Electric vehicle charging stations; provide for rates and charges.

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To: Energy
MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE REGULAR SESSION 2026

By: Senator(s) Williams

SENATE BILL NO. 2059

AN ACT TO AMEND SECTION 77-3-3, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, TO 1
DEFINE "DIRECT-CURRENT FAST-CHARGING STATION" AND "ELECTRIC 2
VEHICLE"; TO PROHIBIT RECOVERY OF COSTS FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLE 3
CHARGING STATIONS FROM RATEPAYERS; TO ENSURE THE SAME RATES, TERMS 4
AND CONDITIONS ARE OFFERED TO ALL ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING 5
STATION PROVIDERS; TO PROVIDE EXCEPTIONS; AND FOR RELATED 6
PURPOSES. 7
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI: 8
SECTION 1. Section 77-3-3, Mississippi Code of 1972, is 9
amended as follows: 10
77-3-3. As used in this chapter: 11
(a) The term "corporation" includes a private or public 12
corporation, a municipality, an association, a joint-stock 13
association or a business trust. 14
(b) The term "person" includes a natural person, a 15
partnership of two (2) or more persons having a joint or common 16
interest, a cooperative, nonprofit, limited dividend or mutual 17
association, a corporation, or any other legal entity. 18
(c) The term "municipality" includes any incorporated 19
city, town or village. 20
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(d) The term "public utility" includes persons and 21
corporations, or their lessees, trustees and receivers now or 22
hereafter owning or operating in this state equipment or 23
facilities for: 24
(i) The generation, manufacture, transmission, 25
distribution, provision, or furnishing of electricity to or for 26
the public, whether an individual person or an entity or a 27
collection of persons or entities, for compensation; 28
(ii) The transmission, sale, sale for resale, or 29
distribution of natural, artificial, or mixed natural and 30
artificial gas to the public for compensation by means of 31
transportation, transmission, or distribution facilities and 32
equipment located within this state; however, the term shall not 33
include the production and gathering of natural gas, the sale of 34
natural gas in or within the vicinity of the field where produced, 35
or the distribution or sale of liquefied petroleum gas or the sale 36
to the ultimate consumer of natural gas for use as a motor vehicle 37
fuel; 38
(iii) The transmission, conveyance or reception of 39
any message over wire, of writing, signs, signals, pictures and 40
sounds of all kinds by or for the public, where such service is 41
offered to the public for compensation, and the furnishing, or the 42
furnishing and maintenance, of equipment or facilities to the 43
public, for compensation, for use as a private communications 44
system or part thereof; however, no person or corporation not 45
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otherwise a public utility within the meaning of this chapter 46
shall be deemed such solely because of engaging in this state in 47
the furnishing, for private use as last aforementioned, and 48
moreover, nothing in this chapter shall be construed to apply to 49
television stations, radio stations, community television antenna 50
services, video services, Voice over Internet Protocol services 51
("VoIP"), any wireless services, including commercial mobile 52
services, Internet Protocol ("IP") - enabled services or broadband 53
services; and 54
(iv) The transmission, distribution, sale or 55
resale of water to the public for compensation, or the collection, 56
transmission, treatment or disposal of sewage, or otherwise 57
operating a sewage disposal service, to or for the public for 58
compensation. 59
The term "public utility" shall not include any person not 60
otherwise a public utility, who provides or furnishes the services 61
or commodity described in this paragraph only to himself, his 62
employees or tenants as an incident of such employee service or 63
tenancy, if such services are not sold or resold to such tenants 64
or employees on a metered or consumption basis other than the 65
submetering authorized under Section 77-3-97. 66
The term "public utility" shall not include any person not 67
otherwise a public utility, who purchases electricity on a metered 68
retail basis from the electric public utility that holds a 69
certificate of public convenience and necessity for the area in 70
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which the person is located, and provides or furnishes a portion 71
of that electricity, but not electricity from any other source, to 72
the public for compensation directly and exclusively to charge 73
battery-powered electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric 74
vehicles. Any such person described in this paragraph is an 75
end-use customer, whether or not such person receives compensation 76
for battery or vehicle charging. 77
A public utility's business other than of the character 78
defined in subparagraphs (i) through (iv) of this paragraph is not 79
