VII. Confidentiality Issues

At the February 18, 2003 Prehearing Conference, the Assigned Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) stated one of the objectives for the procurement proceeding's long-term planning process is to ensure that the public and interested parties can meaningfully participate in the proceeding and that the public can understand the basis for our decision. Towards that end, the ALJ outlined a procedural process by which the utilities would make a showing that their filed long-term plans do in fact provide for meaningful public participation. This process culminated with the issuance on April 4, 2003 of a Ruling from ALJs Allen and Walwyn that adopted guidelines governing the scope of information that shall be considered confidential in the utility's long-term plans filings. The April 4 Ruling also found that each utility had sufficiently demonstrated that its long-term procurement plan allows for meaningful public participation.

Since issuance of the April 4 Ruling, parties have continued to voice concern over the amount of information that is shielded from public review. We also recognize that the Legislature, particularly the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee, has taken a strong interest in this subject and has pressed this Commission to expand the amount of utility resource planning and procurement data that is made publicly available. In light of this ongoing concern and in effort to promote the widest possible dialogue on utility planning matters in California, we will again revisit our rules governing the treatment of confidential information in our new Procurement OIR. Our intent is to broaden the scope of information embedded in utility resource plans that can be made public.

We direct parties' attention to the 2003 Integrated Resource Plan of PacifiCorp (the PacifiCorp Plan), which was submitted to the regulatory commissions of the various western states in which it operates: Utah, Oregon, Wyoming, Washington, and Idaho (PacifiCorp also operates in California, but given its limited operations in the state, it is not subject to AB 57 requirements). The PacifiCorp plan provides considerable loads and resource information in its public plan. The extent of information made public in the PacifiCorp Plan appears to exceed the guidelines on confidentiality adopted in the April 4 Ruling and points to the need for parties and the PUC to re-examine the breadth of information that shall be made public in the next round of long-term procurement plan filings.

We hold out the PacifiCorp plan as a possible model of transparency in resource planning and invite parties to comment on the merit of looking to the PacifiCorp Plan as a standard suitable for use by PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E. As part of their comments, parties should specifically address the issue of whether and how California ratepayers could be harmed (e.g., higher procurement costs) as a result of making public the same extent of planning data as is made public in Utah, Oregon, Wyoming, Washington, and Idaho. Would California ratepayers be uniquely disadvantaged relative to ratepayers in other western states with regards to the consequence of expanding the breadth of publicly available planning information? Comments shall be due within 30 days of the effective date of this decision and will be incorporated and made part of the record in our new Procurement OIR once that rulemaking is formally instituted.