South Carolina General Assembly
112th Session, 1997-1998

Bill 346


Indicates Matter Stricken
Indicates New Matter


                    Current Status

Bill Number:                       346
Type of Legislation:               General Bill GB
Introducing Body:                  Senate
Introduced Date:                   19970211
Primary Sponsor:                   Rose
All Sponsors:                      Rose and Mescher 
Drafted Document Number:           res1251.mtr
Residing Body:                     Senate
Current Committee:                 Judiciary Committee 11 SJ
Subject:                           Electric Industry Restructuring
                                   Act, Electricity, Public Service
                                   Commission, public utilities



History


Body    Date      Action Description                       Com     Leg Involved
______  ________  _______________________________________  _______ ____________

Senate  19970211  Introduced, read first time,             11 SJ
                  referred to Committee

View additional legislative information at the LPITS web site.


(Text matches printed bills. Document has been reformatted to meet World Wide Web specifications.)

A BILL

TO AMEND TITLE 58, CODE OF THE LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976, RELATING TO PUBLIC UTILITIES, SERVICES, AND CARRIERS, BY ADDING CHAPTER 30, SO AS TO ENACT THE "ELECTRIC INDUSTRY RESTRUCTURING ACT " WHICH PROVIDES FOR LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS AND DECLARATIONS, REQUIRES THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION TO ADOPT A PLAN FOR RESTRUCTURING THE ELECTRIC UTILITY INDUSTRY, REQUIRES ELECTRIC UTILITIES TO FILE WITH THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION A RESTRUCTURING PLAN PROVIDING FOR CUSTOMER CHOICE, PROVIDES THAT ALL RETAIL CUSTOMERS SHALL BE PERMITTED TO CHOOSE THEIR PROVIDERS OF ELECTRIC GENERATION SERVICES BY A CERTAIN DATE, PROVIDES THAT LOCAL UTILITIES SHALL BE RELIEVED OF THE TRADITIONAL OBLIGATION TO SERVE BUT SHALL HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO CONNECT ALL CUSTOMERS WITHIN THEIR SERVICE TERRITORY ON NONDISCRIMINATORY TERMS AND CONDITIONS, REQUIRES ELECTRIC UTILITIES TO FILE WITH THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION A PLAN FOR RECOVERING STRANDED COSTS, CREATES THE JOINT LEGISLATIVE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE ON ELECTRIC UTILITY RESTRUCTURING, AND PROVIDES FOR RELATED MATTERS.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:

SECTION 1. Title 58 of the 1976 Code is amended by adding:

"Chapter 58

Electric Industry Restructuring Act

Section 58-30-10. This chapter shall be referred to as the `Electric Industry Restructuring Act.'

Section 58-30-20. The General Assembly finds and declares as follows:

(1) The generation of electricity is not a natural monopoly and should not be regulated as if it were a natural monopoly.

(2) Regulation of the monopoly electric industry has resulted in uncompetitive rates which vary considerably among electric utilities.

(3) High rates and rate disparities hinder the sustained and orderly economic development of South Carolina.

(4) Restructuring the electric generation industry to facilitate retail competition will lower prices, increase customer choice and improve the quality and variety of generation services available, thereby promoting the public interest.

(5) It is technically and administratively practical to restructure the electric industry in South Carolina to promote retail customer choice.

(6) Competition in the retail market for electricity will have long term benefits for the economy of South Carolina, including lower prices for electrical service to all consumers, more efficient use of resources, innovation in service and supply and a more diverse and decentralized electricity supply system.

(7) A competitive market place is the most efficient way to lower prices, increase value for consumers, and reduce the cost of regulatory oversight.

(8) The economy of South Carolina is dependent upon the availability of reliable, low-cost energy, which is essential to the economic viability of the state.

(9) Restructuring of electric utilities to provide greater competition and more efficient regulation is a nationwide phenomenon and South Carolina must aggressively pursue restructuring and increased customer choice in order to provide electric service at lower and more competitive rates.

(10) It is in the public interest to permit all retail electric customers to choose their supplier of electric generation services in a competitive market and to continue to regulate electric transmission and distribution in order to provide safe and reliable electricity at the lowest possible prices for all consumers, while maintaining the consumer services of customer assistance and reliability.

