3. Procedural Background

TURN filed this petition on June 19, 2009. Comments were filed on July 20, 2009 and reply comments were filed on August 3, 2009.

The parties who filed comments on the petition are as follows.

· The Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA);

· Disability Rights Advocates (DisRA);

· National Consumer Law Center (NCLC);

· The Greenlining Institute (Greenlining);

· PG&E;

· SCE; and

· SDG&E and SCG (collectively Sempra)

DRA, DisRA, NCLC and Greenlining support TURN's proposal. PG&E, SCE and Sempra oppose it.

On November 19, 2009, DRA released a report, "Status Report on Energy Utility Service Disconnections," that discussed data regarding service disconnections and reconnections from January 2006 through August 2009. Based on the data contained in DRA's Report, the Commission held an en banc on December 16, 2009. Following the en banc, all four utilities agreed to a moratorium on service disconnections beginning December 21, 2009 and extending through January 5, 2010.²

The Commission held a workshop on January 5, 2010 to afford the utilities and other stakeholders an opportunity to discuss "best-practices" for customer outreach and education so that customers can address repayment of arrearages before they are disconnected.

On February 4, 2010, the Commission adopted Rulemaking (R.) 10-02-005 to establish ways to improve customer notification and education to decrease the number of gas and electric utility service disconnections due to non-payment of bills.

² SCE voluntarily extended its moratorium through January 21, 2010.