2. Background - Procedural History
On September 2, 2004, the Commission issued this Order Instituting Rulemaking (OIR) and directed that it be mailed to all investor-owned water and sewer service utilities under its jurisdiction, as well as DHS, the Commission's Office of Ratepayer Advocates (ORA), and the California Water Association (CWA). Attached to the OIR were DHS's Draft "General and Specific Criteria for Proposition 50 Funding" and its "Grant Opportunities for Small Water Systems," as well as the Commission's questions for respondent utilities and proposed rules to govern the proceeds for any government grant funds received by investor-owned utilities.
The OIR required all Class A and Class B water utilities (utilities with over 2,000 service connections) and ORA to respond to the questions and proposed rules by October 4, 2004. At the request of Park Water Company (Park), the Commission's Executive Director granted an extension of time until October 18, 2004 to file opening comments. Parties filing opening comments are CWA (which represents many of the regulated water utilities in California), Park, Del Oro Water Co., Inc. (Del Oro), and Fruitridge Vista Water Company (Fruitridge).
At the request of ORA and CWA, the assigned Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), by ruling dated October 26, 2004, granted two rounds of reply comments, due on November 1, 2004, and November 12, 2004. Parties filing the first round of reply comments are ORA and Southern California Water (SoCalWater). Parties filing the second round of reply comments are CWA and Park.
Pursuant to Rule 6(a)(3) of the Commission's Rules of Practice and Procedure, the Assigned Commissioner's Scoping Memo and Ruling (March 21, 2005) determined the category of this proceeding to be "quasi-legislative" as the term is defined in Rule 5(d), narrowed the scope of the issues to focus solely on Proposition 50 grants to investor-owned water utilities, determined that hearings are not needed, and set a procedural schedule. In addition, the Assigned Commissioner ruled that all water utilities, including Classes A, B, C, and D, that had applied to the DHS for Proposition 50 grant funds were required to provide the information requested in Appendix A of the Scoping Memo by April 22, 2005. Responses were received from all Class A water utilities, while only a few Class B, C, and D water utilities that had applied for Proposition 50 funds responded; the Director of the Commission's Water Division mailed a letter to those utilities that had not responded on May 3, 2005, requesting compliance with the Scoping Memo ruling by May 16, 2005.
By ACR on January 26, 2006, the scope of the decision was expanded to adopt rules for all future state grant funds received by all classes of regulated water utilities. This change is within the scope of the rulemaking and advances the objectives of our Water Action Plan adopted December 15, 2005. The change is made in response to the numerous new bond measures recently proposed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger under his infrastructure plan and set forth in Assembly and Senate bills, AD 1839 (Laird) and SB 1166 (Aanestad and Machado), Flood Protection and Clean, Safe, Reliable Water Supply Bond and Financing Acts of 2006 and 2010.3
3 All parties were given notice of this change in a January 26, 2006 ACR and afforded the opportunity to file comments on whether there is a need to further develop the record. The California Water Association (CWA) and Park Water Company (Park) filed comments supporting the change in scope of the March 21, 2005 Scoping Memo and Ruling; no party filed comments objecting to the change.
