Narrator: Brought to you by Adminmonitor,
Operator: Public utilities, public voting
on this day, Thursday, June 11th, 2020.
Today's call is being recorded.
If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time.
I would now like to turn the call over to President Batjer.
You may begin.
-: Thank you operator and good morning.
We need to establish a quorum,
will the agenda clerk please call the roll.
Clerk: Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Present.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Present.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Present.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Present.
Clerk: President Batjer?
-: Present.
A quorum has now been.
June 11th, 2020, public agenda number 3463 to order.
In March, Governor Gavin Newsom issued a stay at home order
to protect the health and wellbeing of all Californians
and to establish consistency across the state
in order to slow the spread of COVID-19.
As such, we are conducting today's business meeting online
and by remote participation.
This meeting is live streamed on the CPUC's website.
You can view the meeting at www.adminmonitor.com/da/cpuc.
Adminmonitor is one word, A-D-M-I-N-M-O-N-I-T-O-R.
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If you wish to make a public comment,
please dial (800) 857-1917
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Before getting into the business
of today's Commission meeting,
I would like to start this meeting by reflecting
on this moment that our country is experiencing.
Our communities, our nation, have been deeply shaken
by the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Aman Arbery
and countless other black lives before them.
We are coming to the grips with what happened
and with what is now happening.
Their deaths, and the ensuing protests are a reminder that
as a society,
we have failed to address centuries of systematic racism.
The profound pain and suffering that many of our families,
our friends, our colleagues, are experiencing
and have experienced for generations,
have been very much on my mind.
Also on my mind are the inspiring actions
taking place nationwide
and what they have made clear.
This moment calls for sweeping societal changes,
and it calls on each one of us
to examine how we contribute to
and how we are affected by the systematic oppression
of black people.
I have spent many hours in recent days
in reflection on this.
It is not lost on me the privilege of my background
and the power and privilege of my role
as President of the California Public Utilities Commission.
Our country must build from this moment,
and I and others in similar roles,
have a responsibility to meet this moment.
This moment calls for action.
To do anything less would be to continue
to uphold the systems of power
that have oppressed black people for generations.
It is also not lost on me
that this fight for black lives is not new.
And so many have been working tirelessly
for so long for equality and justice.
So many more are just catching up and starting the work.
It has taken too long for too many of us to believe
and say three true words, Black Lives Matter.
As a public agency and as public servants,
I view it as our duty and obligation to support this work
in how we serve and protect people of this state
and in managing this organization.
The Commission has a role ensuring all members
of our society are justly treated
and protected by the entities we regulate.
And we must also embody these objectives
in how we engage with
and make decisions that will impact communities of color.
We also need to ensure these objectives are reflected
in how we manage within the Commission
and how we work with and support our colleagues.
This is all within our reach,
and it is my and the executive leadership
of this agency's obligation to make it happen.
I had an active discussion with my fellow Commissioners
and our executive leadership to begin critical conversations
with our staff and how to deepen our commitment
to diversity and inclusion in our policies and practices.
We have a lot of work to do,
and I am committed to doing that work,
with the people in this agency
and listening to and amplifying the voices of the people
who know better than I, through experiences of racism,
what is needed.
As Governor Newsom recently said,
"We can do more and we can do better."
I make a commitment to the staff of this agency
and to the customers
to whom it is our responsibility to serve.
I will do more and I will do better.
And I hope that we can work together in this effort.
And I expect to be challenged
and held accountable as we do so.
I would like now to turn to my fellow Commissioners.
Liane Randolph, Commissioner Randolph?
-: Thank you, President Batjer.
As we all know, in 1619,
the first enslaved Africans were brought to America
and 400 years of oppression followed,
oppression that ranged from state sanctioned murder,
to destruction of business and livelihoods,
to widespread discrimination in housing,
education, job opportunities, opportunities for healthcare.
Slavery was the original sin of America
and its effects continue today.
Yes, we have made progress,
but that progress has always happened in fits and starts
with major setbacks along the way.
Reconstruction after the Civil War failed
and led to decades of systemic repression
against Black Americans.
The election of the first black president was followed
by the election of the most overtly racist president
in modern times.
I grew up in an extremely patriotic family.
My father joined the Air Force after college
because that was one of the few places where a black man
with a degree in chemistry could build a career.
I was always taught that America has not lived up
to its ideals,
but it has been a country that tries,
that improves, that grows.
I lived my whole life believing
that "the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice,"
as Dr. King said.
Yes, there has always been racism
and it happens every day,
and yes, in a country where in 2016,
the net worth of a typical white family was $171,000,
while the net worth of a typical black family was $17,000.
I recognize that the upward mobility
my family experienced is not available to everyone.
And there were disappointments along the way.
There was Prop 209 in California.
There was the Crime Bill in 1994,
but we always hoped for change.
Maybe that change wouldn't happen immediately after Ferguson
or after the death of Tamir Rice,
but at least there would be pattern
and practice investigations
or individual police departments like Camden
that tried to take a fresh look at how to do policing.
But that hope I felt existed
before an entire television network dedicated itself
to furthering systematic racism,
that was before children are put into cages
and the extensible leader of the free world spoke
about shit-hole countries.
And when the vice president
of the United States felt the need to make a show
of attending, of leave,
attending and then leaving a football game,
just because players took the knee
to recognize that Black Lives Matter.
And we had an attorney general
who ended civil rights enforcement
and at the same time ended any enforcement efforts
against white supremacists.
And the Voting Rights Act was gutted by the Supreme Court.
And it was clear that systematic voter suppression was going
to be a tactic this November.
And I had lost hope that the America that I grew up in
and that I was taught was always improving,
had completely and utterly lost its way.
It's exhausting and demoralizing and frightening.
But these protests have encouraged me
that the better angels of our nature really will prevail,
that there are people who
we have been moved the wrong direction.
Go back.
Enough that they think
that there won't, -: Liane,
I'm sorry, you're cutting in and out.
I apologize for interrupting.
-: Sorry. I'll speak a little louder.
And this time.
Rights Act, if we can,
Marybel: I'm so sorry to interrupt again,
Caller: Good morning,
-: Your power cord, -: Hello.
-: Can you hear me better?
Marybel: We can now.
-: If we tried as much as we can into law and policy now,
as quickly as we can, we can make progress.
We need to act decisively.
That's why the social justice movement
that has been galvanized
by George Floyd's tragic death must translate
into actual policy improvements and tangible results.
As President Batjer said,
I pledge to work with my fellow Commissioners
to do what we can to facilitate change
and use our compassion, our platform,
and our authority.
Taking steps like the disconnections proceeding
that we'll vote on later today,
the affordability proceeding, the tribal land policy,
policies that have been spearheaded by my colleagues
and carry forward in an effort to address inequities
in our system, are policies we need to continue.
And I look forward to working
with my colleagues going forward.
Thank you.
-: Thank you so much
for those powerful words, Commissioner Randolph.
Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Thank you, President Batjer.
And thank you all,
Commissioner Randolph and President Batjer
for those very, very powerful statements
and especially Commissioner Randolph
for the salient point that laws need to change,
laws change morality, behavior, social norms,
and they absolutely need to change
and President Batjer for your strong, decisive,
commitment that you, as the leader of the PUC,
will do things differently going forward.
As many people have said,
we are facing three pandemics at once,
two are new, the coronavirus
and the devastation of the economy,
and the third one, very old,
the pandemic of systematic racism,
that as Commissioner Randolph said,
has endured since slavery.
And perhaps it's the collision of all three at once
in this moment,
but the brutal death of George Floyd had,
has shaken the nation in a way
that we have not seen in decades.
If we're going to use this moment,
to seriously attack the plague of institutionalized racism,
white people must take responsibility
and that does not just mean proclaiming
that Black Lives Matter
or moral support for the movement and marching.
Although those are very, very important steps.
But as President Batjer said,
by recognizing our white privilege for what it is,
speaking out about it, and yes, making personal sacrifices,
if necessary, to eliminate that privilege.
There was an article last week in the paper
that state superintendent, Tony Thurmond,
who is African American,
was stopped by the CHP as he was driving home
from Sacramento and forced to spread his hands
on the dashboard of his car.
This was a stark reminder, yet again,
of the benefits to safety and privilege
that comes with being white in society.
I've never had to fear this type of treatment.
And it brought to mind another instance a few years ago,
when I was on Amtrak with Superintendent Thurman,
who was then in the assembly,
and we were standing and talking, he was in a suit and tie.
I was dressed less formally.
And some rider came up to Assemblyman Thurman
and handed him a ticket,
assuming that he was the conductor.
There's so many countless examples of privilege that I,
and other white people make.
Marybel: Cliff, I'm sorry, you've cut out.
We're not hearing you at all now.
Sorry to interrupt.
-: Okay. Is this better?
Marybel: Yes. Thank you, Cliff.
-: I was saying
that there are so many other countless example of privilege
that I and other white people take for granted every day
and don't even think about,
from not worrying about where to go running,
to whether the bank will deny a loan
because of our race,
to whether a doctor will take our complaints seriously,
whether we'll be profiled in a store
or confused for the help, or whether we'll get shot
if we get pulled over for a traffic violation.
To me, shining a light on white privilege is one thing
that I, and every other white person can do
to start lifting the plague of systemic racism.
As President Batjer said,
we at the Commission are deeply committed to doing our part,
to responding to the current moment
and to digging deeper to do more and better, with our staff,
the rate payers we serve and the public at large.
This time really has to be different.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Thank you, President Batjer,
and thank you to my fellow Commissioners.
I think Commissioner Randolph said it really well that
there is a bit of hope right now.
I'm personally very thankful
for sharing this leadership role with all of you,
like minded, and clarity of the moment.
I think that in and of itself is such a privilege to be able
to take this moment actually affect some change with it.
I was sharing with you a little earlier,
before we got started, that last night,
I was able to watch the assembly floor
where Dr. Shirley Weber led the assembly to,
the assembly passing over to the Senate the ACA 5,
which is hopefully putting on the ballot
this November the repeal of Proposition 209.
In her closing statement
she made a very eloquent statement
about the moment that we're in
and the fact that she did not have
to convince her colleagues that racism is still real today,
that George Floyd did that for her.
And I think this cloak of denial that's been lifted
by these, by, certainly by George,
but all the other cumulative events that just happened
and slapped us in the face of the society
to show us that this is still a reality,
even here in our progressive State of California.
And most definitely here at this prestigious Commission.
I wanted to say to all my colleagues
at the Commission that we, as you said,
President Batjer, and my fellow Commissioners have said
that we're committed
to doing the hard work internally and externally.
I know for myself,
I've taken a moment to reflect these past couple of weeks
and I've realized that, personally,
in these last three years,
I've focused this effort externally.
I've really been working,
as Commissioner Randolph mentioned,
on these policies that we do to improve the lives
of people of color, of black people,
of people in poverty.
I'm glad she mentioned the tribal land policy
that obviously is a recognition, a very small recognition,
of the over 500 years of generational wealth removal
for the Native Americans,
similar to those of African Americans.
So many good policies that we focus on externally
on creating these kind of, just are components
of improving the lives of Californians.
But moving forward,
I want to pledge particularly to all my colleagues
at the PUC that we as a body, as is mentioned already,
will focus on the internal work.
It's perhaps more difficult and more systemic work,
are removing the biases here in our own workplace.
We're committed to providing the tools
to setting specific actions
and to disciplining acts of racism.
I want to thank George, Breonna, Amad
and many others for waking us up,
for giving us their lives so that we as a society can see,
and that we as a nation can say with pride
that Black Lives Matter.
Thank you.
-: Thank you so much, Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Yes. Thank you, President Batjer.
And fellow Commissioners, Black Lives Matter.
I want to start by acknowledging that, (sighs)
(computer notification rings)
that although all of us have been seeing pain,
uncertainty, and disruption.
Some people, especially (coughs),
the black staff in the CPUC community have been viewing it
more than others.
The killing of George Floyd
by the hands of the Minneapolis Police,
Breonna Taylor by the Louisville Police,
Stephon Clark by the Sacramento Police,
our CPUC's very own Zelalem Ewnetu,
an engineer in our safety and enforcement division,
shot and killed by Los Angeles Sheriffs in 2017.
And too many others to mention,
I grieve with you and I continue
and am even more resolved in my commitment to fighting
for a more just nation in their memory.
Black Lives Matter.
As Governor Newsom said,
"Now is not the time to be neutral,
"it's not about picking sides.
"It's about recognizing that the conditions
"that led to this moment cannot persist.
"Racism and systemic injustice."
And so, this is not just a time for acknowledgement
and grieving, it is a time for learning and action
as each of my fellow Commissioners have outlined,
both inside and outside of the CPUC.
I am proud to see the great diversity reflected
among my fellow Commissioners,
but that same diversity is not reflected
among our staff and our upper management.
As we fill our numerous vacancies
and we make decisions on upward mobility,
we have an opportunity to address this.
We need to take decisive actions regarding mentoring,
hiring, and advancement of our black staff members
and our staff of color,
creating clear pipelines for diverse staff within the CPUC,
within our universities,
several universities from other government agencies
and from outside of state service as well.
It is important for us to participate
in the upcoming implicit bias training
and have a clear channel created for staff
to comfortably speak up,
report instances of bias and discrimination
so they can be documented and addressed.
I was sharing with my fellow Commissioners earlier
that I first became a supervisor in state government
in 1984, when affirmative action was in place.
And we had the opportunity
and took the opportunity
to strive for that inclusive and diverse workplace.
And during those times, the 1980s into the 1990s,
there were many white men that believed in me
and supported me and gave me opportunity,
and then came Prop 209 which was devastating,
a terrible, terrible point in our history in California.
