5. CHCC's Requested Compensation and Reasonableness of Hours

In general, the components of this request must constitute reasonable fees and costs of the customer's preparation for and participation in a proceeding that resulted in making a substantial contribution. The issues we consider to determine the reasonableness of CHCC's request listed below are discussed as follows:

We first assess whether the hours claimed for the customer's efforts that resulted in substantial contributions to Commission decisions are reasonable by determining to what degree the hours and costs are related to the work performed and necessary for the substantial contribution.

CHCC'S Requested Award
Name of Attorney/Advocate	2009 Hours	2010 Hours	2011 Hours	Total Hours	Average $ Rate/hr	$ Totals
Larry Garcia	36.8	72.4	0.8	110.0	385.07	42,358.00
- requested rates	$385.00	$385.00	$395.00
Dan Silverboard	117.1	248.1	58.8	424.0	272.08	115,362.50
- requested rates	$270.00	$270.00	$270/$295
David Temblador	0.0	0.5	3.5	4.0	342.50	1,370.00
- requested rates	$310.00	$325.00	$345.00
Joel Ayala	31.5	0.0	0.0	31.5	65.00	2,044.25
- requested rates	$ 65.00	$ 65.00	$ 65.00
Julian Canete	44.0	91.1	5.0	140.1	61.86	8,666.50
- requested rates	$ 65.00	$ 65.00	$ 65.00
Totals	229.4	412.1	68.1	709.6	239.31	169,801.25
50% Travel credit				−46.0	112.20	5,161.25
50% COMP credit				−31.5	287.11	9,044
Adjusted totals				632.1	246.18	155,596.00
Costs						2,994.16
Total Claim						$158,590.1618

CHCC has documented its claimed hours by presenting a daily breakdown of the percentage of its collective participants time spent on each issue. The following table outlines CHCC's allocation of time by issue:

Allocation of Time by Issue	% Total Time
Auditing & Reporting Requirements	8.9%
Capacity Building and Contracting Mechanisms	5.5%
Compensation	8.9%
Coordination with Other Parties	0.9%
General Participation	33.5%
Outreach	7.4%
Proposed Decision	3.9%
Strategic Planning	16.6%
Technical Assistance	14.4%
Total	100.0%

The Commission has ruled on multiple occasions¹⁹ that when an intervenor uses multiple participants to perform the same tasks or attends the same meetings and/or workshops that the intervenor must provide the Commission with sufficient information to ensure that this work is not duplicative of each others efforts and was essential for the intervenors showing. Without this explanation, we find these efforts to be internally duplicative and inefficient. We list below reductions we make to CHCC's claim for duplication of effort, excessive hours, lack of substantial contribution, disallowance of clerical work and the disallowance of non-compensable travel and related costs.

