Bill Summary: A07953

• Amends rural electric cooperative law to require cooperatives maintain complete books, records, and member lists including names, addresses, membership classes, and patronage capital allocations at their offices.

• Requires rural electric cooperative boards to adopt and implement conflict of interest policies that include disclosure procedures, prohibit conflicted persons from voting on related matters, and mandate annual written statements from directors identifying potential conflicts.

• Requires rural electric cooperative boards to adopt and implement whistleblower policies protecting directors, officers, and employees from retaliation for reporting suspected illegal, fraudulent, or policy-violating conduct.

• Replaces provisions governing refunds to members with comprehensive patronage capital framework allowing cooperatives to allocate annual surplus to patrons based on revenue, contribution, kilowatt-hour usage, or other member-agreed methods, with board discretion to retire capital when consistent with sound business practices.

• Permits early retirement of patronage capital upon member death, service termination, or bankruptcy, with possible discounting, and allows cooperatives to claim unclaimed capital as net savings after reasonable location efforts including mailing notices and three-year website publication.