And with AC 5, we have an opportunity to correct that.
So in some ways,
as tragic as these past few weeks have been,
they offer an opportunity for us to work together
to tackle these issues of systemic racism
and police brutality, to take them on,
to change our country and the organizations we work in
to live up to our highest ideals.
Thank you. Black Lives Matter.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Shiroma for those moving words.
I want to, again,
thank all of my fellow Commissioners for your deep felt,
thoughtful, remarks and for your camaraderie
and your pledge that we will make things better.
I appreciate that so very much.
Finally, I would like to ask everyone
to please join me in observing eight minutes
and 46 seconds of silence
in honor of the life of George Floyd,
the amount of time a Minnesota police officer kept his knee
on Mr. Floyd's neck,
as he lay unarmed and handcuffed on the street,
gasping for breath until he died.
There was no pulse after six minutes.
Please join me in silence and remembrance.
Thank you all very much (sighs).
I appreciate very much your words and your thoughtfulness.
We'll move on now
to the public comment period of our agenda.
Sound, when your time is up, you will hear a bell sound
when your time is up.
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please dial (800) 857-1917
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please email all one word, votingmeetinghelp@cpuc.ca.gov.
Let me repeat that.
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Please be mindful of the other people waiting in the queue
to provide public comments.
Your cooperation will help us ensure
that everyone gets their turn to share their comments
with the Commissioners.
The CPUC's rules do not allow for parties
in proceedings to speak about open proceedings.
The public can make comments addressing items
on the consent and regular agendas
and including items that are not on the agenda today.
Please note that there will not be a public comment
on any item on the closed session agenda.
With that guidance in mind,
I will welcome today's speakers.
I will now turn to the operator
to open up the public comments telephone line.
Operator?
Operator: Thank you.
The public comment line is now open.
Our first comment comes from Gabriel Goffman
with Democratic Socialists of America.
You may go ahead.
Gabriel: I thank you Commissioners.
I'm calling specifically on the agenda items related
to the emergency powers that PG&E is trying
to have regarding microgrid.
I think this is item number 28.
This item uses diesel fuel, which is, you know,
highly fluent, causes health issues
and releases greenhouse gas emissions,
and should not be used.
Currently we're seeing rapid decline
in the cost of batteries
and battery technology is something
that the state should invest in
and I urge the Commission to reject this,
you know, this proposal.
Also number three, the refinement
to the resource adequacy program.
It is, interference with the rights
of community choice agencies to secure energy,
and gives private companies, PG&E, and Southern Cal, SCE,
they are profit-seeking entities,
they're in competition with customers
and these public, publicly facing,
and publicly advocating groups.
This is a threat to these agencies.
So, I urge to Commission to reject both these things
and to work at, for renewable energy
and locally sourced solutions
that can deal with both forest fires and, you know,
our need for renewable energy
and by, I think by focusing on local renewable energy
microgrid, we can build in, you know,
local jobs and local resiliency.
And we don't, and we won't face these risks.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Gabriel.
Operator, the next speaker, please.
Operator: Thank you, our next speaker is
Patricia Romero-Aguasvivas
with the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano.
You may go ahead.
Patricia: Thank you.
My name is Patricia Romero-Aguasvivas,
I live in Vallejo, California.
I am a community advocate
and volunteer with the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano.
I'm here today to talk about the last year's PSPS,
as well as up and coming PSPS set off for our community.
I experienced the PSPS last year,
I was out of service for over four and a half days.
I was given less than 30 seconds notice
from PG&E of my power being shut off.
Actually, as my power went off,
I got an automated call from PG&E stating that my power had,
was being affected by the PSPS.
I had already done my grocery shopping for the month
and was frantic that I would lose my food.
I searched in my neighborhood for stores to get ice.
However, they were either closed
because they had no power
or the ones that were open, had no ice.
I ended up driving to another city to purchase ice
for my household and my elderly parents' household,
to try to save our food
and insulin that needed to be refrigerated.
Well, the ice melted.
And for the next few days
I ended up losing all of my perishable items.
I am on a fixed income and don't have additional funds
to replace the food that I've purchased for the month.
Without the help of the food bank and food pantries, I was,
I would not have had any food
that needed to be refrigerated.
I also suffer from sleep apnea and rely on my CPAP machine.
I cannot use this machine without the power.
I've looked into getting a generator.
However, I simply cannot afford to get a generator.
I reached out to PG&E to see if I could put a claim in
and was told "No,"
since I wasn't affected by it, by the very first PSPS
and since they had warned me, (laughs)
it was up to me to fend for myself.
I urge the Commission to support the proposed decision
and convince PG&E to realize what they're doing
to the elderly, sick, and poor people.
Thank you. (bell chimes)
-: Thank you, Patricia.
Operator, the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Laura Rosenberger Haider
with Fresnans Against Fracking.
You may go ahead.
Laura: Procurement hurts PCAs.
Are you, you hear this?
All right, all right. -: Yes.
-: I have to unmute here. -: Please continue.
Go ahead, we can hear you.
Laura: Oh, all right, yes.
Central procurement of resource adequacy hurts CCAs.
For fire season resiliency, that could be enough,
also for fire season resiliency,
there could be enough solar,
achieve solar storage and recycled car batteries.
So, we don't need fossil fuels.
Even though I do support micro grids,
fossil fuels do not need to be used as a backup.
Use of fossil fuels promote fracking
in disadvantaged neighborhoods of people,
where people of color live,
fossil fuel emissions harm people of color more
and increase the risk of coronavirus.
There's studies from Colorado University in 2018,
have increased death rate near fracking.
And we're going to bring us all to California.
And also if someone needs to refrigerate something,
a $300 solar batteries, maybe less,
$300 solar battery system
from Harbor Freight could run a refrigerator
with a thermal cooling plate
and basically I think like a cell phone, maybe boil water.
All right.
Please install arc interrupters.
And don't let it depend on,
on receiving the wild fire fund grant.
'Cause there may not be time to get that grant,
but just use some of your funds
and install arc interrupters
and new wires to prevent fire.
The better fire prevention plan is necessary.
All right, thank you.
-: Thank you, Laura.
Operator, the next caller please.
Operator: Our next caller is Nancy Macy
with Environmental Committee for the San Lorenzo Valley.
You may go ahead.
Nancy: Thank you for your inspiring commitment
to Black Lives Matter.
The Valley Women's Club's Environmental Committee
for the San Lorenzo Valley has been committed
to watershed protection
in the Santa Cruz mountains for 43 years.
The wildfire safety division's remarkable examination
produced significant in depth conditions
for PG&E's wildfire mitigation plan.
These hundreds of conditions are a direct indictment
of PG&E, their plan fails to improve safety,
it is expensive and environmentally destructive.
Look at WSD's figure 2.7 A.
A pathetic 5% drop in projected ignitions
by PG&E through 2022?