Item	Disallowances20 21
2010-Garcia hours	On 5/14/10, 5/19/10, 6/7/10, 6/23/10, and 10/12/10, Garcia attended two workshops, a prehearing conference, oral argument and an En Banc Hearing in which CHCC's attorney Silverboard and its expert Canete were also in attendance. We disallow 26.2 hours of Garcia's 2010 hours for these events as being duplicative of the compensated efforts of Silverboard and Canete.
2010-Silverboard travel hours	We disallow 2.0 hrs of Silverboard's 2009 professional hours22 and 9.75 hrs of Silverboard's 2010 professional hours23 for travel to and from Sacramento to San Francisco to attend various meetings and workshops, and travel to a CUDC meeting24 as being non-compensable "routine travel" as defined in D.10-11-032. The Commission awards fees and expenses for reasonable travel time but disallows compensation for time and expenses incurred during "routine travel." In D.10-11-032, the Commission further defined "routine travel" as travel that occurs with a one-way travel distance of 120 miles or less for attorneys, consultants and other experts participating in Commission matters. Travel time and expenses occurring within this parameter are considered to be "routine" in nature and non-compensable.
Canete's travel hours	We disallow of 4.0 hrs of Canete 2009 professional hours25 for travel to and from Sacramento to Oakland to attend a California University Diversity Council (CUDC) meeting in Oakland, CA, and 12.0 hrs of 2010 travel to and from Sacramento to San Francisco for various workshops, meetings and an En Banc meeting at the Commission as non-compensable "routine travel" as defined in D.10-11-032.
Our reasonableness assessment of CHCC's work focuses on three aspects: First, did CHCC advocate for any issues which were outside of the scope of the proceeding, or which failed to make a substantial contribution to the final decision as required by statute26. Secondly, given the scope of the work and the documents that CHCC filed, should the claimed hours be compensated as requested, and lastly, for the documents which were jointly filed by CHCC and CAPCC, and for which CAPCC has already been reasonably compensated, is the approval of additional hours warranted here.27
2010-Silverboard hours	On July 13, 2010, CHCC filed its Opening Comments on the June 7. 2010, "Barriers to Competition Workshop Staff Report." We find CHCC's request of 8.9 hours for Silverboard's 2010 work on this document to be excessive given the scope of the work. We reduce this time by 4.9 hours to more closely reflect our standards on reasonableness of hours.
Hours spent of CHCC's Reply Comments on the Scope of the Order Instituting Rulemaking and Request for formal hearings	CHCC requests a total of 21.7 hrs for this 4 page document (5.4 hrs-2009 Garcia; 13.33 hrs-2009 Silverboard; and 3.0 hrs-2009 Canete). This document was not jointly filed. We find the total number of hours to be excessive given the scope of the work, the relative novelty of the document and the fact that it little research). We approve a more reasonable amount of 8 hrs for this document. To achieve this allowance we disallow 2.9 hrs of Garcia's 2009 hrs and 10.83 of Silverboard's 2009 hrs.
Hours spent of CHCC's Comments on Utilities' Interim Aspirational Step Plans	CHCC requests a total of 10.2 hrs (1.0 hr-Garcia 2010; 7.1 hrs-Silverboard 2010 and 2.1 hrs-Canete 2010). This document was not jointly filed and totals 4.5 pages of relatively simple, non-complex responses to the Utilities' Aspirational Step Plans. Again, we find the total number of hours that CHCC spent on this document to be excessive, even when we factor in CHCC's newness to Commission proceedings. We approve 8 hrs for completion of this document and reduce Silverboard's 2010 hrs by 2.2 to achieve this allowance.
CHCC's hours spent of its jointly filed Reply Comments to the June 24, 2010, rebuttal remarks filed by AT&T California, PG&E Company, SDG&E Company, SoCalGas Company and Verizon California Inc.	CHCC requests a total of 8.1 hrs (.9 hrs-Garcia 2010 and 7.2 hrs-Silverboard 2010) to prepare this document. We have previously approved the reasonable amount of 5.8 hrs for CAPCC to prepare this document. While we could disallow all of CHCC's requested hours as being previously compensated in the award to CAPCC, we recognize the Commission's encouragement of parties with similar interests to bind together to produce jointly filed documents and to avoid duplicating the efforts of others. We are guided however, by the need to weigh-in on the extent to which ratepayers should be expected to pay doubly for joint efforts. We conclude that they should not. Instead, we adjust CHCC's hours to reflect a 10% (.8 hrs) approval for its work on this document. We divide the allowance equally between Garcia and Silverboard. Disallowances: .5 hrs-Garcia 2010 and 6.8-Silverboard 2010
