Background
By this application, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) seeks a certificate of public convenience and necessity (CPCN) to construct additional transmission and distribution capacity to meet electricity demand in the cities of Dublin, Livermore, Pleasanton, and San Ramon, and unincorporated areas of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. This project is referred to as the Tri Valley 2002 Capacity Increase Project. In conjunction with its application, PG&E filed a Proponent's Environmental Assessment. The Commission, as lead agency, then retained outside consultants to prepare an EIR for the proposed project pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)1, and to examine alternatives, including the "No-Project" alternative. The Commission's Energy Division oversaw the consultants' work.
As described below, the Commission staff held public scoping meetings in May 2000. The Commission issued its Draft EIR (DEIR) in December 2000. The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) presided over public participation hearings in February 2001. In April 2001, the Commission issued its FEIR.2 The FEIR considered each timely comment letter in reaching its conclusions. The FEIR identifies the environmentally superior "build" alignments and an overall environmentally superior project taking the "No-Project" analysis into consideration. This decision deals only with whether the Commission should certify the FEIR and does not determine whether PG&E should be granted a CPCN or if so, what alignment for the project should be adopted.
1 The CEQA statute appears at Cal. Pub. Res. Code § 21000 et seq. 2 We do not reproduce the FEIR in its entirety in this decision. However, the FEIR was identified as Exhibits 1003 through 1004 and is part of the record of this proceeding. The FEIR is also available on the Commission's website at http://www.cpuc.ca.gov.
