VII. Conclusions of Law
1. Southwest Gas filed its Reply brief late with good cause and without prejudicing other litigants.
2. The market structure of the gas industry should be reformed cautiously in light of recent energy and gas price rises.
3. The interests of the many stakeholders in the gas industry should be balanced by approving the CS and its appendices in part and disapproving them in part.
4. The CS should be approved, with modifications, because it is in the public interest, reasonable in light of the record as a whole and consistent with law.
5. The core reservation amounts set forth in the CS shall be modified to add the add 15 MMcf/d at Blythe, 13 MMcf/d at Topock, 13 MMcf/d at North Needles, and 3 MMcf/d at North Coastal.
6. The capacity available at each receipt point, as set forth in the CS, shall be modified to reflect the additional 375 MMcf/d of backbone capacity added by SoCalGas since the CS was filed, with the subject capacity to be available when it becomes operational.
7. SoCalGas shall file one or more Advice Letter(s) proposing procedures for allocating future backbone capacity expansions.
8. The just and reasonable price of backbone transmission capacity solo through the secondary market should be no more than 120% of the postage stamp rate of $.017191, the price SoCalGas is allowed to charge for interruptible capacity.
9. SoCalGas should file tariffs as part of the implementation of this decision.
10. In order to deter any question of the applicability of this decision if any of the parties to the CS no longer support the CS with the modifications we make, this decision should be viewed as a decision on the record made in R.98-01-011 and I.99-07-015 and officially noticed facts, as well as an approval of the settlement as modified.
11. The provisions in this decision and the CS regarding core aggregation programs do not substantially change the existing core aggregation program so as to exclude core aggregators from providing billing to their customers.
12. SoCalGas should withdraw Advice Letter No. 2837 and file instead a tariff embodying the CS provisions we are approving.
13. SoCalGas' Advice Letter No. 2895 and SDG&E's Advice No. 1185-G should be rejected. The protests of SCGC, CIG/CMA, TURN, Aglet and ORA should be granted.
14. Because Advice Letter No. 2895 is rejected, within 10 business days from the effective date of this decision, SoCalGas should file a new advice letter to implement a gas industry restructuring memorandum account with the restricted purpose of implementing the CS. This advice letter should not include the provisions disapproved in Advice Letter No. 2895 as discussed in this decision. The costs booked should be limited to those beginning on the effective date of this decision. The booked costs should be subject to review for their reasonableness, their duplicativeness and their incremental nature in the next BCAP.
15. As of the effective date of the tariffs arising out of this decision, the core should stop contributing to the noncore ITCS, and the noncore should pay all the noncore ITCS.
16. SoCalGas should unbundle its core interstate transportation capacity at its charged rate, with no change in the brokerage fee of $.0201/Dth.
17. The stranded costs from the unbundled core interstate transportation capacity should be paid by the core and noncore classes equally, through the end of the terms of the El Paso and Transwestern pipeline contracts.
18. For noncore customers, these costs shall be collected as an ECPT surcharge on all noncore throughput.
19. For core customers, these costs should be collected as follows: For the core's 50% share of the stranded costs associated with the first 7% of the core's total allocated capacity that is released, costs should be recovered on an ECPT basis from all core customers.
20. For core customers' 50% share of the stranded costs above 7%, the costs should be allocated to residential and non-residential customers proportionate to
participation in the CAT program. Within the residential and non-residential classes, these costs should be allocated on an ECPT basis.
21. Bundled core customers should not be responsible overall for core ITCS that exceed more than 10% of the costs of the bundled core allocation of interstate pipeline reservation costs (not including the core ITCS allocation).
22. SoCalGas should file a rate adjustment advice letter regarding core and noncore ITCS and related matters within 15 calendar days from the effective date of this decision. The revised rates should become effective within 45 days of the effective date of this decision.
23. That portion of Commission Resolution G-3304 which suspends transfers from noncore service to core service should be rescinded as of the effective date of this decision.
24. The revenues from those core subscription customers switching to core status should be recorded in the CFCA.
25. The minimum size requirement for a CTA program should be reduced from 250,000 therms per year to 120,000 therms per year, with no cap on the core market share participating.
26. SoCalGas should post on its GasSelect system operating information as extensive as that required of PG&E and including post-OFO data by customer class sufficient to allow readers to understand why an OFO was called.
