HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 2496        FILED ON: 1/19/2017

HOUSE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 2696

 

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

_________________

PRESENTED BY:

Thomas A. Golden, Jr.

_________________

To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General
Court assembled:

The undersigned legislators and/or citizens respectfully petition for the adoption of the accompanying bill:

An Act relative to encourage predictability in utility connections.

_______________

PETITION OF:

 

Name:

District/Address:

Date Added:

Thomas A. Golden, Jr.

16th Middlesex

1/19/2017


HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 2496        FILED ON: 1/19/2017

HOUSE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 2696

By Mr. Golden of Lowell, a petition (accompanied by bill, House, No. 2696) of Thomas A. Golden, Jr., relative to service quality standards for public utilities and predictability in utility connections.  Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy.

 

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

 

_______________

In the One Hundred and Ninetieth General Court
(2017-2018)

_______________

 

An Act relative to encourage predictability in utility connections.

 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
 

SECTION 1.  Subsection (a) of section 1E of chapter 164 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2014 Official Edition, is hereby amended by striking the last sentence of said section in its entirety and inserting in place thereof the following:-

In promulgating such performance based rate schemes, the department shall establish service quality standards for each distribution, transmission and gas company for all customer classes.  Such standards shall include, but not be limited to, standards for customer satisfaction, service outages, distribution facility upgrades, repairs and maintenance, new connections to customers, relocations of existing connections, telephone service, billing service, and public safety, provided, however, that such service quality standards shall include benchmarks for employee staff levels and employee training programs for each such distribution, transmission, and gas company.

SECTION 2.  Subsection (7) of Section 1F of Chapter 164 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2014 Official Edition, is hereby amended by inserting after the words “service outages” in lines 245-246 the following words:-

“new connections to customers, relocations of existing customers,”