Senate Bill No. 774
(By Senators Jenkins, Foster, Facemyer and Wells)
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[Introduced February 18, 2008; referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary; and then to the Committee on Finance.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §24-3-2 of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating to water utility rates.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §24-3-2 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 3. DUTIES AND PRIVILEGES OF PUBLIC UTILITIES SUBJECT TO
REGULATIONS OF COMMISSION.
§24-3-2. Discrimination prohibited.
No public utility subject to the provisions of this chapter
shall may, directly or indirectly, by any special rate, rebate,
drawback or other device or method, charge, demand, collect or
receive from any person, firm or corporation, a greater or less
compensation, for any service rendered or to be rendered, than it
charges, demands, collects, or receives from any other person, firm
or corporation for doing a like and contemporaneous service under the same or substantially similar circumstances and conditions.
It shall be is unlawful for any public utility subject to the
provisions of this chapter to make or give any undue or
unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person,
company, firm, corporation or locality, or any particular character
of traffic or service, in any respect whatsoever, or to subject any
particular person, firm, corporation, company or locality, or any
particular character of traffic or service, to any undue or
unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage in any respect whatsoever.
Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent the
commission from: (1) Authorizing or requiring any rate design
consistent with the purposes and policies set forth in article
two-a of this chapter; or (2) authorizing a water utility to
implement a rate design featuring reduced rates and charges for
service to qualifying low-income residential customers and the
recovery of any resulting revenue deficiency from the utility's
other customers.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to clarify, that,
notwithstanding the other terms of this section, the West Virginia
Public Service Commission may authorize a water utility to
implement a tariff incorporating reduced rates for low-income
residential customers.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.