STATEMENT TO

SENATE COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE FOR

SENATE, Nos. 719, 889 and 2221

with Senate Floor Amendments

(Proposed by Senator GREENSTEIN)

ADOPTED: JUNE 20, 2019

      These floor amendments extend to 24 months the period of time the Board of Public Utilities (BPU) has to issue a report on public utility service reliability in this State.

      The floor amendments provide that, in addition to any civil administrative penalty imposed on any person, public utility, or entity subject to the jurisdiction of the BPU that fails to perform the performance benchmarks described in an emergency response plan submitted pursuant to the bill, or fails to meet standards in a service reliability plan or in an emergency communications plan submitted pursuant to the bill, the BPU may direct an amount credited to ratepayers in accordance with the BPU’s current rate design directly through bill credits or by refund check within 120 days after the date that the BPU issued the penalty.

      The floor amendments remove the provision establishing a “Board of Public Utilities Civil Penalty Fund” into which all collected penalties would be deposited and used to provide grants for certain municipal maintenance activities and to otherwise improve public utilities’ service quality and reliability.

      The floor amendments make certain grammatical and citation corrections.