subject to the provisions of this chapter. 80
(e) The term "rate" means and includes every 81
compensation, charge, fare, toll, customer deposit, rental and 82
classification, or the formula or method by which such may be 83
determined, or any of them, demanded, observed, charged or 84
collected by any public utility for any service, product or 85
commodity described in this section, offered by it to the public, 86
and any rules, regulations, practices or contracts relating to any 87
such compensation, charge, fare, toll, rental or classification; 88
however, the term "rate" shall not include charges for electrical 89
current furnished, delivered or sold by one (1) public utility to 90
another for resale. 91
(f) The word "commission" shall refer to the Public 92
Service Commission of the State of Mississippi, as now existing, 93
unless otherwise indicated. 94
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(g) The term "affiliated interest" or "affiliate" 95
includes: 96
(i) Any person or corporation owning or holding, 97
directly or indirectly, twenty-five percent (25%) or more of the 98
voting securities of a public utility; 99
(ii) Any person or corporation in any chain of 100
successive ownership of twenty-five percent (25%) or more of the 101
voting securities of a public utility; 102
(iii) Any corporation of which fifteen percent 103
(15%) or more of the voting securities is owned or controlled, 104
directly or indirectly, by a public utility; 105
(iv) Any corporation of which twenty-five percent 106
(25%) or more of the voting securities is owned or controlled, 107
directly or indirectly, by any person or corporation that owns or 108
controls, directly or indirectly, twenty-five percent (25%) or 109
more of the voting securities of any public utility or by any 110
person or corporation in any chain of successive ownership of 111
twenty-five percent (25%) of such securities; 112
(v) Any person who is an officer or director of a 113
public utility or of any corporation in any chain of successive 114
ownership of fifteen percent (15%) or more of voting securities of 115
a public utility; or 116
(vi) Any person or corporation that the 117
commission, after notice and hearing, determines actually 118
exercises any substantial influence or control over the policies 119
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and actions of a public utility, or over which a public utility 120
exercises such control, or that is under a common control with a 121
public utility, such control being the possession, directly or 122
indirectly, of the power to direct or cause the discretion of the 123
management and policies of another, whether such power is 124
established through ownership of voting securities or by any other 125
direct or indirect means. 126
However, the term "affiliated interest" or "affiliate" shall 127
not include a joint agency organized pursuant to Section 77-5-701 128
et seq., nor a member municipality thereof. 129
(h) The term "facilities" includes all the plant and 130
equipment of a public utility, used or useful in furnishing public 131
utility service, including all real and personal property without 132
limitation, and any and all means and instrumentalities in any 133
manner owned, operated, leased, licensed, used, controlled, 134
furnished or supplied for, by or in connection with its public 135
utility business. 136
(i) The term "cost of service" includes operating 137
expenses, taxes, depreciation, net revenue and operating revenue 138
requirement at a claimed rate of return from public utility 139
operations. 140
(j) The term "lead-lag study" includes an analysis to 141
determine the amount of capital which investors in a public 142
utility, the rates of which are subject to regulation under the 143
provisions of this chapter, must provide to meet the day-to-day 144
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operating costs of the public utility prior to the time such costs 145
are recovered from customers, and the measurement of (i) the lag 146
in collecting from the customer the cost of providing service, and 147
(ii) the lag in paying the cost of providing service by the public 148
utility. 149
(k) The term "broadband services" means any service 150
that consists of or includes a high-speed access capability to 151
transmit at a rate that is not less than two hundred (200) 152
kilobits per second either in the upstream or downstream direction 153
and either: 154
(i) Is used to provide access to the Internet, or 155
(ii) Provides computer processing, information 156
storage, information content or protocol conversion, including any 157
service applications or information service provided over such 158
high-speed access service. 159
(l) The term "video services" means video programming 160
services without regard to delivery technology, including Internet 161
Protocol technology ("Internet Protocol television or IPTV") and 162
video programming provided as a part of a service that enables 163
users to access content, information, email or other services 164
