VII. Discovery

Pacific requests an order limiting discovery while parties are focused on preparing their cost filings. We will not adopt a formal limitation on discovery at this time, because after discussion with the parties at the PHC, we have been assured they will use their best judgment to voluntarily limit discovery to issues needed to develop their cost filings, and because there may be some requests not related to the preparation of cost filings that may not be that onerous for Pacific. We strongly encourage parties to attempt to limit discovery to information needed for cost model development, but this does not mean that Pacific does not have to comply with other reasonable requests. If Pacific believes that requests are not reasonable given its attempts to complete its cost filing by the dates in this ruling, it may request the assigned ALJ to handle any resulting discovery disputes on a case-by-case basis.

We remind parties of the discovery response schedule that we set forth at a prehearing conference on July 9, 2001. At that PHC, ALJ Duda established a one-week deadline for a responding party to indicate to a party seeking discovery whether it would have objections to a given discovery request and whether it would provide responsive data. ALJ Duda set a two-week deadline for actually providing responsive data, but noted that individual cases may vary. (PHC Transcript, 7/9/01, at 57-58). We expect parties to give their best efforts to live within these deadlines before bringing discovery motions to the ALJ.