In Center for Biological Diversity v. Public Utilities Commission, the Supreme Court last week held a “significant legislative change” more than two decades ago requires closer judicial review than before of many Public Utilities Commission decisions. This includes how courts should determine the validity of a 2022 Commission tariff that lowered the price utilities pay for excess power generated by customers, mostly by solar energy systems.
Because the Court of Appeal didn’t employ the more robust standard of review, a challenge to the 2022 tariff must be reevaluated. The Supreme Court itself declined to adjudicate the challenge, saying it was leaving that to the appellate court on remand, “consistent with our usual practice.”
The court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Leondra Kruger concluded the Legislature made largely obsolete the court’s Greyhound Lines, Inc. v. Public Utilities Com. (1968) 68 Cal.2d 406 decision, which described a “uniquely deferential form of review.” Greyhoud interpreted former Public Utilities Code provisions to create “a strong presumption of validity of the commission’s decisions” and to require upholding those decisions unless they “fail[ ] to bear a reasonable relation to statutory purposes and language.”
Unlike under Greyhound, the court said there’s no deference in determining whether a Commission action “lies within the scope of the lawmaking authority delegated by the Legislature.” “[W]e review independently whether an agency has lawmaking authority, even if it may be appropriate to defer to an agency’s reasonable exercise of any such authority,” the court stated.
The court reversed the First District, Division Three, Court of Appeal’s published opinion, which, the Supreme Court held, had “erred by applying an unduly deferential standard of review.” It also disapproved the Second District, Division Eight, decisions in Southern Cal. Edison Co. v. Public Utilities Com. (2004) 117 Cal.App.4th 1039 and The Utility Reform Network v. Public Utilities Com. (2008) 166 Cal.App.4th 522, and the Fourth District, Division Three, opinion in Ames v. Public Utilities Com. (2011) 197 Cal.App.4th 1411. There was no petition for review in the Edison case. The Supreme Court denied review in Utility Reform Network over the recorded dissenting votes of Justices Ming Chin and Carol Corrigan. It also denied review in Ames, with three justices recused.
