the lowest price offered in a neighboring state, on a similar product, by the same wholesale refiner-supplier, and the price offered in Washington state must be substantially related to the actual costs of manufacturing, marketing, and transportation.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 7. If any provision of this act or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of the act or the application of the provision to other persons or circumstances is not affected.