offered over the public Internet. The term "video programming" 165
means any programming as defined in 47 USCS Section 522(20). 166
(m) The term "Voice over Internet Protocol services" or 167
"VoIP services" means any service that: (i) enables real-time, 168
two-way voice communications that originate from or terminate to 169
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the user's location in Internet Protocol or any successor 170
protocol; (ii) uses a broadband connection from the user's 171
location; and (iii) permits users generally to receive calls that 172
originate on the Public Switched Telephone Network and to 173
terminate calls to the Public Switched Telephone Network. 174
(n) The term "commercial mobile services" means any 175
services as defined in 47 USCS Section 332(d). 176
(o) The term "Internet Protocol-enabled services" or 177
"IP-enabled services" means any service, capability, 178
functionality, or application provided using Internet Protocol, or 179
any successor protocol, that enables an end user to send or 180
receive a communication in Internet Protocol format, or any 181
successor format, regardless of whether the communications is 182
voice, data or video. Nothing contained in this paragraph shall 183
apply to retail services that are tariffed by the commission. 184
(p) "Broadband service provider" means an entity that 185
provides broadband services to others on a wholesale basis or to 186
end-use customers on a retail basis. 187
(q) "Broadband operator" means a broadband service 188
provider that uses the electric delivery system of any public 189
utility of the type as defined in paragraph (d)(i) of this section 190
with the public utility's consent to provide broadband services. 191
(r) "Electric delivery system" means the poles, lines, 192
fiber, cables, broadband system, materials, equipment, easements 193
and other facilities or properties used by any public utility of 194
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the type as defined in paragraph (d)(i) of this section to deliver 195
or facilitate the delivery, sale or use of electric energy. 196
(s) "Eligible municipality" means any municipality with 197
a population of greater than One Hundred Thousand (100,000) 198
according to the latest decennial census which has been the 199
subject of litigation by the United States Environmental 200
Protection Agency for violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act, 201
42 USC Section 300(f) et seq. 202
(t) "Eligible homeowners association" means any 203
homeowners association created and governed by restrictive 204
covenants, if the subdivision subject to these covenants: 205
(i) Was constructed prior to 1970 outside of 206
municipal boundaries; 207
(ii) Was subsequently annexed by an eligible 208
municipality, irrespective of whether the municipality was an 209
eligible municipality at the time of annexation or subsequently 210
became eligible; and 211
(iii) Is adjacent to which a ground water well 212
system originally designed to supply the subdivision which 213
continues to provide drinking water to a private user is located. 214
(u) "Direct-current fast-charging station" means 215
behind the meter electric vehicle charging equipment that is 216
capable of delivering electricity at a minimum of fifty (50) 217
kilowatts or greater direct current to an electric vehicle's 218
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rechargeable battery at a voltage of two hundred (200) volts or 219
greater. 220
(v) "Electric vehicle" means a motor vehicle that is 221
propelled by one or more electric motors using energy stored in 222
the form of a rechargeable battery. 223
SECTION 2. (1) A public utility that provides, owns, 224
operates or maintains a direct-current fast-charging station for 225
direct public use shall offer fair, reasonable and 226
nondiscriminatory rates and services to all entities providing 227
similar services and shall not act in a manner that provides an 228
unreasonable competitive advantage for its direct-current 229
fast-charging stations as to rates or services. 230
(2) No public utility shall be permitted to recover from its 231
general body of ratepayers any direct or indirect expenditures 232
associated with investments in the ownership or operation of 233
direct-current fast-charging stations by such public utility. 234
(3) Nothing in subsection (1) or (2) of this section shall 235
be construed to apply to a direct-current fast-charging station 236
that was constructed, provided by, owned, operated or maintained 237
by a public utility prior to July 1, 2026. 238
(4) Nothing in subsection (1) of this section shall be 239
construed to apply to direct-current fast-charging stations that 240
are not public facing and located on the premises of a public 241
utility for the sole purpose of serving its own electric vehicles 242
or electric vehicles owned by its employees. 243
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ST: Electric vehicle charging stations; provide
for rates and charges.
SECTION 3. This act shall take effect and be in force from 244
and after July 1, 2026. 245