Maryland PSC Grants Retail Suppliers Extension for Compliance With New Customer Protection Rules; Denies Extended Waiver For Certain Rules

The Maryland PSC granted retail suppliers and utilities certain waivers extending the deadline for compliance with recently adopted revisions to electric and natural gas customer protection rules (RM54)

The PSC granted the electric and natural gas utilities a waiver of the accelerated switching requirements until December 30, 2016. This is a shorter extension than requested by some of the utilities, such as BGE. Utilities were also directed to file implementation status reports

The PSC granted retail suppliers' requested waivers, "for all provisions in COMAR 20.53 and COMAR 20.59 currently scheduled to take effect on March 14, 2016 that are unrelated to the utilities’ waiver requests until May 1, 2016."

In other words, all of the new provisions related to retail suppliers are now scheduled to take effect May 1, 2016, rather than March 14, 2016.

The Retail Energy Supply Association had previously sought a waiver to allow an alternative means of complying with the new criminal background check procedures for door-to-door agents. Compliance with the new criminal background check procedures is encompassed in the granted waiver described above extending the deadline until May 1, 2016, and the issue also may be addressed further.

Specifically, the Commission directed that the RM54 Work Group leader, in consultation with the Retail Energy Supply Association, PSC Staff, OPC, and any other interested parties, file by April 15, 2016 an alternate or temporary procedure for suppliers to perform criminal background checks for door-to-door agents.

As adopted, the new rules will require the suppliers to obtain background checks from the Maryland Criminal Justice Information System (MCJIS) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). However, RESA noted in previously filed comments that the use of these two mechanisms suffers from information gaps. FBI searches miss approximately 25% of the criminal activity adjudicated at the county court level. This is because many county courts have no incentive or requirement to pass their records to their state repositories, RESA said, which had suggested an alternative compliance mechanism including the following searches:

1. Maryland's Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) to search for criminal history within all Maryland state and county courts;

2. The Federal Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) Search System, to search criminal history for federal crimes prosecuted in any of the country’s federal courts;

3. A national criminal database;

4. The U.S. Department of Justice National Sex Offender Public Registry; and

5. Any other state and county in which the candidate resided within at least the last twelve months.

RESA had also sought to extend the deadline for compliance with certain new rate notification requirements, to harmonize them with the now-extended implementation of accelerated switching.

RESA had noted that the new rate change notice provisions were designed to afford customers an opportunity to learn their rate for the next billing cycle and still have time to switch to another provider before the new rate takes effect. Without accelerated switching, however, this 12-day notice of rate change is of limited value to customers, RESA said, as RESA expressed concern customers may be confused due to their inability to switch before the rate on the notice takes effect.

The PSC declined to grant an extended waiver of these new rate notice requirements to harmonize them with accelerated switching extensions, and such new rate notice provisions will take effect on May 1.