B. Procedural History

We issued this Order Instituting Rulemaking (OIR) to address our responsibilities under one section of SBX2 39, the newly added Pub. Util. Code § 761.3. The OIR provides additional information on the scope of the proceeding, the Committee and its work, and the Commission's relationship to the Committee. A Prehearing Conference (PHC) was held on February 10, 2003. The resulting scoping memo divided the proceeding into three phases: Phase 1, standards for maintenance; Phase 2, logbook standards and Outage Coordination Protocol enforcement; and Phase 3, operation standards, private generator agreements, and ensuring that facilities remain available and operational.⁵ Subsequently, on May 2, 2003, Phase 4 was added to the proceeding, concerning the implementation and enforcement of General Duty Standards.⁶ Today's decision completes Phases 1 and 4 of this proceeding, and also completes those parts of Phase 2 pertaining to the enforcement of Thermal Logbook Standards and CAISO's Protocol.

The parties to this proceeding were provided several opportunities to file PHC statements and comments on the methods to implement and enforce the Maintenance Standards. Our Consumer Protection and Safety Division (CPSD) also filed comments describing how it proposes to enforce the Maintenance Standards. Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) John E. Thorson then conducted a workshop affording the parties and CPSD an opportunity to respond to questions raised by the comments and replies. The ALJ also provided the parties an additional opportunity to describe how the Maintenance Standards could be enforced cooperatively with CAISO, utilizing that entity's FERC tariff.

The parties were also provided opportunities to file comments and replies on the implementation and enforcement of the General Duty Standards and the Thermal Logbook Standards. The proposed GO, specifying how the General duty standards, Maintenance Standards, and outage coordination protocol would be enforced, was distributed in draft form pursuant to an ALJ Ruling dated October 2, 2003; and the participants filed an additional round of comments and replies.