Session Laws

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. Section 12M of chapter 25 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 1986 Official Edition, is hereby amended by striking out the second paragraph and inserting in place thereof the following two paragraphs:-

For the purpose of providing said bureau with operating funds, the commission is hereby authorized to make assessment in addition to the assessments authorized in sections seventeen and eighteen, proportionally against each electric company under the jurisdictional control of the department based upon the intrastate operating revenues of each said companies derived from wholesale and retail sales of electricity within the commonwealth as shown in the annual report of said companies to the department. Said additional assessment shall be made at a rate as shall be determined and certified annually by the commission as sufficient to produce not more than seven hundred thousand dollars in revenue for the fiscal year for which the assessment is made and shall be collected in the manner so provided in section seventeen A. The commission is also authorized to expend for the operation of the bureau such amounts which are appropriated for that purpose.

The department shall, within ninety days following the end of the fiscal year in which this assessment is made, file a report with the clerks of the senate and house of representatives and with the senate and house committees on ways and means describing in detail to which expenses said funds were applied and their relation to the regulation of electric companies pursuant to section ninety-four G of chapter one hundred and sixty-four.

SECTION 2. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, the assessment authorized pursuant to section one may be assessed, collected and expended, at the level established therein; provided, however, that the total amount assessed in fiscal year nineteen hundred and eighty-eight shall not exceed the amount authorized in said section one.