(11) It is the policy of the General Assembly to authorize and permit competition in the supply of electricity to consumers in this State only in accordance with the following principles, and subsequent sections of this chapter:

(a) Competitive markets are preferred to regulation. Regulation should serve as a substitute only in those circumstances where competition cannot provide results that serve the best interests of all consumers.

(b) To realize the full benefits of competition, all customers should be able to choose among and access a wide array of competing, qualified suppliers of electricity. All customers must have the opportunity to benefit from competition, which should be implemented in a fair and equitable manner. Customers should be made aware of their new rights, and the benefits and risks of customer choice.

(c) Generation services should become fully competitive, while the provision of transmission and distribution should accomplish the triple objectives of open access, comparability of service for all users, and nondiscriminatory pricing, while recognizing that federal and state jurisdictional uncertainties over wholesale and retail services should be resolved. Companies which own both transmission and distribution, as well as generation, should not be allowed to use any monopoly position in those services as a barrier to competition in generation. The determinations of corporate structure, excluding market power issues, should be left to the marketplace and not dictated by the government.

(d) Customer access to alternative suppliers of electricity requires open access to the transmission grid and distribution system and is critical to creating a fully competitive market structure. Owners, operators, and providers of transmission and distribution facilities and services, including all federal, state and local public power agencies, should be required to provide access to those facilities, ancillary services, and other services which are not available competitively to any buyer or seller on a nondiscriminatory and comparable basis.

(e) Competition among electric suppliers and buyers must be fair, nondiscriminatory, and consistent. In order to ensure a level playing field, all competitors should be subject to the same legal, regulatory and tax treatments. Subsidies and disparate regulation or legal requirements that favor certain competitors or disadvantage others should be eliminated by the states. No competitor shall be allowed access to a utility's customers unless comparable and reciprocal access is provided to that competitor's customers.

(f) Reliable and safe electric service must be maintained or improved. State and federal regulators should have the necessary authority to assure the reliability and safety of the electric system.

(g) Following the process established herein, the utilities are entitled to recover prudently incurred net, verifiable stranded costs and investments. The General Assembly should have the responsibility to determine the just and reasonable recovery mechanisms to determine net stranded costs and investments, including mitigation incentives. It should provide for a public process that applies to investments and costs stranded by competition. It should set the time frame involved for an expeditious transition. And, it should employ mechanisms that do not disadvantage one class of customer or supplier over another. The amount of recovery will be determined by the Public Service Commission.

(h) The rights and obligations embodied in contractual arrangements are and will be an indispensable element of an effective competitive power market. Legislation should not interfere with the rights of parties under contract.

(i) The energy marketplace should not be used as a vehicle for accomplishing government mandated, government sponsored, consumer or taxpayer subsidized, social or environmental programs. These programs should not be incorporated in electric utility rate structures but instead be unbundled from rates. The costs of these social programs, such as maintenance of minimum living standards, or environmental programs should be financed by legislatively enacted separate charges.

(j) To the extent that states have jurisdiction over transmission and distribution pricing, pricing methodologies should be encouraged to enhance reliability, compensate transmission owners fairly, allow for widest possible markets, and relieve transmission congestion.

(k) South Carolina should establish a date certain to accomplish the transition to competition. A specific, limited time frame should be established for the transition from a regulated monopoly to competition during which there should be some certainty in rates, a resolution of outstanding federal and state issues, the securing of appropriate regulatory approvals, and establishment of an appropriate market structure. In addition, sufficient measures to preserve the integrity, safety and reliability of the state's electric system should be established.

(l) In a competitive retail market, local utilities should be relieved of the traditional obligation to serve the public, which should be replaced with an obligation to connect, and distribution should remain a regulated monopoly service for incumbent providers.

(m) The state should assess the amount of state and local tax revenues derived from previously regulated electric suppliers that will enter the competitive market and note how revenues to each state or local government entity are changed by restructuring to competition.

(n) The repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act and the Public Utility Regulatory Pricing Act and the reform of other federal laws that impede competitive electric markets must be accomplished to complement the state's plans for the transition to customer choice. The process of restructuring generation services with consumer choice has profound interstate implications. Assured reliability of the grid, consumer and supplier access to sufficiently wide markets, a competitive playing field free of uneven subsidies and anti-competitive advantages, and resolution of existing state/federal jurisdiction over transmission and distribution services are all essential to workable competition. States must cooperate with Congress to remove federal barriers which must be part of the transition to competition.

