Senate Bill S566

                                BILL NUMBER:S566

TITLE OF BILL:
An act
to amend the public service law, in relation to the liability of gas
and electric corporations
arising from the negligence of their employees, servants or agents

PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
In its January 2007 report, the Assembly Queens Power Outage Task
Force recommended several measures to improve oversight of utilities
and prevent future blackouts. This bill will provide incentives for
utilities to ensure that their systems provide safe and adequate
service by eliminating special treatment for electricity and gas
suppliers with respect to their responsibility for negligent
operations.

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Bill § 1 amends subdivision 12 of § 66 of the Public Service Law to
prohibit the filing by gas or electric corporations of any schedules
absolving any such corporation from liability for the interruption of
its supply of services arising from the ordinary negligence of its
employees, servants, or agents. Any such schedule currently filed is
deemed void as against public Policy.

EFFECTS OF PRESENT LAW WHICH THIS BILL WOULD ALTER:
              

No current statutory language addresses waivers of ordinary negligence
by gas or electric corporations.

JUSTIFICATION:
In the Summer of 2011, the western part of Queens suffered a massive
power outage that lasted 9 days. The Assembly Queens Power Outage
Task Force studied the outage's causes and the inadequate responses
by the company responsible for the transmission and distribution
system, Consolidated Edison, and by the Public Service Commission.
One underlying cause of this debacle was found to be the reliance by
New York's utility regulators on antiquated laws, regulations and
policies that let companies engaged in energy transmission.and
distribution operate without effective oversight.

Several of the findings and recommendations of the Task Force
concerned the inadequacy of Consolidated Edison's policies regarding
reimbursement for its failure to deliver a safe and adequate supply
of electricity, as the Public Service Law requires. One fundamental
barrier to the public's ability to be appropriately compensated is
the current language in the tariffs filed by electric and gas
utilities disclaiming any responsibility for disruptions of service,
except in cases of gross negligence.

The Task Force recommended that the Legislature should amend the
Public Service Law to remove the tariff bar against suits for damages
from outages due to simple negligence. This bill would accomplish
this goal, which would result in assigning the same degree of legal
responsibility to operators of energy transmission and distribution
systems as virtually every other business currently bears.

PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:


2012: Senate Bill
2533 (Gianaris) Died in Senate Energy &
Telecommunications Committee

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS:
None.

EFFECTIVE DATE:
Immediately.