VIII. Hours and Expenses Claimed

TURN documented its claimed hours by presenting a daily breakdown of the hours accompanied by a brief description of each activity. The records reasonably support the claim for total hours.

Attorney Florio is TURN's co-director for energy policy and senior attorney. An hourly rate of $385 is being requested for work he performed in 2002 and 2003. We find this rate reasonable as we previously approved this same rate for the same years in D.02-09-040 (2002) and D.03-08-009 (2003).

For Attorney Freedman, hourly rates of $200 for work performed in 2002 and $250 for 2003 are requested. We previously approved the $200 rate for Freedman for 2002 in D.03-04-011, and find that rate reasonable here. For 2003, we find a rate of $225 reasonable for Freedman. For its intervenor contributions in another proceeding (R.02-01-011; electricity direct access and cost responsibility surcharges), TURN similarly requested a $250 rate for Freedman for 2003. In D.04-02-017 (the compensation award in the direct access proceeding), we found the $250 rate to be excessive in relation to Freedman's experience as compared to other attorneys with similar backgrounds and reduced the hourly rate to $225. Based on this prior decision, the rate for Freedman in this proceeding is also reduced to $225. The total award for Freedman for 2003 will be reduced to $79,650 (354 hours x $225), and the amount for preparing the compensation request by Freedman reduced to $1,884.38 (16.75 hours x $112.50).

TURN engaged the consulting firm JBS Energy, Inc. (JBS) for this proceeding. William Marcus, JBS Principal Economist, was TURN's primary expert policy witness during hearing. Marcus supervises five other economists at JBS and has been directly involved in energy policy and utility regulation issues for more than 20 years. The hourly rate requested for Marcus is $175 for work performed in 2002 and $185 for 2003. In D.04-02-017, we approved these same rates for Marcus for the same years and we find these rates reasonable here.

TURN is requesting $1,829.55 for photocopying expenses. A detailed accounting of the documents copied, number of pages (at five cents per page) and parties served is included in the appendix to its request. The appendix also accurately shows the total for photocopying as $1,929.55. We will increase the request for photocopying expenses by $100 due to this inadvertent error. Considering the approximate 40,000 documents copied and number of parties served, we find the photocopying costs to be reasonable.

The total requested travel expenses of $542.10 (for Florio, Freedman, and Marcus) are reasonable as each attended several meetings and other events related to this proceeding. The requested business expenses of $330.62 for telephone, fax, postage and related items are also reasonable.

After making the described decreases for the 2003 hourly rates for Freedman and the increase for photocopying expenses, the total adjusted award for TURN is $119,571.40.