V. Shortening the Public Review Period
of the Draft Decision

In order to reach the goal of attaining a target of 20% renewable energy for the State of California, we have committed to the expeditious implementation of SB 1078. In light of the fact that the legislature has found that increasing California's reliance on renewable energy may have significant economic, social, health, and environmental benefits,¹⁵ we find, on our own motion, that the public necessity requires that the 30-day period for public review and comment provided in Public Utilities Code Section 311(g) be reduced so that the utilities can issue RFOs for renewable generation resources in July, 2004. Only by issuing a decision on the least-cost, best-fit evaluation criteria promptly can we effectively facilitate the utilities' attempts to comply with the Annual Procurement Target requirements for this calendar year. In shortening the comment period, we have carefully balanced the public interest in avoiding harm to the public welfare resulting from delay in considering this draft decision against the public interest in having the full 30-day period for review and comment required by Rule 77. We conclude that the former outweighs the latter and that failure to shorten the comment period for this draft decision would cause significant harm to the public welfare. Accordingly, we reduce the comment period for this draft decision. Comments on the draft decision are due at noon on July 2, 2004, and reply comments are due at noon on July 6, 2004.