AB 2695 amends Section 910.1 of the Public Utilities Code to change the California Public Utilities Commission’s reporting cadence from annual to biannual and to specify the items the report must include. The bill directs the CPUC to provide counts of scoping memos and orders extending statutory deadlines for adjudication and ratesetting/quasi‑legislative matters, and it tightens how commissioner attendance at hearings must be reported.
The change increases the frequency and granularity of legislative oversight over CPUC case processing. That can deliver timelier visibility into backlog and scheduling pressures, but it also raises practical questions about data collection, staff time, and whether the bill carries implementation funding or standards for counting and formatting the data.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill replaces the current annual report requirement with a biannual report to the Legislature and requires the CPUC to include the number of scoping memos issued and the number of orders extending statutory deadlines for adjudication and ratesetting/quasi‑legislative cases. It also requires attendance reporting for commissioners broken down by hearing type, proceeding type, and industry type.
Who It Affects
Primary actors are CPUC staff who prepare the report, the Legislature and its committees that use the data, regulated utilities and intervenors that supply or rely on procedural data, and policy stakeholders (consumer advocates, industry groups, researchers) who monitor CPUC performance.
Why It Matters
More frequent, more granular reporting increases transparency into how quickly the CPUC resolves cases and how commissioners engage with hearings. That can change oversight dynamics and internal CPUC priorities, with consequences for staffing, data systems, and how extensions and scheduling decisions are perceived and managed.
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What This Bill Actually Does
AB 2695 rewrites the timing clause in Section 910.1 so the CPUC submits the same report twice a year instead of once. The substance of the report remains focused on case timeliness, dispositions of rehearing applications, and the days commissioners presided in or attended hearings — but the bill explicitly adds counts of scoping memos issued in each proceeding and the number of orders extending statutory deadlines under specified code sections for different case tracks.
The bill also sharpens the attendance disclosure requirement. Rather than an undifferentiated tally of days, the CPUC must break attendance down by hearing type (for example, prehearing conferences, evidentiary hearings, public participation hearings, and workshops), by proceeding type (quasi‑legislative, adjudication, rate‑setting, catastrophic wildfire), and by industry (electric, gas, water, telecommunications, transportation).
Those categorical splits force the commission to tag and aggregate events in ways it may not currently do.The statute cites two separate statutory hooks for counting deadline‑extension orders: subdivision (e) of Section 1701.2 for adjudications and subdivision (a) of Section 1701.5 for ratesetting/quasi‑legislative cases. Practically, that means the report must show how often the CPUC exercises the authority to extend statutory deadlines in each procedural track.
The bill does not prescribe report formatting, firm submission dates, or funding; it changes what must be reported and how often.
The Five Things You Need to Know
AB 2695 replaces the current annual report requirement in Section 910.1 with a biannual (twice‑yearly) reporting requirement to the Legislature.
The report must include the number of scoping memos issued in each proceeding and the number of orders extending statutory deadlines under Section 1701.2(e) for adjudications and Section 1701.5(a) for ratesetting/quasi‑legislative proceedings.
Commissioner attendance must be reported across hearing types (e.g.
prehearing conferences, evidentiary hearings, public participation hearings, workshops).
Attendance must also be broken down by proceeding type (quasi‑legislative, adjudication, rate‑setting, catastrophic wildfire) and by industry (electric, gas, water, telecommunications, transportation).
The bill changes frequency and granularity but does not appropriate funds, set report deadlines, or standardize data formats or definitions.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Changes reporting frequency to biannual
The central textual change replaces the word 'annually' with 'biannually,' requiring two reports per year instead of one. That simple swap has operational consequences: the CPUC must set up a semiannual production cadence, align internal data refresh cycles to produce meaningful snapshots, and decide which case windows the two reports will cover. The bill does not specify reporting dates or alignment with legislative sessions, leaving scheduling to the CPUC.
Adds explicit counts for scoping memos and deadline extensions
Subdivision (a) reiterates the existing reporting topics — case timeliness, rehearing dispositions, and commissioner hearing days — and explicitly requires counts of scoping memos and of orders extending statutory deadlines. By naming Section 1701.2(e) (adjudications) and Section 1701.5(a) (ratesetting/quasi‑legislative) the bill separates the two procedural tracks for reporting extension orders, which will require the CPUC to map orders to the correct statutory authority when compiling the report.
Specifies how commissioner attendance is categorized
Subdivision (b) forces the CPUC to break out commissioner attendance data by three axes: hearing type, proceeding type, and industry type. That requires the commission to define each hearing type consistently, tag each recorded hearing with proceeding and industry labels, and aggregate the data accordingly. The provision increases transparency about where commissioners spend time but also requires clearer recordkeeping and possibly changes to docketing or calendaring practices to ensure accurate categorization.
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Explore Government in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Legislative oversight committees — gain more frequent, more detailed data to monitor CPUC case backlogs and scheduling practices, enabling timelier inquiries and potential policy responses.
- Consumer and public‑interest advocates — get earlier visibility into procedural bottlenecks and extension patterns that can affect timeliness of relief or rate decisions.
- Researchers and transparency proponents — receive more granular datasets (by hearing type, proceeding, and industry) useful for performance analysis and accountability work.
Who Bears the Cost
- CPUC administrative and analytics staff — must produce two reports per year and build or adapt data systems to tag and aggregate scoping memos, extension orders, and attendance by multiple categories.
- Regulated utilities and intervenors — may need to supply more frequent or differently formatted case data or respond to increased information requests, increasing compliance burden.
- Legislative and oversight staff — will receive and process twice the volume of reporting, requiring time to analyze and follow up without additional appropriation.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill pits enhanced, more timely transparency for the Legislature and public against the administrative burden and potential procedural impacts of producing frequent, finely categorized reports: greater oversight comes at the cost of staff time, possible data quality issues, and the risk that reporting incentives alter how the CPUC schedules and decides cases.
The bill tightens transparency at low textual cost but leaves several operational questions open. It does not define 'biannually' (though the common interpretation is twice per year), set specific submission deadlines, or standardize the data format and definitions needed to make cross‑report comparisons reliable.
Those omissions shift significant implementation work to CPUC staff and create short‑term risks of inconsistent reporting between cycles.
There are real trade‑offs in making reports more frequent. Twice‑yearly snapshots provide fresher visibility into extensions and attendance, but producing them increases recurring workload and may push staff to prioritize reportable metrics over substantive case progress.
Requiring counts of extension orders and scoping memos could create incentives — or perceived incentives — to avoid extensions or compress scoping activities to improve reported metrics, which could undermine procedural thoroughness. Finally, because the bill does not include an appropriation, CPUC will need to reallocate existing resources or seek funding to meet the new cadence and categorical reporting requirements.
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