Background

D.00-02-046, our decision in PG&E's TY 1999 GRC, ordered PG&E to file a TY 2002 GRC. The Rate Case Plan would have required PG&E to tender its NOI in the summer of 2000. However, on July 20, 2000, after considering comments on the scope and timing of PG&E's TY 2002 GRC, which comments were submitted in response to a joint ruling by Assigned Commissioner Bilas and Coordinating Commissioner Wood, we issued D.00-07-050. That decision ordered PG&E to tender the NOI for its TY 2002 GRC on May 1, 2001.

PG&E filed a petition for modification of D.00-07-050 on January 25, 2001. In the petition, PG&E requests that it be excused from the May 1, 2001 NOI deadline. PG&E proposes that it be directed to file an alternative to the current schedule or an alternative to the GRC itself. PG&E refers to the uncertainties created by California's energy crisis, including its own possible bankruptcy, as grounds for modifying the current plan for the TY 2002 GRC. The Office of Ratepayer Advocates protested the petition, disposition of which is pending.

On the same day that it filed the petition for modification, PG&E requested that the Executive Director authorize a day-for-day extension of time to tender

the NOI.¹ On February 14, 2001, the Executive Director responded to this request by approving a limited extension of time to August 2, 2001 that would become effective only if the Commission has not acted upon the petition for modification prior to May 1, 2001. The Executive Director denied PG&E's specific request for an extension of time that would take effect only if the Commission acts upon and denies the petition, determining that approval of such an extension should be reserved to the Commission.

On March 5, 2001, PG&E filed a motion requesting that we extend the date by which it must tender the NOI (Extension Motion). PG&E requests that the NOI tender date be extended by the number of days from the filing date of the Extension Motion, March 5, 2001, to the date that the Commission issues a final decision, no longer subject to appeal, on the pending petition for modification of D.00-07-050. The extension would become effective in the event the Commission denies PG&E's petition for modification and orders it to file an NOI. If the Commission grants the petition, PG&E would be directed to file a proposal by the later of May 1, 2001 or 30 days after the issuance of the decision granting the petition.

By ruling dated March 9, 2001, the Administrative Law Judge granted in part a separate motion by PG&E to shorten the time for responses to the Extension Motion, and directed that responses be filed by March 12, 2001. No responses to the Extension Motion were filed. Today we take up the limited question of whether to approve PG&E's uncontested Extension Motion.