II. Background
NCGC's petition requested that the Commission take immediate action on its petition pursuant to Rule 81(f) of the Commission's Rules of Practice and Procedure, or that in the alternative, the normal 30-day period for responses to petitions for modification be shortened to five days pursuant to Rule 47(f). An Administrative Law Judge's ruling was issued on February 16, 2001, which granted NCGC's request to shorten the time to respond to the petition. Interested parties were given until February 20, 2001 to file responses to NCGC's petition.
Joint responses to the petition were filed by the California Industrial Group and the California Manufacturers & Technology Association (collectively referred to as "CIG/CMTA"), and by San Diego Gas & Electric Company and Southern California Gas Company (collectively referred to as the "Sempra utilities"). PG&E also filed a response.
On March 15, 2001, we opened a rulemaking, R.01-03-023, to consider whether gas-fired electric generators should be given a higher priority of service over other noncore gas customers. One of the reasons for opening this rulemaking was NCGC's petition to modify. (See R.01-03-023.) After taking written comments from interested parties,3 we adopted D.01-12-019 on December 11, 2001. In that decision, we declined to grant a priority to electric generators for gas service.4
3 Among those participating in R.01-03-023 was the California Generation Coalition (CGC). The CGC members include all of the NCGC members. (See CGC's April 6, 2001 Comment in R.01-03-023, and footnote 1.) 4 R.01-03-023 was left open to consider whether within the class of electric generators if priorities to allocate gas should occur in the event of a gas curtailment. In particular, the Commission is interested in determining whether the Commission should allocate gas among electric generators based on a generator's heat rate and how the generator's operations affect grid reliability. (D.01-12-019, pp. 18-19, 34-35.)
