Background and Procedural History

The Commission opened this Order Instituting Investigation (OII) following the conclusion of independent investigations into the December 20, 2003 fire at PG&E's Mission Substation by CPSD and by PG&E. Both investigations into the 2003 fire also reviewed the causes of a 1996 fire at Mission Substation. On March 26, 2005, nine days after this OII issued, a third fire broke out at Mission Substation.

The assigned administrative law judge (ALJ) held a prehearing conference (PHC) in this proceeding on April 11, 2005 and the Assigned Commissioners' scoping memo issued on April 19. Among other things, the scoping memo identified the issues for hearing and set a schedule for this proceeding. By ruling on May 17, the ALJ authorized CCSF to intervene in this proceeding and amended the schedule to accommodate CCSF's participation. The ALJ held a second PHC on June 30.

Though the schedule provided for evidentiary hearing to commence on September 7, at the parties' request the ALJ continued the hearing to permit the parties to pursue settlement discussions. By Joint Motion filed October 18, 2005, as amended by the Supplement to Joint Motion filed October 19, the parties now ask for approval of their Settlement Agreement, which resolves all disputed issues between them. The Settlement Agreement, Exhibit (Ex.) A to the Joint Motion, includes two appendices. A second Supplement to Joint Motion, filed November 15, 2005, contains Appendix B to the Settlement Agreement, which was omitted from the filed copy (though it was included with the copy served by electronic mail). We have appended the Settlement Agreement to this opinion as Attachment A.¹

Confidentiality issues pertaining to select portions of Ex. 1 offered in evidence as part of CPSD's prepared testimony, and Ex. 100 and 101, offered in evidence as part of PG&E's prepared testimony, were resolved by ALJ ruling on November 15, 2005.

¹ We have appended the Settlement Agreement without the two appendices, which we briefly describe here. Appendix A is a revised (redlined) version of PG&E's Mission Substation March 26, 2005 Event Report. The redlined version, revised as of October 18, 2005, corrects the event report to clarify that:

This report is intended only to address issues associated with PG&E's equipment and operations. This report is not intended to offer any judgment regarding the efforts of the San Francisco Fire Department (SFFD) in responding to the fire, other than to comment the SFFD for an outstanding job in responding to the event. (Settlement Agreement, Ex. A.)

Appendix B is a list of all prepared testimony and other documents which the parties stipulate should be marked for identification and received in evidence in this proceeding.