Hours spent on the joint filing of CHCC and CAPCC's Motion of Reconsideration of ALJ's Ruling Revising Ruling on July 6, 2010	We disallow 75% of the time that CHCC and CAPCC (California Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce spent preparing its jointly filed motion for Reconsideration of Administrative Law Judge's (ALJ) Ruling Revising Ruling issued on July 6, 2010. On July 22, 2010, ALJ Darling issued a ruling denying this motion, except for CHCC and CHCC request that if the motion was denied, that in the alternative, they requested that the ALJ extend the deadline for filing Reply Comments on the Barriers to Competition Workshop Staff Report. The July 22, 2010 ruling by the ALJ did approve this request. CHCC and CHCC's efforts in this regard consisted of the last 5 sentences of this 3 page document. Disallowances: .90 hrs of Garcia's 2010 time and 4.13 hrs of Silverboard's 2010 time
Hours related to efforts on preparing for En Banc meeting	We allow compensation for Silverboard (attorney) and Canete (expert) to attend the En Banc meeting on 10/12/10. We do not however, allow compensation for preparation for the en banc, or making presentations at the en banc as it was not proceeding specific and would have gone forward regardless of R.09-07-027.28 Parties were allowed to file final comments, and we compensate reasonable hours for these efforts, provided they were "limited in content to matters raised at the en banc hearing."29 CHCC's participation in this area provided information and argument that allowed the Commission to consider the full range of positions, thereby assisting the Commission's informed judgment based on a more complete record, as such, we compensate this time. Disallowances of 2010 hrs Preparing for En Banc Hearing: 1.6 hrs Garcia, 9.8 hrs Silverboard, and 3.0 hrs Canete.
Disallowance of time spent on CHCC's and CAPCC's Joint Comments on the October 12, 2010, En Banc Hearing on GO 156, "Challenging the Paradigm of Diverse Procurement"	We disallow 1.8 hrs of Silverboard's 2010 hours spent on this document regarding the "Projected Cost and Funding of Technical Assistance Plans." We estimate the time spent on this issue to be 23% (1 of 8 pages) of CHCC's total time spent on this document. D.11-05-019 at 22 states: "[w]e acknowledge broad agreement among parties as to the necessity of expanding technical assistance (TA), but no record was developed to support that any particular amount of utility funding for TA is sufficient, or appropriate for all utilities."...[t]herefore, we decline to order a specific amount, or percentage, of procurement spent to be directed towards an element of a utility's supplier diversity program."
Disallowance of time spent on clerical matters	Filing is a non-compensable clerical task which is subsumed in the fees paid to attorneys. We disallow .9 hrs of Garcia time on 5/21/10 "attending to scheduling details" and 1.2 hrs of Temblador's time on 5/2/11 "filing" of CHCC's draft reply comments.30 In addition we note several entries in Silverboard's timesheets for clerical tasks i.e., "filing documents with PUC Suppler Diversity Staff, organizing and filing documents with the PUC, filing of reply comments, transmitting of documents for comment." We disallow 1.75 hrs of Silverboard's 2009 time for these tasks and approximately 3.6 hrs of Silverboard's 2010 time spent on non-compensable clerical tasks.
Disallowance of time for which no description of work was provided	We disallow 3.1 hrs of Silverboard's 2011 time on 4/7/11 as CHCC has failed to provide a description of the work performed. We disallow 1.0 hr of Canete's 2009 time on 11/18/09 as CHCC has failed to provide a description of the work performed.
Disallowances for meals, mileage, and costs related to "routine commuting"	We disallow $123.50 of CHCC's requested compensation for meals. The Commission does not compensate this expense. 31 We disallow $945.67 of CHCC's requested compensation for mileage, parking fees, toll fees and BART fees incurred during "routine travel."32 For the same reason, we disallow $96.57 of CHCC's requested reimbursement for lodging and taxicab expenses to attend the En Banc Hearing. Total disallowance for direct expenses= $1,165.74
Time spent on compensation matters	CHCC requests a total of 31.5 hours (.85-Garcia/30.65-Silverboard) for time spent on its NOI and compensation claim. In contrast, Greenlining requested 8.4 hours for these same tasks. While we acknowledge that Greenlining has many years of experience in Commission matters, and in this case did not participate as fully as CHCC, the disparity in hours between these intervenors calls for a significant reduction. We approve a total of 25 hrs for this task, in this instance, given CHCC's newness to Commission proceedings and the fact that it fully participated in the proceeding. The adjusted allowance more closely reflects our standards on reasonableness of hours in addition to minimizing the cost that ratepayers should bear for to educate a new intervenor. To achieve this allotment, we reduce CHCC's hours by the following: Disallowances: 6.5 hrs of Silverboard's 2011 time.

