2. Background
On June 19, 2009, The Utility Reform Network (TURN) filed a Petition to initiate a rulemaking (Petition) to address arrearage management and shutoff prevention for residential customers. In response to TURN's Petition, the Commission issued a proposed decision on September 25, 2009, which determined that existing low-income programs and outreach were sufficient and that a rulemaking was not needed at that time.
On November 19, 2009, the Division of Ratepayer Advocates (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 in DRA's Report, Commission President Michael Peevey announced that the Commission would hold an en banc on December 17, 2009. At the en banc DRA, TURN, the Greenlining Institute (Greenlining), PG&E, SCE, and SoCalGas and SDG&E (collectively Joint Utilities) made presentations on the disconnection rate for low-income households. Immediately following the en banc, the four utilities agreed to a moratorium on service disconnections through January 5, 2010.2
On January 5, 2010, the Commission held a workshop to provide utilities and other stakeholders an opportunity to discuss best-practices for customer outreach and education so that customers could address repayment of arrearages before disconnection. Although the Commission envisioned that the en banc and workshop would result in the development of innovations to reduce customer disconnections, it concluded that a rulemaking was necessary to gather input from the utilities and consumer groups on ways to decrease the number of household disconnections while not shifting the cost burden of non-paying customers to other ratepayers.
2 SCE voluntarily extended its moratorium through January 21, 2010.
