In Monterey Peninsula Water Management District v. Public Utilities Commission, the Supreme Court today unanimously holds that the Public Utilities Commission does not have the authority to review the amount of a fee imposed by a water management district on a public utility’s customers for work the district did to mitigate environmental damage the utility had caused. The opinion, by Justice Leondra Kruger, also assures that “PUC regulation is not the only mechanism for addressing questions about the amount of the user fee or the efficiency of the District’s mitigation work,” pointing to the utility customers’ options of suing the District or electing new members of the District’s managing board.
The case came to the Supreme Court directly from the PUC on an original writ of review from the PUC’s decision.