5.1. Intervenor Hourly Rates

We next take into consideration whether the claimed fees and costs are comparable to the market rates paid to experts and advocates having comparable training and experience and offering similar services.

Larry Garcia's hourly rates: CHCC seeks an hourly rate of $385 for Larry Garcia's 2009 and 2010 work and an hourly rate of $395 for his 2011 work in this proceeding as CHCC's General Counsel. Garcia has no previously established rates before the Commission.

Garcia was admitted into the California Bar Association in December 1975, and has practiced law for over 35 years. Garcia's resume indicates that he is currently a partner at Gordon and Rees LLP in Sacramento, CA where his responsibilities are to counsel and represent clients in regulated business environments with a concentration in serving healthcare providers, senior living providers, and small businesses. Garcia's practice has includes mergers, acquisitions, financings, commercial transactions, business structuring, healthcare law, as well as the representation of clients before regulators. According to CHCC, from 200-2010, Garcia served as a shareholder in the firm of Diepenbrock Harrison, where his practice was focused in the area of hospital and healthcare law, residential care facilities for the elderly, medical group practice representation, business and corporate law and commercial transactions. CHCC states that Garcia's experience includes representation of clients before several regulatory agencies such as the California Department of Health Services, the California Medical Board, Medicare Provider Reimbursement Board, the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services, the Federal Trade Commission, the Internal Revenue Service, the FDA, the Cal Mortgage Program, the California Office of Administrative Law, the EEOC, the California Fair Housing and Employment Commission, and the California Department of Corporations.  Mr. Garcia also served on the Adjunct Faculty of Drexel University, USC, the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, and the USF College of Professional Studies.

CHCC requests an hourly rate of $385 for Garcia's 2009-2010 work and an hourly rate increase of approximately 3% (assumingly for a cost-of living (COLA) increase since CHCC provides no justification for a step increase) to equal $395 for Garcia's 2011 work. Resolution ALJ-267 adopts a rate range of $300-$535 for attorney with 13 + years of experience. We find CHCC's request of $385 for Garcia's work reasonable for years 2009-2010, and apply this same rate to Garcia's 2011 work as Resolution ALJ-267 disallows COLA increases for 2011 intervenor work.

Dan Silverboard's hourly rates: CHCC requests an hourly rate of $270 for Dan Silverboard's 2009-2010 work in this proceeding and a rate ranging from ($270-$295) for Silverboard's 2011 work.³³ Silverboard has no previously established rate before the Commission.

Silverboard was admitted into the California Bar Association in December 2001. Silverboard's resume indicates that from 2002-2004 he worked as an attorney for the Department of Justice (DOJ) in Washington, D.C. During this time, his duties included legal research and writing for the Environmental and Natural Resources Division with a focus on issues relating to Native American tribal trust litigation and assisting DOF attorneys in discover. From 2004-2011, Silverboard was an attorney at Diepenbrock Harrison in Sacramento, CA. During his approximate 7 years there, Silverboard's practice included representation of private sector clients in health care regulatory matters related to Medicare and Medicaid compliance, including practitioner and facility licensing and certification, reimbursement, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and fraud and abuse. Clients included hospitals, residential care facilities for the elderly, federally qualified health centers, and medical groups. In addition, Silverboard's practice focused on issues related to property development, including counseling clients on the acquisition of city and county land use entitlements, general planning and zoning amendments, and applicable state and federal environmental approvals. Since 2011, Silverboard has worked as an attorney for Gordon & Rees LLP in Sacramento, CA where his practice has included complex health care regulatory matters relating to Medicare and MediCal compliance, including practitioner and facility licensing and certification, reimbursement, HIPAA, Stark laws, and fraud and abuse. Clients include hospitals, federally qualified health and medical groups. Silverboard's practice at Gordon & Rees LLP includes advising clients on issues relating to land use planning and development, including facility expansion.

Silverboard's work in this proceeding spanned the period of time from 10/28/09 through 7/5/2011. At the start of the proceeding, Silverboard's had slightly less than 8 years of experience as an attorney. Considering Silverboard's training and experience, we find CHCC's requested hourly rate of $270 for Silverboard's 2009-2010 work and its hourly rate request of $285 for Silverboard's 2011 work to be reasonable and consistent with rates approved by the Commission for attorneys at both the 5-7 year and 8-12 year levels established in Resolution ALJ-267.³⁴ We adopt these rates as requested.

