PUC rulemaking underway to fold new towing law into regulations; task force invited to comment

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission's Towing Task Force learned Sept. 11 that the commission has opened a formal rulemaking to incorporate statutory changes from House Bill 24-1051 into the commission's towing rules and has invited the task force to participate in the proceeding. The commission accepted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) at its Sept. 4 meeting and posted the initiating order on Sept. 10 under proceeding number 24R-0382TO.

That proceeding will take written comments; the task force was told the commission requested initial written comments be filed no later than Sept. 27, with responses due Oct. 11, and an initial public comment hearing scheduled for Oct. 21 at 11 a.m. Task force members were explicitly invited to submit comments or materials for the record.

Why it matters: HB 24-1051 made statutory changes to Title 40 and related towing statutes that the commission must reflect in its rulebook. Those statutory changes affect areas the task force has tracked for years, including data collection from carriers, maximum-rate rules and how storage charges are calculated for different nonconsensual tows.

Commission staff described three practical effects task force members are likely to see. First, the commission plans to use new statutory authority to require towing carriers, as a condition of holding a permit, to submit regular operational information (for example, fleet counts, categories of tows and volume in each category). Staff said the commission intends to aggregate that data for regulatory use and that it is likely willing to share the aggregated information with the task force once the rulemaking is complete.

Second, the rulemaking includes proposed changes to Rule 65.11, the PUC's maximum-rates rule for nonconsensual tows, which could affect what the commission may consider when setting or approving maximum charges.

Third, staff summarized how storage charges now differ by tow type after recent statutory changes. Law-enforcement ordered tows remain unchanged: carriers may assess a full 24-hour day's storage on the front end and at each 24-hour rollover. By contrast, commercial private-property impounds (commercial PPIs) and residential PPIs follow different mechanics:

- For commercial PPIs, a carrier must prorate the first 24-hour period until statutory notification is completed. After the notification process is complete (for example, after sending required letters or receiving DMV responses), storage restarts and carriers may charge full-day storage on the front end for subsequent days, similar to law-enforcement tows.

- For residential PPIs, carriers must prorate storage throughout the life of the tow; they do not switch to full-day front-end charging after notification.

Task force members who represent or operate towing businesses raised implementation concerns with the prorate-and-pause model. One towing-industry participant said many common dispatch and billing systems do not support a mid-period "pause" and restart of storage calculation and that operators rely on manual workarounds (for example, entering an hourly charge for the final partial day). Staff said the commission tried to frame the rule language to keep the mechanics as close to prior practice as possible while complying with the statute, and that further tweaks can be proposed through the rulemaking so long as any change does not conflict with the statute.

The task force was also briefed on process questions for submitting a formal task-force comment into the record. Staff said a task-force submission would require agreement among the members (or the subset of members authorized to submit on behalf of the group). "If all of those criteria were met, it would be pretty simple for us to work with the commission to get that included in the proceeding," staff said, cautioning that getting full task-force agreement, not filing into the record, is the larger hurdle.

Legal and governance questions also came up. The task force's attorney reported she is reviewing a new conflicts-of-interest provision added by HB 24-1051 and said she has contacted comparable groups to learn how they handle recusal obligations; she committed to sending a memo to the task force by the end of next week. The attorney said, "For the foreseeable future, I will be representing the task force," and that she is looking into the conflicts provision.

Members were also reminded the task force is undergoing a sunset review and that the statutory repeal date included in the current schedule is Sept. 1, 2025; the commission staff said the sunset analysis will determine whether the group continues under current law.

The meeting lacked quorum and no formal votes were taken. Staff and members agreed to tentatively keep the next meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024, at 2 p.m., and members were urged to consider whether the task force should prepare a joint submission for the rulemaking record.

The commission's proceeding number for the towing rulemaking is 24R-0382TO. Deadlines noted at the Sept. 11 meeting were initial written comments by Sept. 27, responses by Oct. 11 and a public hearing on Oct. 21 at 11 a.m.

(Reporting note: statements and deadlines above are drawn from PUC staff remarks and the task force meeting record.)