While Hardening Conductor gives Edison 75%?
The conditions fall crucially short,
allowing only 240 miles of wire hardening is untenable,
with 20,000 miles of unsafe antiquated bare wire
in tiers two and three.
Mandate thousands of miles of steel core,
triple insulated, conductor now.
Computerized circuit protection stops electrocution
and wildfire, it must be mandated, now.
Enhanced vegetation management is unproven, uncontrolled,
extremely expensive and destructive.
It creates wind tunnels
that exacerbate the spread of wildfire.
Restore regular VM now.
The CPUC must set explicit standards and timelines
for PG&E to solve the problems that it created.
Thank you again.
-: Thank you, Nancy.
Operator, the next caller please.
Operator: Our next caller is Al Weinrub
with California Alliance for Community Energy.
You may go ahead.
Al: Thank you.
For those of you who don't know,
the alliance is a statewide organization
of community choice advocates supporting the development
of local renewable energy resources
to address the environmental, economic
and social justice needs of our community.
Two items on today's agenda,
item 28 of the microgrid proceeding
and consent item number three,
continue to see CPUC's reliance on investor owned utilities
like PG&E to address state energy issues.
In both cases,
the proposed decisions undermine and marginalize the role
of community choice energy programs as set out in AB 117
which created the community choice alternative
to the monopoly utilities.
The proposed decision in the micro grid proceeding
countervenes AB 117 by allowing PG&E
to directly sell energy
to community choice agency customers,
it allows for utility owned generation
to the substitute brown power
for community choice procured energy
whenever the utility shuts off power
in a transmission system.
The proposed decision
in the resource adequacy proceeding is less subtle,
it grants central procurement authority
over resource adequacy to invest around utilities,
overriding the procurement's autonomy
of community choice programs.
Even worse, if left in the hands
of an incompetent and criminal PG&E,
a failed and failing corporation,
a responsibility that will only be used to game the system
to undermine community choice programs.
CPUC fight us in favor of an awful utilities,
service Wall Street interests
and against public democratic community choice programs,
sets back the needs of our communities
for a safe, resilient, and equitable energy system.
What we need in California is a new energy system
based on a decentralized energy model
that can serve the needs of our people,
particularly low income people and people of color.
And does not burn out and shut down power
of our most vulnerable communities.
As pointed out by many of you,
we are in a time (bell rings)
requiring sweeping societal changes.
That means we need sweeping changes in the CPUC
and who it is serving.
A former CPUC president has, (bell rings)
as former President Picker has already stated,
the purpose is to protect,
of CPUC is to protect the monopoly utilities.
And so long as you continue in that vein,
you're turning your backs on the issues of racism
and social justice that you espoused
at the beginning of this meeting.
Please turn this around. Thank you.
-: Thank you, Al.
Operator, may we please have the next caller?
Operator: Our next caller is Holly Lofgren
with Second Harvest of Silicon Valley.
You may know, ask, make your comment.
Holly: Hello honorable CPUC
and all attendees of this hearing.
I work at Second Harvest of Silicon Valley,
one of the largest food banks in the nation.
We now serve over half a million people per month
in Santa Clara County and San Mateo County.
These are vulnerable populations with families,
disproportionately people of color,
including many children who are the most at risk
for food insecurity.
I respectfully request that the CPUC recommend
that the food banks be exempt
from the emergency power shut off
during high heat or high wind days
because we are an essential emergency service ourselves.
A power shut off at one of our four main food warehouses
would entail a tremendous loss of stored,
refrigerated and frozen foods.
This would mean an inability for our food bank
to deliver these food stocks to two counties
for several days,
some of whose residents had power shut off themselves
and are without any food.
Please consider these facts.
The value of our perishable inventory
at the end of April was $6,614,000 in Santa Clara County
and $2,700,000 in San Mateo County.
Would PG&E compensate us for the loss
of the perishable food?
In April we provided food to over 500,000 people,
which is an 85% increase
in the number of people served per month since February.
In addition, we distributed a record shattering
11.5 million pounds of food in May,
about twice as much as we ever had previously.
We've had experiences with PDP shutdowns
where our main produce center
on North First Street was supposed
to cut over to generator power.
We can say it was not an effective program for us.
We've since opted out of this program for both our-
Narrator: Your call has been forwarded
to an automated voice messaging system.
(909) 913-2118 is not available.
At the tone, please record your message.
When you've finished recording,
you may hang up or press one for more options.
-: Holly, I apologize to you.
We're having obviously some technical difficulties.
Could I asked the AV folks to check into this?
Albert: President Batjer, I'm checking.
-: Thank you.
Holly you can start over as soon as we're ready to,
to make sure that you're not interrupted again.
Holly: Start from the beginning?
-: Well, we heard probably about halfway through, maybe.
I'm sorry. -: Right after you said that,
excuse me.
I think I heard right after you said
that you recommended that food banks be exempt
from the shutoff. -: From the shutoffs.
It was right after that, right.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Martha: Thank you.
-: I think you can proceed now.
Do we have a clear, are we okay?
Albert?
Do you know if we're okay? -: Yes, President Batjer.
Yes President Batjer, -: Okay.
Albert: The issue's been cleared up.
-: Okay. Thank you.
Holly, please go ahead with your remarks.
I'm, again, sorry that you were interrupted.
Holly: Thank you, ma'am.
We ask to be exempt, a power shut off
at one of our four main warehouses would entail
a tremendous loss of stored,
refrigerated and frozen foods.
This would mean an inability of our food bank
to deliver these food stocks to two counties
for several days,
some of whose residents had power shut off themselves
and are without any food.
Please consider these facts.
The value of our perishable inventory
at the end of April was $6,614,000 in Santa Clara County
and $2,700,000 in San Mateo County.
Would PG&E compensate us for the loss
of the perishable food?
In April, we provided food to over 500,000 people,
which is an 85% increase
in the number of people served per month since February.
In addition, we distributed a record shattering
11.5 million pounds of food in May,
about twice as much as we ever had previously.
We had experiences with the PDP shutdowns
where our main produce center
on North First Street was supposed
to cut over to generator power.
You could say it was not an effective program for us.
We have since opted out of this program
for both our large warehouse on Curtner Avenue
and our large warehouse on North First Street.
Why?
We risked both IT infrastructure
and our perishable goods to do so.
Our staff, both IT and warehouse personnel
and managers are working at absolute maximum output
and we have neither space nor budget to add more equipment
or staff to manage power cut overs to generators,
short of obtaining a new warehouse space
at about $1.50 a square foot
and hiring more IT professionals.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Holly.
Operator, the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Jim King
with Community Action of Napa Valley Food Bank.
You may go ahead.
Jim: Hi, thank you for letting me attend
and make a few comments.
Some of the people that have commented before me
kind of hit on the same themes.
We see the interruptions affecting those
that are most vulnerable, those rural and remote areas,
low income housing, senior housing,
and folks that aren't able to replace their wasted food
due to income or availability,
medical equipment needs, temperature control,
all of this matters.