Section 58-30-30. Definitions. As used in this chapter, the following terms shall have the following meanings, unless the context clearly requires otherwise:

(1) 'Affiliate' means a person who, directly or indirectly through one or more intermediaries, controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with a specified person.

(2) 'Aggregator or market aggregator' means an entity, licensed by the commission, that purchases electric energy and takes title to electric energy as an intermediary for sale to retail electric customers.

(3) 'Broker or marketer' means an entity, licensed by the commission, that acts as an agent or intermediary in the sale and purchase of electric energy but that does not take title to electric energy.

(4) 'Commission' means the South Carolina Public Service Commission.

(5) 'Customer' means a retail electric customer.

(6) `Electrical utility' persons and corporations, their lessees, assignees, trustees, receivers or other successors in interest owning or operating in this State equipment or facilities for generating, transmitting, delivering or furnishing electricity for street, railway or other public uses or for the production of light, heat or power to or for the public for compensation. The term includes an electric cooperative, a consolidated political subdivision, a municipality, and the Public Service Authority. The term shall not include a person, corporation or municipality furnishing electricity only to himself or itself, their residents, employees or tenants when such current is not resold or used by others.

(9) 'Reliability' means and includes adequacy and security. As used in this definition, adequacy means the provision of sufficient generation, transmission, and distribution capacity so as to supply the aggregate electric power and energy requirements of customers, taking into account scheduled and unscheduled outages of system facilities, and 'security' means designing, maintaining, and operating a system that can handle emergencies safely while continuing to operate.

(11) 'Retail electric customer' means a direct purchaser of electric power. The term excludes an occupant of a building or facility where the owners or operators manage the internal distribution system serving the building or facility and supply electric power and other related power services to occupants of the building or facility; where the owners or operators are direct purchasers of electric power; and where the occupants are not direct purchasers.

(12) 'Stranded cost recovery charge' means a nonbypassable charge applied to the bill of every customer accessing the transmission or distribution network which charge is designed to recover an electric utility's transition or stranded costs as determined by the commission under Section 58-30-160.

Section 58-30-40. (A) No later than thirty-six months after the effective date of this chapter, electric generation shall be deregulated and subject to the competitive market in accordance with the provisions of the industry restructuring plan developed by the commission.

(B) The commission shall adopt and publish a plan no later than twelve months after the effective date of this chapter for restructuring the South Carolina electric industry, consistent with the policies and procedures established under this chapter, with the objective of having full customer choice no later than thirty-six months after the effective date of this chapter. The plan shall address appropriate steps to achieve an orderly transition to a competitive market.

(C) The plan shall incorporate the substance of this chapter and may include other provisions as the commission shall deem appropriate and necessary to expedite the transition to full customer choice. Such plan shall, during the period of transition, but no later than twelve months after the effective date of this chapter, address transition issues, including:

(1) rate certainty;

(2) outstanding federal and state issues;

(3) appropriate regulatory approvals; and

(4) legislative intent and public comment.

(D) The plan developed by the commission shall include a program for making retail customers aware of their new rights and the benefits and risks of customer choice.

Section 58-30-50. Not more than eighteen months after the effective date of this chapter, each electric utility shall file a utility restructuring plan for review and comment before the commission providing for customer choice as set forth herein and establishing a protocol for the disaggregation of services as required by this chapter. Such plan shall include:

(1) a schedule for the introduction of customer choice for all of the customers currently served by the electric utility; and

(2) the manner in which it will otherwise comply with each provision of this chapter.

Section 58-30-60. All retail customers shall be permitted to choose their providers of electric generation services no later than December 31, 2000, through the following means:

(1) Retail customers may negotiate a bi-lateral contract with a generator of electricity, under which contract electricity shall be transmitted and distributed to the retail customer, subject to the restrictions contained in this section.

(2) Retail customers may choose to receive generation and other energy services from a market aggregator. Market aggregators may generate electricity directly, buy and sell electricity or enter into financial contracts for electric generation resources. Market aggregators may be brokers, cooperatives, buying clubs, municipalities or other entities which buy or arrange for electric generation services through a power pool or through direct contracts.

(3) A default provider or providers for any local distribution customer, who has not chosen an alternative source of generation, shall be established by the commission. The commission shall set forth standards to ensure the participation of default providers serving all classes of customers.