David Temblador's hourly rates: Temblador has no previous rate set before the Commission. Temblador was admitted into the California Bar Association in December 2000. Temblador was employed with the Law Offices of Gregory Thatch, in Sacramento, CA from 2001-2008. Temblador's resume indicates that he was involved in real estate development from project acquisition through entitlement approval, and when necessary, development of litigation strategies. In Temblador's role, his practice focused on complex and controversial land use entitlements throughout northern California with responsibilities that included pre-acquisition due diligence, negotiation and drafting of purchase and sale agreements, research and development of entitlement strategies, entitlement processing,California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance, preparation of development agreements, project litigation strategies, consultant management, community outreach efforts, media relations, project advocacy and project hearing presentations. From June 2008-2011, Temblador has worked for two years as an associate and for one year as a shareholder at the law offices of Diepenbrock Harrison in Sacramento, CA. In this role, Temblador focuses on aspects of real estate development and entitlement with emphasis on the processing of complex and/or controversial land use matters, negotiation and drafting of purchase and sale agreements, research and development and entitlement strategies, entitlement processing, CEQA and NEPA compliance, project litigation strategies, consultant management, community outreach efforts, media relations, project advocacy and project hearing presentations. Temblador's work here involved minor hours in 2010 (.8) reviewing and revising CHCC's brief, and a brief conference with Dan Silverboard and 1.75 hrs in 2011 drafting reply comments to the GO 156 Preliminary Ruling.

CHCC requests an hourly rate of $325 for Temblador's 2010 work and an increase of approximately 6% equal to $345 for Temblador's 2011 work. In 2010, Temblador had been licensed as an attorney for 10 years. CHCC's hourly rate request for Temblador is mid-range for attorneys with 8-12 years of experience as approved in Resolution ALJ-267. We adopt a rate of $325 for Temblador's 2010 work here. We apply this same rate to Temblador's 2011 as Resolution ALJ-267 disallows COLA increases for 2011 intervenor work.

Joel Ayala's hourly rate: Joel Ayala has no previously established rate before the Commission. CHCC requests an hourly rate of $65.00 for Ayala's 2009 work here as an advocate. Ayala graduated from the University of California-Irvine in 1989 with a Bachelor or Arts degree in Political Science. CHCC submits the following in support of its requested hourly rate for Ayala: Joel A. Ayala was recently appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as Director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development (GoED) to make it easier to start, expand, or keep a business in California. Ayala will work to facilitate and stimulate economic growth through the development and implementation of strategic policies and partnerships with the private sector, community, local, and national organizations that enhance human and capital infrastructure development as well as increase California's competitive advantage in the global marketplace.

Prior to joining the state, he served as the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce where Ayala represented the interests of over 720,000 Hispanic-owned businesses in California. In 2001, Ayala became President and CEO of the Orange County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce where he served as the primary contact for federal, state and local legislators concerning the interests of the Hispanic business community in Orange County, CA. Through local Empowerment Zones, Workforce Investment Boards, and Enterprise Zones, Ayala worked to improve Workforce and Economic Development for small to midsize companies in Orange and Los Angeles counties.  

Ayala brings over 20 years of experience in the areas of personal development and leadership and has served as a board member to the Orange County Presidents Council, the Santa Ana Empowerment Zone, the Workforce Investment Boards of Santa Ana and Anaheim, the Small Business Development Center, and the Business Community Advisory Boards for Rancho Santiago and North Orange County Community College Districts. Ayala has served on the California Task force for Small Business spearheaded by the Department of General Services, and was selected to join the Lieutenant Governor's Economic Development Committee.

Ayala has been awarded the CHCC "Executive of the Year" award, Citi Bank Executive of the Year, as well as the Small Business Administration's award for "Minority Small Business Champion."

We adopt CHCC's requested hourly rate of $65 per hour for Ayala's 2009 work here as reasonable and consistent with the rates approved in ALJ-267.

Julian Canete's hourly rates: Julian Canete has no previously established rate before the Commission. Julian Canete is president and chief executive officer of the CHCC. He took over this position in May of 2010. As President and Chief Executive Officer, Canete oversees the day to day operations and management of the CHCC, including its legislative advocacy program. Enhancing the economic growth of California's Hispanic and emerging business community has been the primary goal of Canete's activities. He has headed the CHCC's legislative, procurement and business development initiatives and programs. Before joining the chamber, Canete served as an associate at the Amicus Group, a communication and public relations firm based in Stockton, California.

