III. Settlement Agreement
Under the settlement agreement SCE will receive from DETM a confidential1 settlement amount plus accrued interest. (Application, p. 8.) SCE estimates that it is receiving a certain percent of estimated value of the 10 PPAs. (Application, p. 17.) SCE proposes to distribute these settlement proceeds to ratepayers through the Energy Resource Recovery Account (ERRA) Balancing Account, less escrow and arbitrator fees. SCE further requests that this ERRA credit amount be excluded when calculating ERRA Trigger or Assembly Bill (AB) 57 threshold amounts on a recorded basis, since the amount will be returned to ratepayers during the first regularly scheduled rate change after a final Commission decision in this proceeding.
The settlement agreement provides that, for the settlement agreement to be effective, the Commission must issue a decision that approves the settlement agreement in its entirety and that is final and no longer subject to review. The settlement agreement terminates without Commission approval by February 1, 2007. The Application asserts the settlement agreement is reasonable and should be approved.
DRA filed a protest on June 21, 2006. SCE responded on July 6, 2006. A prehearing conference was held on July 11, 2006. At the prehearing conference, DRA and SCE requested, and were granted, 30 days to discuss the issues raised in DRA's protest and determine whether any outstanding disputes continued to exist. On August 11, 2006, DRA informed the assigned ALJ and SCE that it had reviewed this matter and no disputes existed. DRA agreed that this matter can be submitted on the current record.
1 SCE filed a Motion for a Protective Order on May 10, 2006. The Motion sought to hold designated portions of the Application, Testimony and Appendices under seal pursuant to California Public Utilities Code Section 583 and General Order No. 66-C, and to withhold this information from public inspection. The basis for the Motion is that disclosure of confidential information could cause SCE competitive harm in negotiating settlements of future disputes involving similar issues. At the July 11 prehearing conference, the assigned Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) granted the unopposed Motion regarding the Application. We admit SCE's testimony as Exhibit 1 and grant SCE's Motion to Seal a specified portion of that testimony. We note that none of the material SCE seeks to have sealed is covered by Decision 06-06-066 or the "matrices" accompanying that decision.
