Natural Gas Ratepayer Protection Act

As gas demand may change, long-lived pipeline investments can leave remaining customers paying for assets no longer fully needed. The law adds public reporting and requires the California Public Utilities Commission to consider a planning tool to reduce that exposure.

What the law does ​

• Requires each gas corporation to file annual reports on planned, actual, delayed, canceled, and remaining costs for gas-distribution replacements and upgrades.
• Requires reports to disclose relevant wildfire and catastrophe-account spending, changes in customer or gas-demand assumptions, stranded-asset risks, and electrification or nonpipeline alternatives considered or used.
• Allows the California Public Utilities Commission to set report formats that support public comparison of authorized and actual spending and coordinate reporting with existing filings.
• Requires the commission to consider a gas-infrastructure depreciation framework that accounts for foreseeable demand changes and minimizes future stranded-asset costs to ratepayers.
• Allows the commission to use that framework when evaluating depreciation and cost recovery for gas-distribution replacements and upgrades.

Who it affects ​

• Gas corporations.
• Gas customers and ratepayers.
• The California Public Utilities Commission.

Context ​

The reporting covers each utility's general rate case cycle, and violations of commission requirements under the Public Utilities Act can be criminal offenses.