PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
ITEM # 26 I.D. # 9512
ENERGY DIVISION RESOLUTION G-3447
June 24, 2010
Resolution G-3447. Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) seeks to modify its gas and electric regulatory accounts to recover from its core and noncore gas and electric customers a portion of the California Air Resources Board's (CARB) Assembly Bill (AB) 32 Cost of Implementation Fee (AB 32 Fee) paid to CARB.
San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E) seeks to revise its regulatory accounts to record the costs associated with the CARB AB 32 Fee and to recover these costs in customer gas transportation and electric commodity rates.
Southern California Edison Company (SCE) seeks to modify its regulatory accounts to record and recover AB 32 Fees paid to CARB.
Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) seeks to modify its Core Fixed Cost Account (CFCA) and Noncore Fixed Cost Account (NFCA) to record and recover AB 32 Fees paid to CARB.
PROPOSED OUTCOME: The utility requests are denied without prejudice.
ESTIMATED COST: None.
By PG&E Advice Letter (AL) 3094-G/3618-E, filed on February 12, 2010; SCE AL 2434-E, filed on February 5, 2010; SDG&E AL 2137-E/1917-G, filed on January 15, 2010; SoCalGas AL 4060, filed on January 15, 2010, and 4060-A, filed on February 10, 2010.
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SUMMARY
PG&E, SCE, SDG&E and SoCalGas are requesting to establish balancing accounts to record and recover from their respective customers fees they expect to pay to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for its administration of Assembly Bill (AB) 32. The ALs are denied without prejudice pursuant to Rule 5.1 of General Order (G.O.) 96-B because the utilities do not have the necessary authorization to file their proposals, which result in a rate increase (assuming CARB adopts its proposed AB 32 fee regulations), by AL. The utilities may file an application to request approval of their proposals as provided for in Rule 5.2 of G.O. 96-B. Utilities with Z-Factor mechanisms (SCE, SDG&E and SoCalGas) can also consider recovering the AB 32 fees through that procedure.
Pursuant to our general rate case (GRC) ratemaking policies, the utilities are typically at risk for any expenses they incur exceeding their authorized GRC revenue requirements. In their GRC applications, the utilities may request to include anticipated AB 32 fee payments in their revenue requirements.
