2. Events Since the Start of This Rulemaking
We had hoped to complete this rulemaking by now. Several factors have lengthened the process. We discuss some of the main factors below.
Senate Bill (SB) 779 (Calderon), effective January 1, 1999, requires us, in relevant part, to serve draft resolutions on "parties," and to provide in many instances a public review and comment period before we vote on the draft resolutions. The disposition of many advice letters is by resolution, so we began our process for implementation of SB 779 by soliciting comments in this rulemaking. These comments, in turn, prompted a new rulemaking (R.99-02-001), which now is concluded. The new SB 779 rules will complement the advice letter procedures under consideration in this rulemaking.2
Another development is the vast increase in utilization of the Internet. What seemed to be visionary proposals in the original rulemaking, e.g., for Internet access to utility tariffs, now seem unduly cautious. We have revised these proposals. Among other things, we give large utilities (those whose gross intrastate revenues exceed $10 million) a deadline of October 1, 2001, for publishing their tariffs on the Internet.
The most important factor delaying issuance of our revised proposals, however, is our realization of how ambitious and far-reaching this project is, and the consequent need to think through, as thoroughly as we can, and from various points of view, all the aspects of implementation. Although most of the parties have supported the concepts embodied in GO 96-B, our review of the comments shows that additional discussion of these concepts is necessary. In particular, we need to elaborate on the reasoning behind the new tier structure for advice letter review, and how we expect the tier structure to work in practice. This elaboration is contained in Sections 3-4.7.
The months spent hammering out these implementation issues internally will prove fruitful in the long run in fostering a better understanding, inside and outside the Commission, of our rules governing tariffs and advice letters. There are currently many more advice letter filings than there are formal proceedings, so care in developing and implementing GO 96-B is fully warranted.3
2 In Decision (D.) 00-01-053, issued January 21, 2000, we adopted the new and amended rules, and closed R.99-02-001. These rules are part of the Commission's Rules of Practice and Procedure, codified in Title 20 of the California Code of Regulations. New Rule 77.7 contains most of the provisions specific to resolutions. 3 The Commission generally has pending about 500 formal proceedings and about 1,500 advice letters, but an advice letter typically takes far less time to process than a formal proceeding, so advice letter filings outnumber formal filings by much more than 3 to 1. In 1999, 3,824 advice letters were filed, as follows: Telecommunications Division, 3,156; Energy Division, 496; and Water Division, 172. In 2000, 3,965 advice letters were filed: Telecommunications Division, 3,228; Energy Division, 522; and Water Division, 215.
