BP BHEAD INT S [atlas:bill]

AN ACT Relating to requiring a formal hearing on proposed water company rate increases when requested by affected customers; and amending RCW 80.04.130 and 80.28.060.

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

Sec. 1. RCW 80.04.130 and 1998 c 110 s 1 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, or as provided in RCW 80.28.060(2), 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

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, 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.

Sec. 2. RCW 80.28.060 and 1989 c 152 s 1 are each amended to read as follows:

(1) Unless the commission otherwise orders, no change shall be made in any rate or charge or in any form of contract or agreement or in any rule or regulation relating to any rate, charge or service, or in any general privilege or facility which shall have been filed and published by a gas company, electrical company or water company in compliance with the requirements of RCW 80.28.050 except after thirty days' notice to the commission and publication for thirty days, which notice shall plainly state the changes proposed to be made in the schedule then in force and the time when the change will go into effect and all proposed changes shall be shown by printing, filing and publishing new schedules, or shall be plainly indicated upon the schedules in force at the time and kept open to public inspection. Proposed changes may be suspended by the commission within thirty days or before the stated effective date of the proposed change, whichever is later. The commission, for good cause shown, may allow changes without requiring the thirty days' notice by duly filing, in such manner as it may direct, an order specifying the changes so to be made and the time when it shall take effect. All such changes shall be immediately indicated upon its schedules by the company affected. When any change is made in any rate or charge, form of contract or agreement, or any rule or regulation relating to any rate or charge or service, or in any general privilege or facility, the effect of which is to increase any rate or charge, then in existence, attention shall be directed on the copy filed with the commission to such increase by some character immediately preceding or following the item in such schedule, such character to be in form as designated by the commission.

(2) If, within the thirty days following a water company's filing for a proposed change in rates or charges, ten percent or more of the water company's customers request a formal hearing on the proposed changes, the commission shall set the matter for hearing as provided for in RCW 80.04.130. The commission may, in its discretion, suspend the proposed changes pending the hearing or may issue an order approving an interim change.