Opinion ID: 1897396
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: equal protection guarantees

Text: [¶ 24] The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that [n]o State shall make or enforce any law which shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. [12] U.S. Const. amend. XIV. CMP contends that competitive electricity generation providers and nonelectric utilities, unlike T & D facilities, are permitted to disseminate educational materials regarding deregulation without prior submission to the Commission and without fear of correction or forced inclusion of Commission materials. This disparate treatment, according to CMP, violates equal protection guarantees. [¶ 25] The Supreme Court has interpreted the Federal Equal Protection Clause to mean that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike, reasoning that [t]he Constitution does not require things which are different in fact or opinion to be treated in law as though they were the same. See Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 216, 102 S.Ct. 2382, 72 L.Ed.2d 786 (1982) (citations omitted). The entities to which CMP refers as being treated differently are not similarly situated entities. After deregulation, T & D facilities will remain regulated public utilities that fall within the ambit of the Commission's regulatory authority. Competitive providers of electricity generation services must by licensed by the Commission, but thereafter will not be directly regulated as public utilities. Furthermore, non-electric utilities such as gas utilities are not directly implicated by the deregulation of the electricity generation industry. Thus, the Equal Protection Clause is not implicated by the distinctions in the Commission Rule. The entry is: Section 6(B) of the Public Utilities Commission Rule is vacated. Remanded to the Public Utilities Commission.