ORA's Protest

Despite Edison's request for ex parte relief, the Office of Ratepayer Advocates (ORA) filed a protest of April 5, 2001. In addition to the background above, the protest set forth two principal reasons for opposing the application. First, ORA contended, agreeing to treat the costs booked in TRRRMA as distribution-related would amount to blessing FERC's labor ratio cost allocation methodology, despite the Commission's specific approval of the multi-factor allocation methodology in D.97-08-056. Noting that "the appropriate portion of SCE's revenue requirement has already been properly allocated to distribution" by the Commission, ORA concluded that "the outcomes of FERC proceedings [should] not dictate the ratemaking treatment to be applied by this Commission." (ORA Protest, pp. 3-4.)

Second, ORA vigorously disputed Edison's suggestion that FERC had relied on representations by the CPUC that if the A&G and G&I costs at issue were not included in transmission rates," these costs could be recovered in

Commission-jurisdictional rates if rejected by FERC." ORA insisted that no such representations had been made, as evidenced by the careful description of the limitations on TRRRMA set forth in CPUC comments filed in the FERC transmission proceeding:

"Edison's allegation that this purported $20 million would be unrecoverable and would fall through the jurisdictional cracks is misleading. Edison filed an advice letter with the CPUC proposing a memorandum account to recover FERC-disallowed costs, and on July 23, 1998, the CPUC issued a resolution approving the memorandum account for any costs which the FERC found were not transmission-related costs in the rate case. See Ex. AWP-6. Thus, if Edison is able to subsequently demonstrate that these costs are reasonable, distribution-related costs (as opposed to generation-related costs), Edison can recover these costs in distribution rates." (Reply Comments of the Public Utilities Commission of the State of California, Docket No. ER97-2355-000, et al., filed November 30, 1999, p. 19, quoted in ORA Protest, p. 5.)