2. Background

California's electricity crisis in 2000 prompted many proceedings before this Commission, and these in turn prompted much litigation before state and federal courts at all levels. The Utility Reform Network (TURN) participated vigorously here and in the courts. The compensation award we deal with today relates to some of that participation. (For a fuller description of relevant events preceding this award, see Appendix A to today's decision, which excerpts the "Background" summarized in Decision (D.) 05-04-049.)

Specifically, in D.05-04-049, we addressed TURN's compensation request concerning the "Post-Transition Ratemaking" dockets (where we had dealt with post-rate freeze recovery of rate freeze costs) and the "Rate Stabilization Plan" dockets (which include the two utility applications and the TURN petition captioned above). We granted the compensation request in part and denied it in part. Among the grounds for partial denial was our finding that TURN had not justified setting hourly rates for its outside counsel on a different basis from that used for TURN's staff counsel.

TURN applied for rehearing of D.05-04-049. TURN challenged, among other things, our finding regarding hourly rates for TURN's outside counsel. In D.07-03-017, we modified D.05-04-049 but the modifications did not affect the award, and we denied rehearing of the decision as modified.

TURN then sought and obtained judicial review of D.05-04-049 and D.07-03-017 in the California Court of Appeal. The court in TURN v. PUC affirmed our decisions with the sole exception of the hourly rates that we used for TURN's outside counsel. We now reconsider those rates, as required by the court, and adopt modified rates. We base these rates for TURN's outside counsel on the prior record in these proceedings and on statements filed by the three largest California investor-owned electric utilities in support of a settlement they reached with TURN on this hourly rate issue.³

Using the modified rates, we now modify our original award of compensation to TURN in D.05-04-049, the primary decision reviewed by the court.

³ TURN's original request for compensation was filed on June 18, 2004; TURN filed errata to this request on June 21, 2004. In D.05-04-049, we found that TURN had satisfied the various prerequisites to be eligible for an award of compensation (e.g., customer status, significant financial hardship, timeliness of filings). We do not need to repeat the findings or the underlying analysis here.