27. SoCalGas and SDG&E should work with customers and/or ESPs to provide customer-specific information like consumption data in consistent formats across different contexts, consistent with consumer protection and privacy considerations. Customers and/or ESPs should pay the reasonable costs of any requests for such information.
28. SoCalGas and SDG&E should be authorized to file applications for rate changes based on needed expenditures to cope with customer transfers to core aggregators when transfers exceed 8% of total core volume has switched from utility procurement to core aggregator procurement. An application or BCAP proposal for a rate increase to fund, in conjunction with ESPs, necessary computer hardware, software, training and education efforts at that point should closely match customer needs instead of being well in advance of such needs.
29. SoCalGas should file a tariff in conjunction with its next BCAP to afford an opportunity to review the costs and need for utility consolidated billing service.
30. SDG&E should file a tariff along the lines of Advice No. 2950 so that utility consolidated billing for gas-only procurers is a possibility for SDG&E customers as well.
31. SoCalGas and SDG&E should provide billing credits to the customers of ESPs and CTAs if the ESPs and CTAs agree to indemnify the utilities for all direct and consequential damages and liability associated with the ESP's or CTA's modification of, or failure to provide a customer with, any utility-provided bill insert.
32. The Energy Division should first deal with any disputes concerning the content of a utility-provided insert. This process may lead to a recommendation for a resolution, with other offices of the Commission participating as parties.
33. SoCalGas should provide billing credits to ESPs and CTAs of $0.78 for each residential bill and $1.16 for each non-residential bill until another value is reached through agreement or litigation.
34. SDG&E should provide billing credits to ESPs and CTAs of $0.05 for each residential bill and $0.16 for each non-residential bill related to utility cost savings in the area of uncollectible expenses, until another value is reached through agreement or litigation.
35. SoCalGas and SDG&E should update the avoided costs of billing and uncollectibles based on more current data and include those values and any agreement on the appropriate level of billing credit in a separate filing.
36. SoCalGas and SDG&E may cease sending an ESP or CTA customer an information-only bill if that customers' CTA or ESP provides consolidated billing and agrees to provide monthly SoCalGas or SDG&E transportation charges and rate data, along with the requisite bill inserts and customer protection materials, in each end-user bill.
37. The costs of unbundling interstate transportation capacity and the retail reforms should be paid by the utilities until the next PBR or rate case.
38. Kern River's request to modify Appendix B to the CS to state that new interconnections that do not degrade existing capacity should have primary access rights is denied.
39. SoCalGas and SDG&E should file one or more compliance advice letters to implement this decision within 15 business days from the effective date of this decision unless another provision of our order allows longer for a specific matter. The new and revised tariffs should be effective unless rejected by the Energy Division within 30 days after their filing.
40. The compliance filing should specify implementation schedules, compliance monitoring, cost responsibility, and enforcement measures.
41. The proposed decision herein should be our draft report to the Legislature. The final decision should be our final report.
42. The Commission should open a rulemaking to adopt consumer protection rules consistent with our 1999 consumer protection proposed legislation.
43. This proceeding should be closed.
44. This order should be effective today, so that the restructuring provisions found in the settlement and adopted by us with modifications may be implemented expeditiously.
IT IS ORDERED that:
1. The motion of Southwest Gas Corporation to allow the late filing of its Reply Brief is granted.
2. The Joint Motion for Approval of Comprehensive Gas OII Settlement for Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) Company and San Diego Gas and Electric Company (SDG&E), filed April 17, 2000, with technical amendments filed on April 28, 2000, is granted in part and denied in part.
3. The provisions regarding core aggregation programs shall not be construed as substantially changing the existing core aggregation program so as to exclude core aggregators from providing billing to their customers.
4. SoCalGas shall withdraw Advice Letter No. 2837 and file instead a tariff embodying the CS provisions we are approving.
5. SoCalGas' Advice Letter No. 2895 and San Diego Gas & Electric Company's (SDG&E) Advice Letter No. 1185-G are rejected.
6. Because Advice Letter No. 2895 is rejected, within 10 business days from the effective date of this decision, SoCalGas shall file a new advice letter to implement a gas industry restructuring memorandum account. This advice letter shall not include the provisions disapproved in Advice Letter No. 2895 in this decision. The costs booked shall be limited to those beginning on the effective date of this decision. The booked costs shall be subject to review for their reasonableness, their duplicativeness and their incremental nature in the next BCAP.
