The TURN Dedicated Rate Component Proposal
TURN, supported by CLECA and CCSF, recommends that the Commission approve the PSA modified to substitute the issuance of $2.03 billion in energy recovery bonds (ERBs) secured by a dedicated rate component (DRC) in lieu of the regulatory asset.
TURN claims that this alternate financing structure will achieve all of the goals of the PSA, including restoring PG&E to creditworthy status, within the overall time frame contemplated by the PSA, at a cost to ratepayers significantly less than the cost of the PSA, by as much as $2.8 billion (TURN/Florio, Ex. 141). The savings result from a procedure for raising cash that does not have to be grossed up for taxes and can be issued at a lower interest rate. The TURN modification is a securitization of a future stream of revenues. California used such securitized financing for the rate reduction bonds (RRBs) which were issued by PG&E and the other California utilities in 1997 in conjunction with electric restructuring.
TURN explains its proposal as follows: In a securitization, steps are taken to legally separate the underlying assets (here the right to future cash flows to be collected from the utility's customers through a DRC) from the originating company. The assets are sold to a "special purpose entity" through a "true sale" to ensure that the assets would not become part of the estate of the originating company for bankruptcy purposes. Thus, PG&E would sell the right to receive the DRC to a special purpose entity. That entity in turn would sell a note to a trust. The trust would then issue bonds secured by the proceeds of the note, which itself would be secured by the right to the DRC owned by the special purpose entity.
TURN proposes that the ERBs be structured in the same manner as the AAA-rated RRBs. The ERBs would be paid within nine years, but with a stated maturity of eleven years. The actual legal maturity is one to two years beyond the estimated bond redemption date to cover the risk that energy use deviates from projections at the time of issuance. A revenue requirement consisting of principal, interest, servicing fees, and a small overcollateralization component would be included as a separate component of utility rates. As was the case for the RRBs, a true-up mechanism would reduce the tariff if overcollections exceed 5% of projected revenue requirements, while the tariff would be increased if customer demand is less than projected.
PG&E would receive the proceeds from the sale of the bonds as cash up front. So long as the transaction is structured so that the proceeds are considered to be "debt" under IRS definitions, taxes are not due on the proceeds of the bonds. Instead, PG&E would owe taxes over time as service is actually provided and tariff revenue is received. To account for taxes, the $1.2 billion which TURN proposes that ratepayers contribute to PG&E, is grossed-up by $825 million. ERBs would be issued in the amount of $2.03 billion.
In order for ERBs to be freely marketable, they will need a credit rating from at least one nationally recognized rating agency. The rating agencies assign a credit rating related to the likelihood that the issuer will be able to pay full principal and interest on the rated security in a timely manner in accordance with the terms of the security.
The tariff revenue requirement recovery mechanism must be irrevocable, prohibiting the Commission or any other governmental agency from rescinding, altering, or amending the tariff or transition property in any way that would reduce or impair its value. The bond recovery tariff must be nonbypassable by utility customers. The tariff is usually assessed as a distribution charge applicable to the monopoly utility service. Therefore, regardless of who generates the energy delivered to the customer, the tariff charge will be collected. The transaction must be structured so that bondholders are protected from interruption or impairment of cash flow in the event of a utility bankruptcy, usually accomplished by a "true sale" to a bankruptcy-remote special purpose entity, along with other steps to ensure that in a future utility bankruptcy, the special purpose entity would not be substantively consolidated with the transferor. Finally, the rating agencies will assess qualitative factors including the legal and regulatory framework, political environment, transaction structure, the utility as servicer of the debt, regional economic factors, and cash flow.
TURN asserts that the Commission has the legal authority to establish the right of utilities to future revenues, and to establish transferable rights to such future revenues. The California Supreme Court very recently noted the broad constitutional and statutory authority of the Commission and described it as "far-reaching." (Southern California Edison Co. v. Peevey, supra, 31 Cal.4th 781.) The Court also noted that the Commission's authority "has been liberally construed" in past judicial decisions.
PG&E counters with the argument that TURN's proposal suffers from three fundamental flaws: (1) it will not work; (2) even if it could work, it would delay PG&E's emergence from Chapter 11 to such an extent that the interest-rate risk alone would swallow the claimed savings; and (3) even if it could work, it achieves most of its savings by shifting the payment of income taxes from customers to PG&E in violation of normal ratemaking principles.
A witness for PG&E testified that absent authorizing legislation, a rating agency could not see a short cut way to create a property right in future tariff collections that would be irrevocable and could not be changed by the legislature or other governmental body unless adequate compensation had been made to safeguard bondholder rights. Moreover, the structure would have to shield investors from the potential bankruptcy of the underlying utility by providing for an absolute transfer (or true sale) of the future tariff collections away from the utility to a special purpose vehicle or trust. Finally, the tariff surcharge would have to be nonbypassable to minimize the potential that future collections could decline.
The Commission cannot provide the essential elements of a securitization financing that relies on a "true sale" to a special purpose entity. An essential element of any rate securitization is the creation of a property right in future revenues. Future utility rate collections are normally an expectancy, not amounting to a present property right. For that expectancy to be turned into a property right, the utility must provide service to customers. Only when the service is provided does the utility have a right to payment. In the case of the RRBs, the Legislature bridged this gap by enacting a statute that created an enforceable property right in the future rate collection. (Pub. Util. Code § 843(c) ("Transition property shall constitute property for all purposes, including for contracts securing rate reduction bonds, whether or not the revenues and proceeds arising with respect thereto have accrued").) In addition, the legislation specifically made Pub. Util. Code section 1708 inapplicable to a RRB financing order.57 Pub. Util. Code section 841(c).
The PSA, with its long regulatory asset amortization period, attempted to finesse this issue by supplying a federal court judgement with court enforcement procedures against the Commission to supply a requisite degree of firmness to support a massive securities issuance. There is no reason in principle why the same legal construct - PUC order/federal court judgment and enforcement against the Commission - could not be utilized to support a DRC. However, the construct is novel and therefore legally risky, both for the DRC and for the regulatory asset. As explained above, the MSA's shortening of the amortization period reduces the risk of non-recovery of the regulatory asset, and limits the possibility of intrusion by the federal court. Further, the bonds to be issued pursuant to the Settlement Plan can, and probably will, be secured by a mortgage indenture on PG&E's property, while the ERBs would be secured only by the note which is ultimately tied only to the DRC rate revenue stream.
Potential lenders in the securitization are expected to require legislation to provide assurance that the bonds will have the protections that TURN envisions this Commission can provide. We need not analyze all PG&E's points as we are of the opinion that the sale of bonds pursuant to TURN's proposed securitization financing cannot be achieved without legislation. TURN's proposal is that the Commission should reject the regulatory asset in favor of a securitization financing of a type that has never been done before without legislation. TURN's own witness acknowledges that every utility securitization financing done to date has been pursuant to express enabling legislation. (Ex. 143, p. 23, TURN/McDonald.)