And to piggyback on the comment made just a few minutes ago,
the food banks are essential services
and when we're shut down and our coolers go down,
the freezers go down and we lose that food.
We're often the first on the line to replace the food
that people have lost.
And if we've lost our food, then where does that come from?
Whether it's generators, power walls,
or some other way of ensuring power,
I would much rather that PG&E make better decisions
but in the meantime,
it would be nice if there were opportunities
to make sure that these essential services
and these people
that are the most vulnerable are taken care of.
COVID has only exposed more susceptibility
and made these populations more vulnerable
and I believe that it is within your purview,
and honestly your responsibility,
to make decisions that protect these populations
and allow essential services to continue their work.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Jim.
Operator, the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Carolyn Jeffries with COPE.
You may go ahead.
Carolyn: Yes. Thank you for the opportunity.
I'll be brief.
I'm a senior citizen.
I'm in the Inland Empire.
And most recently, March of this year,
my utility bill has increased.
It stays at the level from anywhere from $200 to $300.
I'm in a home, but it is zoned as a commercial property.
I just briefly want to say,
I'm not a person that I feel like I'm entitled.
I try to do what is right and what is fair.
So, I will ask,
I will petition that a change be made,
so one, I don't have to worry
about the utility being cut off,
two, I question the pricing because there are times
when I've had to make a choice
between being assured my utilities are not cut off
or buying medication.
In closing, I will ask that you see me not as an object
or another individual but see me as your family member.
Because we are all family, we are all connected,
we are all valuable to one another.
Thank you again for the opportunity
and have an excellent day.
-: Thank you, Carolyn.
Clifford: President Batjer?
-: Yes?
Clifford: President Batjer, could I suggest
that would someone follow up with Ms. Jeffries
-: Yes. -: To put her in touch
with our consumer affairs branch
who could help maybe provide information
about billing options and subsidies and so forth?
-: Yep, we will, we will do that immediately,
we were just dispatching that here as well.
Commissioner Rechtschaffen, thank you for raising it.
So, Carolyn did could hear that.
We will be in contact with you, Carolyn,
to assist you in some more information that should help you.
Carolyn: Thank you so much.
-: Thank you.
Operator the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Chuck Rosell.
And he's a citizen.
You may go ahead.
Again, Chuck Rosell, your line is open.
Chuck: Can you hear me?
-: Now we can.
Chuck: Okay. I'm calling, (laughs) sorry about that.
I'm calling today to express my opposition
to the proposed decision
in both the 1339 track one proceeding
and the resource adequacy proceeding.
These decisions will lead
to a closed access distribution grid
at precisely the time when the opposite should be occurring.
I understand the charter to direct the activities
of the state's electrical corporations,
but it seems ironic that in the 1339 proceeding decision,
you'd create a cumbersome and rather difficult set of rules
regarding utility cooperation with local jurisdictions
in one place and then neglect the concerns
that those same jurisdictions have raised
as parties in another.
Closed access increases cost to consumers,
which is why for opened the transmission grid
over a decade ago.
Nevertheless, the CPUC has supported bypassing open access,
such as CAISO option pricing rules.
Under these rules, the excess costs for bulk power
such as Diablo Canyon should never been allowed
under the PCIA.
A lack of pricing discipline on the part
of the electrical corporations is the leading contributor
to the state's high cost of power.
Rather than financially burdening local consumers
and their CCAs with these higher costs,
the resource adequately central procurement's decision
should support the development of financially healthy
local power expertise,
which is the same as that has been evolving organically
under community choice.
During a moment when the public demands the courage
to accept and not resist change,
there are a number of relatively easy ways
in which the CPUC could ease the transition to change
for a healthy and competitive distribution grid,
making the right choice on the issues I mentioned is one,
supporting an open access distribution system operator
in the OREI would be another
and liberalizing the exceptions allowed
under public utility code 218 B on track two
of the SB 1339 proceeding would absolutely be the best.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
-: Thank you, Chuck.
Operator, the next speaker, please.
Operator: Our next speaker is Jed Holtzman
with 350 Bay Area.
You may go ahead.
Jed: Thank you, Chair Batjer
and Commissioners and facilitators.
Black Lives Matter.
Thank you very much for the nine minutes.
I have to say a couple of minutes of comments
from the public, when you have dozens of contest items
of public business on your agenda
that are tens to hundreds of pages each,
is ludicrous and only performative.
It's completely unlike
every other public agency board Commission
that we deal with in the nine Bay area counties
with comment on specific agenda items.
And it really conveys that you don't actually care
about substantive comment from the public.
If you want to be accountable
to the public you serve and protect, change it,
this is something simple you can do
to de-privilege the attorneys and professionals class
who solely drive what happens here
and to empower a broader lot of the people you represent.
To item number three on your agenda,
your decision on a central procurement
sets up a working group to quote,
"Ensure that gas resources are not selected
"over preferred resources in instances
"in which price differentials are relatively small,"
end quote.
Relatively small is not prioritizing renewable energy
and distributed energy resources.
What are the true economic and central costs
of natural gas over preferred resources
that might include the ER,
much of the damage from natural gas pollution is admitted
directly into overburdened DJ communities,
disproportionately people of color,
or simply externalized onto society and our atmosphere
for free, making its price artificially low.
If CPUC wants to push for racial justice and climate sandy,
and that's not just lip service,
then this decision once more does not show it.
I'm a white guy who spends a lot of my time working
with frontline community groups in the refinery corridor.
And if you think your day tag is connecting you
to the ground,
you have another thing coming, and yes, I have attended.
What I hear all day is that folks in the communities
where these facilities are sited, don't like natural gas,
power plants, petroleum refineries,
and other huge stationary sources emitting deadly PM,
and other toxic pollutants in their communities,
which are disproportionately low income and people of color.
The pollution which kills (bell rings)
thousands of Bay area residents
each year, according to the air distance,
it is truly insane to give more monopoly
or duopoly power over the state
to entities that have been
convicted multiple times (bell rings)
of killing people and which the state has had
to work frantically for the last year to keep
from cratering financially and taking all of us with them.
If PG&E starts fires this season,
how much of a mess is that going to be for the Commission?
Knowing how bad they were on safety
from your own careful survey in which they got a zero
and still approving (bell rings)
their plan and handing them even more power over procurement
and responsibility like this.
I just want to highlight, -: Jed, I'm sorry,
you're, you're, -: I have comments
on number 28 as well that I will not be able
to make because two minutes are insufficient
to talk about in depth policy with you.
Thank you very much.
-: Thank you.
Operator, the next caller, please.
Operator: Next caller is Joy Defenbaugh with a AARP.
You may go ahead.
Joy: Thank you operator and Madam Chair, Commissioners.
My name is Joy Defenbaugh
and I am representing AARP California this morning.
I volunteer with them
as part of their capital response team.
