The General Assembly finds that the deregulation and restructuring of the electric utility industry in this State mandated and implemented by this amendatory Act of 1997, including the unbundling of services and the authorization of competition in the provision of those services such that consumers may in the future transact with multiple providers to obtain the services that were formerly provided by a single franchised monopoly supplier of electricity, renders the system of taxation embodied in the Public Utilities Revenue Act impracticable and infeasible. The General Assembly further finds that the deregulation and restructuring of the electric utility industry necessitate changes to the existing system of taxation in order to preserve revenue neutrality in tax collections for the State of Illinois, to avoid placing any supplier engaged in the business of distributing, supplying, furnishing, selling, transmitting or delivering electricity at a competitive disadvantage, to minimize additional administrative costs and burdens of collection, and to avoid the imposition of increased tax burdens on individual consumers of electricity, particularly residential electric users virtually all of whom, pursuant to Section 2 of the Public Utilities Revenue Act, presently bear the economic burden of the tax imposed thereunder at the rate of .32 cents per kilowatt-hour distributed, supplied, furnished, sold, transmitted or delivered to them. The General Assembly further finds that to change the current rates at which non-residential users bear the economic burden of the Public Utilities Revenue Tax, thereby resulting in increases in the amount of tax for which non-residential users bear the economic burden, could impose additional cost burdens on businesses in this State and adversely affect economic development and business retention in Illinois unless such users are provided options for paying an excise tax on the basis of purchase price. The General Assembly therefore finds that there is a compelling public need to modify the system of taxation embodied in the Public Utilities Revenue Act by repealing the tax imposed by Section 2 of that Act and imposing this electricity excise tax so as to:
        (1) Impose the electricity excise tax on the