7. The costs of unbundling core interstate transportation capacity and the retail reforms shall be paid by the utilities until the next PBR or rate case.
8. As of the effective date of the tariffs arising out of this decision, the core shall stop contributing to the noncore interstate transition cost surcharges (ITCS), and the noncore shall pay all the noncore ITCS.
9. SoCalGas shall unbundle its core interstate transportation capacity at its charged rate, with no change in the brokerage fee of $.0201/Dth.
10. The stranded costs from the unbundled core interstate transportation capacity shall be paid by the core and noncore classes equally, through the end of the terms of the El Paso and Transwestern pipeline contracts.
11. For noncore customers, these costs shall be collected as an equal-cents-per therm (ECPT) surcharge on all noncore throughput.
12. For core customers, these costs shall be collected as follows: For the core's 50% share of the stranded costs associated with the first 7% of the core's total allocated capacity that is released, costs shall be recovered on an ECPT basis from all core customers.
13. For core customers' 50% share of the stranded costs above 7%, the costs shall be allocated to residential and non-residential customers proportionate to participation in the core aggregation transportation (CAT) program. Within the residential and non-residential classes, these costs shall be allocated on an ECPT basis.
14. Bundled core customers shall not be responsible overall for core ITCS that exceed more than 10% of the costs of the bundled core allocation of interstate pipeline reservation costs (not including the core ITCS allocation).
15. SoCalGas shall file a rate adjustment advice letter regarding core and noncore ITCS and related matters within 15 calendar days from the effective date of this decision. The revised rates will become effective within 45 days of the effective date of this decision.
16. No core subscription contracts shall be let by either SoCalGas or SDG&E after the effective date of this decision.
17. The revenues from those core subscription customers switching to core status shall be recorded in the Core Fixed Cost Account.
18. The minimum size requirement for a core transport agent (CTA) program shall be reduced from 250,000 therms per year to 120,000 therms per year, with no cap on the core market share participating for both SoCalGas and SDG&E.
19. SoCalGas shall post on its GasSelect system operating information as extensive as that required of Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and including post- operational flow order (OFO) data by customer class sufficient to allow readers to understand why an OFO was called.
20. SoCalGas and SDG&E shall work with customers and/or energy service providers (ESPs) to provide customer-specific information like consumption data in consistent formats across different contexts, consistent with consumer protection and privacy considerations. Customers and/or ESPs shall pay the reasonable costs of any requests for such information.
21. SoCalGas and SDG&E may file applications for rate changes based on needed expenditures to cope with customer transfers to core aggregators when 8% of total core volume has switched from utility procurement to core aggregator procurement. Such applications shall include provision for ESP or CTA contribution.
22. SDG&E shall file a tariff along the lines of Advice No. 2950 so that utility consolidated billing for gas only procurers is a possibility for SDG&E customers as well.
23. SoCalGas, and SDG&E shall provide billing credits to the customers of ESPs and CTAs if the ESPs and CTAs agree to indemnify the utilities for all direct and consequential damages and liability associated with the ESP's or CTA's modification of, or failure to provide a customer with, any utility-provided bill insert.
24. SoCalGas shall provide billing credits to ESPs and CTAs of $0.78 for each residential bill and $1.16 for each non-residential bill until another value is reached through agreement or litigation.
25. SDG&E shall provide billing credits to ESPs and CTAs of $0.05 for each residential bill and $0.16 for each non-residential bill related to utility cost savings in the area of uncollectible expenses, until another value is reached through agreement or litigation.
26. SoCalGas and SDG&E shall update the avoided costs of billing and uncollectibles based on more current data and include those values and any agreement on the appropriate level of billing credit in a separate filing.
27. SoCalGas and SDG&E may cease sending an ESP or CTA customer an information-only bill if that customers' CTA or ESP provides consolidated billing and agrees to provide monthly SoCalGas or SDG&E transportation charges and rate data, along with the requisite bill inserts and customer protection materials, in each end-user bill.
28. The Commission, through its Energy Division, shall undertake to resolve any disputes concerning the content of a utility-provided bill insert. Any other division of the Commission may participate as necessary.
29. SoCalGas and SDG&E shall file advice letters to implement this decision within 15 business days from the effective date of this decision except for those provisions of this decision for which we have explicitly ordered that more time can be taken.
30. The advice letters shall specify compliance monitoring, cost responsibility, and enforcement measures.
31. This proceeding is closed.
This order is effective today.