And we're calling about the consent calendar item
on disconnection standards reform
and AARP would like to thank the Commission
and especially Commissioner Guzman Aceves
for the work bringing this reform package forward.
And we thank you for approving it
on the consent calendar this morning.
-: Joy, that item has been moved
to the regular agenda just for your information.
Joy: Oh, okay.
Thank you.
And what number will that be heard as?
-: I believe it is still, (paper shuffles)
Martha: Item eight, Madam President.
Item eight. -: Right, item eight.
Yeah, that, we have not voted on that, Joy, yet
but we will be.
Joy: Okay. Thank you.
-: Thank you.
Operator, may we please have the next caller?
Operator: Our next caller is Jocelyn Del Real with EYCEJ.
Your line is open.
Jocelyn: Commission, my name is Jocelyn Del Real
and I'm with East Yard Community for Environmental Justice.
I would like to speak on, again, the item number eight.
First of all, thank you for uplifting Black Lives Matter.
And I would like to show my support
for the proposed decisions
that will undoubtedly help customers
during this vulnerable time.
However, I believe there's more that you can do.
I speak to you also as a resident from one of the zip codes
that list among one of the top 10
for power disconnections to So Cal Edison.
And I urge you to expand bill assistance programs
to release the burden of utility debt
that can still be difficult
despite a payment plan being in place.
I would like to ask to prohibit disconnections,
to CARE, for CARE customers who are low income.
They should be in the bracket of folks
who you should not disconnect and should be also protected.
I also want that ask you establish bill forgiveness
for those customers actively in danger
of being disconnected,
the data is available to identify
which households are in danger of disconnection.
So, why not do more to ensure your customers
do not fall back into this vicious cycle?
In the proposed decision is also more of a push
for utilities to do outreach and enroll rate payers
into these programs, which is definitely needed.
However, my concerns are is
if folks on the ground are not receiving much information
about existing programs,
what assurances will be in place to make sure
that these communities are reached?
And how are you actively protecting low income customers
at the fringe of disconnection on a daily basis?
I'm asking for community members
I have had to talk a disconnection through,
despite there being an insulin need in their home.
I'm asking for a community member
who has had a debt of up to $2,000 without any proper help
who I now have no connection to
since your power was shut off.
I'm asking for elder,
the elder community members who do not have adequate access
to current modes of information
and community members who pay their bills at grocery stores,
which are not required to inform folks
of what programs they qualify for.
I'm asking for community members who are in danger
of eviction and have to juggle these payments
among everything else.
I urge you to take these needed steps
to address the groups of community members
whose stories are not seen or heard.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Jocelyn.
Operator, the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Ben Schwartz
with Clean Coalition.
You may go ahead.
Ben: Hi, I wanna thank the Commissioners
for the opportunity to comment this morning
and to just start by saying
that one of the biggest things that CPUC can do
to demonstrate support for people of color,
and commenters have mentioned this before me,
is really to focus as much as possible
on renewable and clean energy goals.
A lot of the natural gas and diesel plants
in the state are without a doubt in communities of color
and low income and disadvantaged communities,
they would be the ones that are most served
and most benefited by this transition.
Second, I want to mention
that the wildfire season has already started,
there are multiple fires,
by Camp Pendleton and SDG&E territory.
And I believe there are some in SCE territory as well.
So at this point, it's clear that, you know,
the wildfire season is earlier
and it's getting earlier and earlier and lasting longer.
In SCE's wildfire mitigation plan,
they mentioned that in 2019,
only 2% of customers were affected by a PSPS.
I just want to argue that for SCE,
as well as both of the other utilities,
this needs to be reduced every year.
PSPS should be a last ditch effort
and should not be considered a main method of resilience.
It isn't.
Now the wildfire mitigation plan also demonstrates
that SCE believes that in 2020, the amounts of ignitions
caused by its equipment will go down by 70%.
I just think that the Commission needs to ensure
that this type of claim is backed up
and can be verified and SCE is held accountable.
This is exactly the type of situation
where performance based metrics would be extremely effective
at holding the utilities accountable.
(bell rings) And finally,
all PSPS demonstrates the importance
of creating a standardized value of resilience.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Ben.
Operator, the next caller, please.
Operator: And our last caller is Dalia Serrato
with Sierra Club.
You may go ahead.
Dalia: Hello, my name is Dalia Serrato,
and I was asked to speak on behalf of the Sierra Club
and community organizer, Yassi Kavezade,
with the My Generation Campaign.
It is the opinion of the Sierra Club that these protections
for customers will help vulnerable people during this time,
but they need to be expanded upon,
including expanding bill assistance program
in terms of eligibility and how much customers receive
and COVID measures that protect,
or provide, I'm sorry, immediate relief for customers,
including stopping disconnecting low income customers.
And I understand that the measures already include elders,
infants and people on medical equipment,
but I think that really needs to be emphasized
and also to stop general rate increases for 2020.
After having heard some of the comments,
it's my personal opinion
that renewable resources definitely need to be prioritized.
And I believe the Sierra Club would agree,
but in this time of COVID-19
where people are largely unemployed,
I think immediate actions should be considered
for those of low income
because while renewable resources are definitely
very, very important,
they're not going to happen immediately.
And as the food bank mentioned, they're losing power now.
Yeah, so, thank you very much Commission for your time
and I appreciate you letting me speak.
-: Thank you, Dalia. Appreciate it.
Operator, can you please check to make sure
that no one is either trying to get on the line
or is still on the line to speak?
Operator: And we have two more
in queue right at this moment.
-: Great, thank you.
Did you call,
could you bring the next speaker online please?
Operator: Our next speaker is Joshua Butler
with Lanterman Housing Alliance.
You may go ahead.
Joshua: Thank you.
And thank you to the Commissioners
for your heartfelt statements
at the beginning of the session.
My name is Josh Butler.
I am the executive director
for the Lanterman Housing Alliance.
I am also an SCE customer.
Our alliance is a statewide organization
that builds affordable housing for people with disabilities,
both intellectual and developmental.
The protections that are being proposed are important to me
and have been for a long time.
I have been advocating for these reforms
and I'd like to thank Commissioner Guzman Aceves
for bringing them forward
and continuing to advocate for them.
It is important that these proposals pass.
It is also important that the revision be modified
to include seniors and infants under 12 months.
I especially want to emphasize seniors, as we,
as I heard your comments at the beginning of the session
and I will note that I am biracial.
My father's African American.
My mother is white.
And your comments were very meaningful to me.
I will say that folks that were born before 1964 or 1954,
have not had, so, have not had the rights
to live equally in this country.
And many of those people are now seniors
and have been placed behind the eight ball
for years, decades.
And so, they really need to be included now
because they've been pushed aside too long.
And if we're truly going to address the systemic racism
that you brought up at the beginning of the meeting,
then you need to make sure that seniors are included.
And I thank you very much for bringing this forward
and for allowing me to make my comments today.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Josh.
