IV. Responses to the ALJ Ruling

PG&E, Southern California Edison Company (Edison), and the Office of Ratepayer Advocates (ORA) and The Utility Reform Network (TURN), jointly, filed responses and replies to the ALJ ruling.¹

PG&E and Edison argue that the Commission adopted the original disclaimer language after notice and comment, without hearings, and made the modification to the disclaimer as to SDG&E and SoCalGas as a matter of law, because the original language was not narrowly tailored to achieve an appropriate balance between the rehearing applicants' commercial speech rights and the Commission's substantial interest in promoting competition. The utilities argue that this rationale applies with the same force to PG&E and Edison as it does to SDG&E and SoCalGas. Edison points out that such modification would be in keeping with substantially uniform rules for all utilities covered by the Rules, which is a policy the Commission articulated in its Order Instituting Rulemaking leading up to the Rules' adoption. (PG&E also argues that a utility should not be viewed in violation of Rule V.F.1 if it continues to use the original disclaimer language on documents which have been printed in bulk, such as business cards, etc.)

ORA and TURN argue that the Commission should not modify Rule V.F.1 so that it applies to all utilities because D.99-09-033 is based on the specific facts and circumstances presented by shared use of the Sempra name and logo by SDG&E and SoCalGas. Therefore, ORA and TURN argue that there is no basis for extending the changes ordered in the disclaimer to other utilities.