Section 58-30-70. (A) All suppliers of electric supply and power delivery or ancillary services shall register with the commission. Registration shall include the following:

(1) applicant's technical ability to obtain and deliver electricity and provide any other proposed services;

(2) documentation of financial capability of the applicant to provide the proposed services; and

(3) a description of the form of ownership.

(B) The commission shall not limit market entry for economic reasons nor regulate generation prices.

Section 58-30-80. (A) The commission plan for restructuring of the electric utilities shall require that all existing electric utilities shall operationally and financially separate electric generation, transmission and distributions assets and operations as described in this section.

(B) (1) Both electric utilities and other companies which are not electric utilities may own transmission facilities.

(2) Affiliates of electric utilities may own electric generation assets. Such affiliates may sell generation directly to a customer, provided that generation assets and service, are operationally separate from transmission and distribution affiliates, if any.

(3) Affiliates of electric utilities may offer unbundled generation services as approved by the commission. Prices for unbundled generation services shall not be established by the commission, but shall be determined by competitive market forces.

(4) The commission shall adopt a plan designed to permit all providers of generation services to compete equally to supply power to South Carolina and to mitigate concentrations of undue market power.

Section 58-30-90. (A) Owners, operators, and providers of transmission and distribution facilities and ancillary services, including all federal, state, and local public power agencies are required to provide access to those facilities, ancillary services,

and other services available to any buyer or seller on a nondiscriminatory and comparable basis. The commission shall promote nondiscriminatory open access to the electric system for wholesale and retail transactions.

(B) Companies providing transmission or distribution services shall file at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or with the commission, as appropriate, comparable service tariffs that provide open access for all competitors. The commission shall monitor jurisdictional companies providing transmission or distribution services and take necessary measures to ensure that no supplier has an unfair advantage in offering access to and pricing such services.

(C) The commission shall establish by regulation, and consistent with federal law, standards and conditions for the exchange of reciprocal rights for transmission and distribution access between corporations located within the state and those located outside the state.

Section 58-30-100. Upon the effective date of this chapter, all intrastate owners and operators of transmission and distribution facilities shall have comparable and reciprocal access to the transmission and distribution customers of other transmission and distribution facility owners and operators, for the purpose of providing generation services to such customers. This section shall in no way impede any transactions involving interstate commerce.

Section 58-30-110. (A) The local utility shall be relieved of its traditional obligation to serve but shall have an obligation to connect all customers within their service territory on nondiscriminatory terms and conditions.

(B) Consumers shall have the right to select their source of power supply, and shall have nondiscriminatory access to interconnection with its host electric utility, which utility shall be required to transport the electricity from the point of generation to the host's distribution facilities.

(C) In the case of a residential customer, or a customer in any other class or subclass of customers designated by the commission, failure by such customer to make their own alternative arrangements for power supply and delivery shall be deemed to constitute a request to connect to the distribution system of its host electric utility to arrange for such supply or services.

Section 58-30-120. The right of eminent domain shall not be used to:

(1) deny physical access or interconnection to transmission or distribution facilities;

(2) restrict the construction of new transmission or distribution facilities by any qualified party; or

(3) otherwise limit competition.

Section 58-30-130. (A) To the extent that states have jurisdiction over transmission and distribution pricing, the commission shall encourage pricing mechanisms to enhance reliability, compensate transmission owners fairly, allow for widest possible markets, and relieve transmission congestion.

(B) The commission shall establish just and reasonable rates for unbundled local distribution services. Such rates shall provide for costs of providing distribution services. Rates shall be based upon cost of service or performance-based incentives combined with other considerations to promote efficient, safe and reliable services at the lowest possible cost.

(C) Each electric utility shall file unbundled service tariffs to provide services to all eligible purchasers on a nondiscriminatory basis.

(D) The commission shall have jurisdiction over all aspects of transmission rates and services not subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Section 58-30-140. The subsidies for environmental, social, and other mandated programs should be unbundled from electric rates. These programs should be financed by general tax revenues or legislatively-enacted separate charges appearing on electric bills. The commission shall prepare and submit a report to the legislature that recommends state legislative action, as appropriate, to remove barriers to fair competition.

Section 58-30-150. (A) Municipal and state electric service providers and electric cooperatives shall be treated as utilities for purposes of this chapter.