Operator, the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Izamas Zaccaro
with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice.
You may go ahead.
Izamas: Hi, thank you so much for,
Commissioners for your leadership.
My name is Izamas, I live in Los Angeles
and East Los Angeles in particular
and I want to talk on item number eight.
I know that these protections for customers will help,
you know, vulnerable people during this time.
However, I also think that we need to do more.
I am a low income customer and I live in government housing
and the Commission,
and I think that the Commission should expand
the assistance programs in terms of who is eligible
and how much customers receive,
especially now in the midst of a pandemic,
access to electricity and utilities is a human right
and the PUC should do everything in its power
to ensure that people are not disconnected,
especially households in subsidized housing
and where children under 12 months live and where,
and the Commission should also prohibit disconnection
during extreme weather conditions.
I also think that the Commission should not have
any general rate increases this year
and protect those who are barely able
to afford utility payments.
These modifications are possible and we think
that you can make those changes.
Thank you.
-: Thank you very much.
Operator, are there any other callers on the line?
Operator: And we have two more.
Our next one is Michael Claiborne
with Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability.
You may go ahead.
Michael: Good morning, Commissioners.
Thank you for starting this meeting
with the recognition that Black Lives Matter
and that specific
and transformative policy change must be adopted
and implemented to end systemic racism.
Leadership Council is an environmental
and social justice nonprofit based in Fresno
with offices in Bakersfield and East Coachella.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments
in support of item number eight.
The proposed decision of Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves
on rules and policy changes
to reduce customer disconnection for energy utilities.
We submitted a letter last week
in support of the proposed decision
along with 16 other environmental, environmental justice
and research organizations.
Unfortunately, many of the people we work alongside
in low income households,
disadvantaged communities, and communities of color,
regularly struggle to pay utility bills for energy,
water, and wastewater services.
This leads to difficult decisions and trade offs
between paying for essential services like food,
rent and medical care or energy and water bills.
Disconnection rates are still far too high
in many of the communities we work with.
The proposed decision as revised takes an important step
towards minimizing disconnections,
the policies in the proposed decisions we found thoughtful,
balanced, and in our view,
have a good chance of reducing energy disconnections.
We note that as recognized in the proposed decision,
there is also a need for additional specific actions
to provide relief to families impacted by COVID-19.
The Commission should consider, among other things,
requiring the utilities to waive passed due amounts
incurred during the emergency.
In closing, we urge the Commission
to adopt the proposed decision and quickly move forward
with an additional phase of the subject proceeding
to consider expansion of AMP to all customers,
implementation of percentage of income payment plans
and additional specific customer protections
in response to COVID-19.
We also ask the Commission to evaluate these policies
in the context of reducing water disconnections.
Thank you very much.
-: Thank you, Michael.
Operator, the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Fuchsia Folsom
with Sierra Club.
You may go ahead.
Fuchsia: Hi, Commissioners, thank you very much
for meeting to discuss the very, very important work
that is to aid black lives,
people who are suffering under really extreme
utilities debt burdens.
Back in 2009, I,
during the post-financial crisis, of course,
I worked in West Oakland and East Oakland aiding people
to apply for energy assistance
and to frankly, negotiate debt forgiveness.
It was very, very difficult.
Even during those periods
to negotiate any sort of forgiveness
once the bills were put into, you know,
the collections mode, I watched in tears
as many families were forced to be shut down
and live in the dark,
including people who had young infants and so on,
all of them black.
If you care about black lives,
you will promote debt forgiveness for energy utilities.
It is extremely, extremely important.
And I myself, while enjoying my white privilege here
in rural Carmel Valley, California,
I received some very hefty bills
that I have had to renegotiate with PG&E,
none of it being forgiven.
I received a bill for $250 in one month,
pretty outrageous and really, really difficult,
especially because I had recently lost my job
due to this COVID-19 crisis.
In any case, I urge the Commission
to please, please, please,
put some guidance on PG&E to really do debt forgiveness
for black families and all families that are suffering
under this terrible COVID-19 crisis.
I thank you. (bell rings)
-: Thank you.
Operator, is there another caller, please?
Operator: Yes, our next caller is Yassi Kavezade
with Sierra Club.
You may go ahead.
Yassi: Good morning.
My name is Yassi and I'm a community organizer
with the Sierra Club.
I appreciate the acknowledgement
of black lives this morning.
We must continue to uplift voices
that have been murdered by police.
We must look at ways policing
and public service affects the perpetuation
of racial and economic injustice.
You all are related to that.
Your power leverages your privilege to shape the course
of society with utility essentials we need to live.
Today I'm here to support the proposed decision
agenda item number eight
regarding energy disconnection relief.
The top four zip codes that are prone to the most shut offs
according to the CPUC 2016 disconnection report
are Palmdale, San Bernardino, Riverside and Fontana,
which are all in Inland Valley communities.
We have hotter summers and cooler winters,
and our technologies are often behind the curve
for power efficiency in generating energy.
With our heat comes more work for gas plants to stay on,
which means more emissions at the same time.
These inland communities like mine and Riverside are black,
native and brown lives.
Our communities work tirelessly,
working paycheck to paycheck.
I work with youth volunteers
who work tirelessly paycheck to paycheck
and still face the threat of being shut off
and high arrearages on their bills.
So, this relief is important
and it's in the step in the right direction
during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially,
and we must see more bill forgiveness
on customers who are on the fringe of disconnection,
especially on CARE.
And I'd like to see that be uplifted
in the proposed decision as mentioned,
and medical baseline.
Outside of this proceeding,
it has been brought to my awareness
that Southern California Edison is proposing a rate increase
in its general rate case that's for vote,
by the, for the end of this year.
Please continue to ensure that our shutoff
and rates are going to, going back to the people.
Our energy generated is clean, renewable,
and our monopolized investor owned utilities are working
in the interest of customers, not shareholders.
Thank you for your time and I hope you all have a good day.
-: Thank you, Yassi.
Operator, I understand there are a couple of people trying
to get on the line and are having some difficulty
and our staff is trying to troubleshoot with them.
Do you know whether they're on the line
or are there other callers that are on the line?
Operator: We do have several callers in the queue.
Our next one is Angie Valderez with Sierra Club.
Angie: Hello?
-: Hello. -: Can you?
Yes. Can you hear me?
-: Yes, we can, Angie.
Angie: All right, well, thank you.
Hi, my name is Angie Valderez with the Sierra Club
and I'm calling regarding item eight.
First, I'd like to thank the CPUC
for addressing Black Lives Matter,
but your customers need you more than ever
to show up for the most vulnerable community
in ways they most need
by giving them a damn break during COVID-19.
As if 2020 hasn't brought enough trauma to many folks,
especially low income POC community.
I am asking you to, please,
stop general rate increases for 2020
and utilities shut off.
We have children whose homes are not only a safe haven,
but become a safe space, a school space.
