Terms Used In Texas Utilities Code 41.055

  • Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.

A board of directors has exclusive jurisdiction to:
(1) set all terms of access, conditions, and rates applicable to services provided by the electric cooperative, except as provided by Sections 41.054 and 41.056, including nondiscriminatory and comparable rates for distribution but excluding wholesale transmission rates, terms of access, and conditions for wholesale transmission service set by the commission under Subchapter A, Chapter 35, provided that the rates for distribution established by the electric cooperative shall be comparable to the distribution rates that apply to the electric cooperative and its subsidiaries;
(2) determine whether to unbundle any energy-related activities and, if the board of directors chooses to unbundle, whether to do so structurally or functionally;
(3) reasonably determine the amount of the electric cooperative’s stranded investment;
(4) establish nondiscriminatory transition charges reasonably designed to recover the stranded investment over an appropriate period of time;
(5) determine the extent to which the electric cooperative will provide various customer services, including nonelectric services, or accept the services from other providers;
(6) manage and operate the electric cooperative’s utility systems, including exercise of control over resource acquisition and any related expansion programs;
(7) establish and enforce service quality standards, reliability standards, and consumer safeguards designed to protect retail electric customers;
(8) determine whether a base rate reduction is appropriate for the electric cooperative;
(9) determine any other utility matters that the board of directors believes should be included;
(10) sell electric energy and capacity at wholesale, regardless of whether the electric cooperative participates in customer choice;
(11) determine the extent to which the electric cooperative offers energy efficiency programs and how the programs are administered by the electric cooperative; and
(12) make any other decisions affecting the electric cooperative’s method of conducting business that are not inconsistent with the provisions of this chapter.