(B) All distribution service providers shall:

(1) be subject to the jurisdiction of the commission and be regulated on the same basis, including, but not limited to, regulation of rates, terms and conditions; and

(2) be subject to uniform tax obligations.

Section 58-30-160. (A) (1) Following the process established herein, the utilities are entitled to recover prudently incurred, net, verifiable stranded costs and investments. The amount of recovery shall be determined by the commission.

(2) It is the intent of the General Assembly to provide appropriate tools and reasonable guidance to the commission in order to assist in addressing claims for stranded cost recovery and fulfilling its responsibility to determine rates which are equitable, appropriate, balanced, and in the public interest. In making its determinations, the commission shall balance the interests of the consumers and utility investors during the limited recovery period. Nothing in this section is intended to provide any greater opportunity for stranded cost recovery than is available under applicable regulation or act on the effective date of this chapter.

(B) Stranded cost charges shall not be recoverable for changes in usage occurring in the normal course of business, including those resulting from changes in business cycles, termination of operations, weather, reduced production, changes in manufacturing processes, installation or expansion of new self-generation or co-generation equipment, performance of existing self-generation or co-generation equipment, energy conservation efforts or other similar factors.

(C) (1) Electric utilities shall have the duty to prudently, thoroughly and aggressively mitigate stranded costs as of the effective date of this chapter.

(2) (a) Each electric utility may file a recovery plan within three months after adoption of the plan by the commission. The recovery plan shall document anticipated stranded costs, mitigation proposals and offsetting increases in the value of other assets.

(b) The recovery plan shall propose a transition charge which shall be allocated to all customers pursuant to the most recent rate design approved by the commission subject to paragraph (4).

(c) The recovery plan shall permit collection of a transition charge to recover net, unmitigated stranded costs over a period of not less than three or no more than five years.

(d) The recovery plan shall establish net, unmitigatable stranded costs and a limited recovery period designed to recover such costs expeditiously, provided that the recovery period and the amount of qualified transition costs shall yield a transition charge which shall not cause the total price for electric power, including transmission and distribution services, for any customer to exceed the cost per kilowatt-hour paid on the effective date of this chapter during the recovery period.

(e) Recovery mechanisms that impede competition such as entry and exit fees shall not be utilized.

(f) The commission shall approve and publish a recovery plan for each utility submitting a plan not more than twenty-one months after the effective date of this chapter .

(g) Any stranded costs not recovered under this chapter and the recovery plan, as modified and approved by the commission, within five years shall not be recoverable by the public utility.

(3) Electric utilities shall have a duty to cooperate with the commission in the implementation of this chapter as a precondition for recovery of stranded costs. Approval of a recovery plan and collection of any stranded costs shall be deemed a settlement of all such claims by an electric utility. No electric utility seeking to establish claims for recovery of stranded costs through any other means shall be eligible for recovery pursuant to a recovery plan or the collection of a transition charge.

(4) The commission shall be responsible for the final determination of permissible stranded cost recovery charges for each electric utility and for approval of the recovery plan subject to its determination in a rate case proceeding that such charge and such plan are equitable, appropriate, balanced and promote customer choice.

(D) (1) Electric utilities shall be allowed to recover the net unmitigatable stranded costs associated with required environmental mandates currently approved for cost recovery, and power acquisitions mandated by federal statutes.

(2) Electric utilities have had and continue to have an obligation to take all reasonable measures to prudently, thoroughly and aggressively mitigate stranded costs. Mitigation measures may include, but shall not be limited to:

(a) Reduction of expenses.

(b) Renegotiation of existing contracts.

(c) Refinancing of existing debt.

(d) Sale, write-off or write-down of uneconomic or surplus assets, including regulatory assets not directly related to the provision of electricity service.

(3) Stranded costs shall be determined on a net basis, shall be verifiable, shall not include transmission and distribution assets, and shall be reconciled to actual electricity market conditions from time to time. Stranded costs shall include an offset for the market value of any assets, domestic or foreign, obtained or controlled by an electric utility by purchase acquisition, merger or other means within three years prior to the effective date of this chapter.

(4) Power purchase contract obligations shall continue for the duration of the contract. Costs arising pursuant to such contracts or associated with any buy-out, buy-down or renegotiation of the contracts shall be eligible for recovery in stranded cost recovery charges.

