Utility companies will face stiffer requirements for emergency response plans under new legislation approved by the Senate and House on Tuesday. The final bill gives increased authority to the Commonwealth’s public utilities department to issue directives during a declared state of emergency.

The debilitating ice storm last December in Central Massachusetts made it clear that better coordination and faster response times were necessary after thousands of residents were left without power for weeks.

“We can never have a repeat of December 2008,” Senate President Therese Murray (D-Plymouth) said. “Utility companies have a responsibility to respond to their customers. This bill makes sure they live up to that responsibility.”

Senator Jennifer Flanagan (D-Leominster), a lead sponsor of the bill, said: “This legislation is aimed at providing protection to our ratepayers – protection they were clearly missing in the wake of last December’s snow storm. We sometimes take for granted our reliance on our utility companies. With this bill, we are giving the Department of Public Utilities the tools they need to hold these companies accountable in instances of negligence.”

Senate Chairman of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy Michael Morrissey (D-Quincy) said: “This bill sends an important message to all utility companies that appropriate emergency response planning must be in place.  The bill also ensures that ratepayers will not be held responsible for the poor planning or service mistakes of electric and gas companies.”

The bill proposes new requirements for filing emergency response plans to the state Department of Public Utilities (DPU) and gives the Department authority to investigate and penalize companies for deficiencies in their response plans.

The DPU may also issue its own response orders to utility companies during a state of emergency and enlist the help of other companies to assist in response and restoration efforts.

The bill establishes a list of new standards and penalties for emergency planning and service violations, including:

• Fines up to $500 per day for failing to file emergency response plans, with all fines being returned to ratepayers through distribution rates
• A determination of recovery costs for outage-related expenses based on performance and use of emergency response plans;
• Fines up to $1 million for failing to respond to DPU orders, with all fines being returned to ratepayers through distribution rates;
• New authority for the Attorney General to petition the courts to place a small utility company (under 100,000 customers) into receivership for an appointed amount of time;
• Raising the existing $1 million cap to $5 million for violations by utility companies, generators, and suppliers pertaining to standards for universal service, customer satisfaction, service outages, telephone service, billing service, and public and employee safety, with penalties up to $25,000 per day, per violation; And,
• New authority for the DPU to penalize a utility company for poor emergency response and management, with penalties up to $250,000 per day, per violation (capped at $20 million).

The bill’s intent is to require each utility to file emergency response plans for approval by the DPU that outline communication procedures with local officials, account for customers with documented medical needs for electricity, and properly identify mutual aid and assistance agreements.

Furthermore, the DPU can require changes to emergency response plans that are found to be incomplete.

The bill was signed by Governor Patrick on Thursday November 12, 2009.