Canete serves or has served on numerous committees and councils that address business issues, including Department of General Service Small Business Council, California Hispanic Association for Corporate Responsibility, Governor's Small Business Advocate's Advisory Committee. Canete was a founding member of the California Utilities Diversity Council and served as chairperson of the San Joaquin County Private Industry Council from 1992 to 1996. Canete received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Administration in 1986 from California State University Fullerton, and attended the University of Chicago Booth's School of Business Executive Education Program in 2009.

CHCC's requested hourly rates of $65.00 for Canete's 2009-2011 work here as an advocate, are reasonable and consistent with the rates approved in Resolution ALJ-267, and adopted here.

5.2. Direct Expenses

CHCC's itemized direct expenses include the following:

After the disallowances of meals³⁸ and costs related to routine commuting,³⁹ the remaining the miscellaneous expenses are reasonable and commensurate with the work performed.

¹⁸ We note that CHCC's requested claim contains several miscalculations. First, the total for Silverboard's hours is actually $115,361.92, and the total for Ayala's hours is actually $2,047.50. These amounts corrected would bring the costs of CHCC's professional totals to $169,803.92 hours before adjustments and expenses. In addition, we note that the average rate per hours for all CHCC participants should have been listed as $225.30, not $239.31 as CHCC lists above. We correct these errors in the award section of this claim, where we use the actual hourly rates adopted per year, rather than the hourly averages that CHCC calculates here. Secondly, CHCC totals all participant hours, establishes an "average" hourly rate for all four participants, then it multiplies this "group hourly rate" by its total hours. Lastly, we note that instead of placing the hours that CHCC spent on travel and compensation matters in a separate area in its table for tasks which are compensated at ½ hourly rate, CHCC elects instead to bill these hours at full hourly rate and then reduce by 50% these hours to arrive at its claim. Although the method is contrary to our practice, the resultant figures using this method, are the same. We note that none of the other methods that CHCC uses are in keeping with our standard practices. We do not elect to spend the time parsing out CACPCC's claim or redoing its table. We consider the actual amount CHCC has requested. Most importantly, CHCC's total hours for each participant, matches its timesheets. In the award section of this claim, we use the hourly rates we adopt here and make our reductions to the hours CHCC lists here. We discourage this practice in any future claims CHCC may file, and highly recommend the use the standardized forms for NOI and claim preparation available to intervenors at: http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/IntervenorCompGuide/standardized.htm. The use of the standardized forms provide the most efficient and reasonable methods to complete these tasks.

¹⁹ See for example D.09-08-021 and D.09-09-023.

²⁰ Where CHCC has combined work on several tasks into one timesheet entry and we have disallowed time related to some of these efforts, we elect to approximate the amount of time spent on each individual task by dividing the total time by the number of issues listed. In addition, this practice violates the provisions of Rule 17.4 as wells as the Commission's decisions setting guidelines for intervenor compensation matters (see, for example, D.98-04-059, at 51). CHCC should discontinue this practice in any future claims for compensation in any claims it may file.

²¹ We forgo our normal practice of reducing CHCC's claim for time spent on "General" matters to be equally proportionate to the amount of hours we have disallowed since CHCC is new to Commission proceedings, but caution CHCC that future claims may include such reductions.

²² CAPCC has failed to allocate its travel hours and hours for time spent on compensation matters in a separate area in its claim for hours which are billed at one-half professional rate. This is the proper way to compute the claim. Instead, CAPCC bills all of the hours for these tasks at full professional rate, then reduced these hours by 50%. To simplify the calculation of this award, we list here only ½ of the actual hours disallowed for these tasks. By using this method we achieve the same numerical totals requested by CAPCC.

²³ On 6/11/10, Silverboard attended a CUDC meeting, presumably in San Francisco. Unlike his other allocations for travel time, Silverboard records all of the meeting activities on this date under his professional total. In keeping with the past travel timesheet entries to/from San Francisco for Silverboard, we parse out 2 hrs from the total on this date and determine that they were travel related and non-compensable under Decision 10-11-032.

²⁴ Based on email information provided by CHCC's attorney Dan Silverboard, this meeting was held at Comcast's Oakland Office, which is located at 8470 Pardee Drive, Oakland, Ca 94621. The one-way travel distance is to here is less than 120 miles from CHCC's office in Sacramento. See D.10-11-032.

²⁵ See footnote 22.