(5) Stranded benefits, any utility asset whose market value exceeds the book value, shall be used to reduce stranded costs.

(6) Any recovery of stranded costs shall be through a nonbypassable, nondiscriminatory, appropriately structured charge that is fair to all customer classes, lawful, constitutional, limited in duration and consistent with the promotion of fully competitive markets. Recovery mechanisms that impede competition such as entry and exit fees shall not be utilized. Charges to recover stranded costs shall only apply to customers within a utility's retail service territory, except for such costs that have resulted from the provision of wholesale power to another utility. The charges shall not apply to wheeling-through transactions nor should they apply to any competitive alternative which existed prior to the effective date of this chapter, including, but not limited to, self-generation and sales of nonfirm electricity.

(7) The commission is authorized to allow utilities to collect a stranded cost recovery charge, subject to its determination in the context of a rate case proceeding that such charge is equitable, appropriate, balanced, in the public interest, and consistent with the intent of this chapter. The burden of proof for any stranded cost recovery claim shall be borne by the electric utility making such claim.

Section 58-30-170. (A) The commission shall promulgate appropriate rules and regulations that ensure that reliable and safe electric service, with minimum residential consumer service safeguards, is maintained or improved.

(B) All electric utilities and providers of electric power delivery and/or ancillary services shall have in place sufficient measures to preserve the integrity, safety, reliability and quality of electric service in the state. Market entrants shall have appropriate provisions for capacity reserves, spinning reserves and other ancillary services, while maintaining the integrity of the bulk transmission network.

Section 58-30-180. Nothing in this chapter shall interfere with the rights of parties under contract.

Section 58-30-190. No transmission or distribution utility shall be liable for any damages to any current or future customer if such customer's chosen generation supplier or provider of unbundled services fails to deliver such service in accordance with the terms of its bilateral contract with such customer. This provision shall not be applied to relieve liability arising from the transmission or distribution utility's own actions or failure to act.

Section 58-30-200. Any existing jurisdictional uncertainties shall not delay the implementation of this chapter.

Section 58-30-210. (A) There is established a Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Electric Utility Restructuring consisting of fourteen members as follows:

(1) seven members of the House of Representatives appointed by the Speaker; and

(2) seven members of the Senate appointed by the President of the Senate.

(B) Initial committee members shall be appointed within sixty days of the effective date of this chapter. Members shall serve for terms of two years and until their successors are elected and qualify. Members may succeed themselves.

(C) The committee shall elect a chairman and such other officers it deems appropriate.

(D) The committee shall expire when the final transition to retail competition is completed.

(E) The committee shall provide an annual report on or before November first of each year to the Governor, the House of Representatives , the Senate and the Public Service Commission on the status of electric utility restructuring.

(F) The committee shall meet quarterly or as often as is necessary to conduct its business.

(G) The committee shall be responsible for the following:

(1) working with the commission to assess the transition to a competitive market.

(2) working with the commission and other agencies, where necessary, to implement this chapter, its legislative intent and its restructuring principles.

(3) working with the commission to develop any new legislation where necessary to promote electric utility restructuring and retail choice of electricity suppliers and to propose changes to or recodification of existing statutes to be more consistent with the restructuring principles established in this chapter.

(H) The committee, working with the Department of Revenue shall analyze the amount of state and local tax revenues derived from previously regulated electric suppliers that will enter the competitive market and report to the General Assembly annually how revenues to the state or local government are changed by restructuring to competition. The committee should then recommend legislative changes to address the establishment of comparable state and local taxation burdens on all market participants in the supply of electric power. Any legislation recommended by the committee should place comparable state and local taxation burdens upon all market participants.

Section 58-30-220. The power of the commission to regulate the terms and conditions of electricity service, including the regulation of transmission and distribution service and rates, shall expire ten years after completion plans are adopted by the state. At the time of expiration, the only regulatory authority remaining with the commission shall be to ensure the safety of electricity service."

SECTION 2. All currently effective acts or parts of acts are repealed to the extent they are inconsistent with this act.

SECTION 3. If any provision of this act or application thereof to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the invalidity does not affect other provisions or applications of the act which can be given effect without the invalid provision or applications, and to this end the provisions of this are severable.

SECTION 4. This act shall take effect upon approval by the Governor.

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