Dated December 11, 2001, at San Francisco, California.
HENRY M. DUQUE
RICHARD A. BILAS
GEOFFREY F. BROWN
Commissioners
I dissent.
/s/ LORETTA M. LYNCH
President
I will file a written dissent.
/s/ Carl W. Wood
Commissioner
ATTACHMENT A
LIST OF APPEARANCES
Dave` Finigan |
Marc D. Joseph Attorney At Law |
Harold Orndorff |
Kevan Hensman |
James Weil |
Christine H. Jun |
Evelyn Kahl Elsesser |
Edward G. Poole |
Gary Binger |
Catherine E. Yap |
John W. Jimison |
John Burkholder |
Page 2
Matthew Brady |
Jennifer Tachera |
Karen Norene Mills |
Michael Rochman |
Craig Chancellor |
Ronald Davis |
Bernard Palk |
Grant Kolling CITY OF PALO ALTO |
Raveen Maan |
Rufus Hightower |
Tom Beach |
Edward W. O'Neill |
Page 3
Lindsey How-Downing |
Dan L. Carroll |
Joseph M. Paul |
Gregory T. Blue |
Lynn M. Haug |
Andrew J. Skaff |
Darwin Farrar |
Brian Cragg |
James W. Mc Tarnaghan |
Michael B. Day |
Richard H. Counihan |
Patrick L. Gileau |
Page 4
John Steffen |
Steven Kelly |
Mark A. Baldwin |
Norman A. Pedersen |
Mark Moench |
Jose Atilio Hernandez |
Susan E. Brown |
Christopher A. Hilen |
Robert L. Pettinat |
Alvin Chan |
John W. Leslie |
Michael D. McNamara |
Page 5
Ronald G. Oechsler |
Donald D. Dame |
Steve Frank |
Edward V. Kurz |
Alan C. Reid |
John J. Cattermole |
Patrick J. Power |
Tom Bradley 531 ENCINITAS BLVD., SUITE 200 |
Gary Hinners |
Glen Sullivan |
Stefanie Katz |
Douglas Porter |
Page 6
Gloria M. Ing |
Kelvin Yip |
Andrew W. Bettwy |
John C. Walley |
Lyn Hebert |
Keith Mc Crea |
Marcel Hawiger |
Susan Scott |
Gerard Worster |
Brian Dingwall (416) 498-6298 |
Terri M. Dickerson |
Thomas R. Dill |
Page 7
Joe Karp |
Joseph M. Karp |
Paul M. Amirault |
Roger T. Pelote |
Michael J. Thompson |
Ed Yates |
(END OF ATTACHMENT A)
APPENDIX I
Comprehensive Gas OII
Settlement Agreement for
Southern California Gas Company and
San Diego Gas & Electric Company
Note: See CPUC Formal Files for `SoCalGas Pooling' pages.
APPENDIX II
COMPARISON OF COMPREHENSIVE, INTERIM,
AND POST INTERIM SETTLEMENTS
Note: See CPUC Formal Files for pages.
APPENDIX III
LIST OF ACRONYMS
SOCALGAS - Southern California Gas Company
SDG&E - San Diego Gas & Electric Company
IS - Interim Settlement Agreement
PI - Post-Interim Settlement Agreement
CS - Comprehensive Settlement Agreement
PG&E - Pacific Gas and Electric Company
OFO - Operational Flow Order
ITCS - Interstate Transition Cost Surcharges
ALJ - Administrative Law Judge
PGA - Purchased Gas Account
CAT - Core Aggregation Transportation
BCAP - Biennial Cost Allocation Proceeding
NSBA - Noncore Storage Balancing Account
ORA - Office of Ratepayer Advocates
ESP - Energy Service Provider
CTA - Core Transport Agent
GCIM - Gas Cost Incentive Mechanism
ECPT - Equal-Cents-Per-Therm
TURN - The Utility Reform Network
UDC - Utility Distribution Company
GIRMA -Gas Industry Restructuring Memorandum Account
IRMA - Industry Restructuring Memorandum Account
SCGC - Southern California Generation Coalition
MFV - Modified-Fixed Variable
LRMC - Long-Run Marginal Cost
PBR - Performance-Based Ratemaking
NFCA - Noncore Fixed Cost Account
CFCA - Core Fixed Cost Account
DASR - Direct Access Service Request