ALJ/KLK/tcg Mailed 8/23/2004

Decision 04-08-055 August 19, 2004

BEFORE THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Order Instituting Rulemaking on the Commission's Own Motion to Amend General Order 77-K.

Rulemaking 03-08-019 (Filed August 21, 2003)

OPINION ADOPTING GENERAL ORDER 77-L

AND EXPANDING SCOPE OF RULEMAKING

Summary

By this decision we adopt General Order (GO) 77-L, with revised rules for filing utility employee compensation data. GO 77-L supercedes GO 77-K and contains three substantive revisions:

1. Increases the annual employee compensation levels that trigger reporting under the GO to $125,000 for large utilities (those with at least $1 billion annual revenue) and to $85,000 for all other utilities required to report.

2. Exempts certificated Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) and Nondominant Interexchange Carriers (NDIECs) from the provisions of the GO.

3. Allows utilities to file information on employee names as confidential material, subject to Pub. Util. Code § 583, on the condition a redacted version of the report be provided for public inspection.

The joint petition to modify the scope of this rulemaking, filed by Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and the Greenlining Institute/Latino Issues Forum (G/LIF), is granted to the extent of expanding the scope of the rulemaking to receive further comment on the issues of large utilities reporting holding company executive compensation and compensation and bonuses awarded but not paid in the reporting year.