²⁶ §1802(i) defines substantial contribution as the customer's presentation that substantially assisted the Commission in the making of its decision because it has adopted factual and legal contentions, or policy recommendations presented by the intervenor. Section 1802.5 allows compensation for an intervenor's participation which materially supplements, complements, or contributes to the presentation of another party, provided that the intervenor's own participation makes a substantial contribution to a commission order or decision. Merely assisting another party to participate effectively does not constitute a substantial contribution by the intervenor, nor does such help seem reasonably necessary to the intervenor's own substantial contribution.

²⁷ The same attorneys from the same law firm were utilized to represent both CHCC and CAPCC. We assume that CHCC and CAPCC filed jointly when its advocacy became similar and that it was done to efficiently avoid duplication of effort. Both of these intervenors, however, used different experts and we have compensated these experts with minimal reductions. The intervenor compensation request filed by CAPCC has been completed prior to our examination of CHCC's claim here, and an appropriate recommendation for number of hours for that work has been approved for an award.

²⁸ Section 11 of GO 156 states that the Commission shall provide an annual report to the Legislature beginning in January, 1989, on the progress of activities under-taken by each utility to implement Pub. Util. Code §§ 8281 through 8286 and GO 156, as required by § 8283 (e). Section 11.3 of GO 156 states that the Commission shall hold an annual en banc hearing or other proceeding in order to provide Utilities and members of the public, including community-based organizations, the opportunity to share ideas and make recommendations for effectively implementing legislative policy and this general order.

²⁹ See Amendment to Scoping Memo by Assigned Commissioner and Administrative Law Judge Modifying Scheduled, issued on August 26, 2010.

³⁰ Where CHCC has combined work on several issues on its timesheet, we have elected to approximate the amount of time spent on each individual issue by dividing the total time by the number of issues listed.

³¹ See D.10-03-020, D.09-10-055, and D.07-12-040.

³² See D.10-11-023.

³³ To identify Silverboard's actual billing rate for this period, we use the dollar figures provided by CHCC on page 9 of its compensation request and calculate the actual rate billed. That rate is $286. We use this hourly rate and round it to the nearest $5.00 increment for consideration of our award.

³⁴ We remind CHCC because it is new to Commission proceedings that D.08-04-010 at 12-13 directs intervenors that "any request for a step increase be clearly and separately explained in the compensation request, and include a statement on whether the requested step increase is the first of second such increase for that individual within a given level of experience." CHCC has not complied with this requirement here, but because CHCC seeks rates for Silverboard which are reasonable and consistent with Resolution ALJ-267, we elect to apply a first 5% step-increase to Silverboard's 2011 work here. We caution CHCC however, that it must provide this information in any future claims for compensation where a rate increase is requested. In accordance with D.08-04-010, we round Silverboard's 2011 rate to the nearest $5 increment.

³⁵ While we make no reductions to this expense because CHCC is new to Commission proceedings, CHCC's request for "conference call services" is strikingly high when compared to other compensation requests filed in this proceeding. In addition, CHCC has provided no cost analysis for the Commission to access whether these services were the most efficient method available to contact/work with other parties, or whether these expenses should be considered a normal business expense, borne by the intervenor. Ratepayers should only pay the cost for "reasonable expenses" incurred in making a substantial contribution to a Commission decision. We typically compensate telephone expenses (long-distance phone calls) incurred as a result of an intervenor's participation. In any future compensation claims that CHCC may file, it must provide cost analysis for this expense if it requests compensation.

³⁶ See disallowances listed on at 17-18.

³⁷ Rounded to nearest dollar amount.

³⁸ See D.10-03-020, D.09-10-055, and D.07-08-021.

³⁹ The Commission awards fees and expenses for reasonable travel time but disallows compensation for time and expenses incurred during "routine travel." In D.10-11-032, the Commission defined "routine travel" as travel that occurs with a one-way travel distance of 120 miles or less for attorneys, consultants and other experts participating in Commission matters. Travel time and expenses occurring within this parameter are considered to be "routine" in nature and non-compensable. CHCC was represented by attorneys from the law offices of Gordon & Rees LLP and advocates Joel Ayala and Julian Canete, all of whom travelled from Sacramento, CA to the Commission or from Sacramento, CA to Oakland, CA for CDUC meetings. The one-way travel distance for to both of these location, is less than 120 miles.