And for elders, whose homes protect them
from the heat waves and COVID-19,
the last thing they need is to have you shut off that line
to their education, to helping them stay home and safe.
So remember this, epidemic has shown us
that no one is really safe from being jobless.
So, this can be you or your loved ones
and let's not,
I'm asking you all, let's not talk about it,
but be about it.
How are you showing up for the most vulnerable community
who's trying to make ends meet?
And during these times can't even do that.
So, please, I ask you to support these communities
by showing, giving them some relief
during these hard times.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Angie.
Operator, the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Scott Murtishaw
with California Solar and Storage Association.
You may go ahead.
-: Scott, are you there?
Scott: Can you hear me?
-: Now we can.
Thank you.
Scott: Can you hear me? Okay, all right.
Yes, thank you for taking the time
to listen to our comments.
We just wanted to comment on item number three,
regarding the central procurement
of resource adequacy resources.
This proposed decision purports to allow CCAs
to receive some benefit from their investments
in local resource adequacy,
through this hybrid procurement framework,
we think that it's unlikely
to produce any meaningful investments by CCAs
in local RA resources.
Under this framework,
the CCAs really have two bad choices.
They can either invest in local RA
and then submit those resources
into a solicitation run by the utility
as a central procurement entity,
and then hope that those resources are accepted
by that solicitation in order to get any value
or any revenue from that investment.
This exposes these potential investments
and local RA to a lot of risks.
The second is to force the CCA
to essentially share the local RA value
with every other LSE in the local resource area.
So, this forces them
to essentially provide a free public good
to every other LSE in the area.
So in other words,
the CCAs looking to make innovative investments
and customer sided and distributed solar
and storage resources
that can provide meaningful local RA would have
to bear the full cost of those investments
while receiving only a fraction of the benefit.
It seems unlikely that CCAs will make these sort
of investments under either option.
And so, I would just urge the Commission
to please reconsider item number three.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Scott.
Operator, the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Ann Harvey
with Local Clean Energy Alliance.
You may go ahead.
Ann: Hi, I'm calling to ask you
to reject the proposed decision on resource adequacy,
R. 17-09-020 on the consent calendar.
In stark contrast to PG&E,
my electricity procurer, East Bay Community Energy,
is governed by local elected officials.
And it's accountable to us through public meetings
and its board of directors
and the community advisory council.
Our local CCA for East Bay Community Energy
can respond to our priorities,
including development of local clean energy resources,
which generate good jobs locally, cleaner air,
less greenhouse gas,
and ultimately lower wildfire service
due to the long transmission lines.
Our CCAs have the legal authority
to procure energy autonomously according to AB 117.
Please do not improperly transfer that authority
to these IOUs that have a history of antagonistic behavior
toward their legitimate competitors,
as well as toward measures to minimize pollution
and global warming.
I also oppose R. 19-09-009
(microphone shuffles)
I cannot tell you how disheartening it is
watching you consistently, unanimously, vote
after hearing many public comments in opposition
to enrich the IOUs
at the expense of democratically established CCAs,
rate payers, the environment-
Operator: Hi, this is the conference operator.
I'll go ahead and join you in the conference.
Did you want to make a comment today?
-: Operator, I think,
Operator: Okay, I'll join you into the conference
and then you can press star one, okay?
-: Operator, I'm sorry, you interrupted Ann,
who was speaking?
Ann: I was just about to finish.
I was just going to ask, when will this end?
And rejecting these two consent calendar items
could be a start.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Ann.
All right, operator, now the next caller?
Operator: And our next caller, one moment.
Is coming through.
And Jennifer Tanner, you may go ahead,
and please provide your organization.
Jennifer: Can you hear me?
-: Yes, we can.
Jennifer: Thank you.
Jennifer Tanner, Indivisible California Green Team.
President Batjer and members of the Commission,
thank you so much for your moving words
on Black Lives Matter.
Those eight minutes of silence reminded us
how long George Floyd laid there,
unable to save his own life.
Thank you for your commitment on this issue.
My comments today are about the approval of conditions
of the PG&E wildfire mitigation plan.
Investor owned utilities should be required
to follow best practices to protect California
from utility caused wildfires.
PG&E should replace the six gauge bare wire
in the 7,000 miles of highest fire risk,
tier two and tier three, in three years for our safety.
By doing a paltry 240 miles a year,
PSPS will be with us forever.
This wire should have been condemned years ago.
PG&E should use triple insulated wires
with steel center able to easily withstand branches falling
on it and use arc interrupters to stop the sparking
before it even hits the ground.
We should put the money in fixing the wires,
not taking down our beautiful California forest
that protects against greenhouse gas emissions.
Make PG&E be better partners with the communities
and help them choose renewable
rather than the gas generators they are choosing
for PSPS events.
PG&E needs to tell people where they're going
so that inspectors can inspect their work.
Operator: Jessica, this is the conference operator.
If you wish to join today's conference,
please dial +1 800-857-1917
and enter the passcode 9899501.
And then once you're in conference and can hear it,
press star one if you would like to make a comment.
-: Operator, I'm sorry, you interrupted Jennifer,
who was speaking.
Can you wait until the speakers are completed
to finish their remarks?
Jennifer, would you like to continue?
Jennifer: Yes, I know where I left off. Thank you.
Help PG&E choose renewable
rather than the gas generators they're choosing
for PSPS events.
PG&E needs to tell people where they're going
so inspectors can inspect their work.
It's easy to get away with anything,
cut any tree they feel like when no one is watching.
What is what they do?
It's an endless, terrible, list that needs CPUC oversight,
which is not there the way it should be.
The CPUC needs to tell PG&E what to do rather than be told.
Thank you very much.
And thank you for allowing us to make these comments.
We really appreciate this opportunity.
-: Thank you.
Operator, now we can take the next caller.
Operator: And one moment while I get that caller's name.
Our next caller is Justice Sandoval.
You may go ahead, provide your organization.
Justice: Hi, I'm just a community member,
a concerned community member,
and I just wanted to speak on agenda eight.
I know that these protections will help customers
during this time,
but I believe that we need to do much more.
So, my story is a lot like the story of those around me,
my friends, my community members,
that my parents worked minimum wage my entire childhood.
So, it was really hard for them to provide
for three children.
And there would be times where utilities were turned off
and we would be left in survival mode.
Even me as a child would be left on survival mode,
wondering what our next meal was going to be
because our stove was off
or where I'm going to take a shower for school
because our water is off.
And it is unacceptable that basic necessities
like utilities can be deprived to someone
because of their income.
So, I am urging you to make better choices,
to have the human experience
in connecting with your customers
and letting them know ahead of time that they're
at risk of being disconnected.
And also, not just disconnecting low income customers,
because like I said,
utilities are basic necessities that everyone deserves,
no matter the income and, you know,
thank you so much for this proposed decision.
And I really look forward to seeing what you do
for our community, and please do not let us down
and thank you.
-: Thank you very much.
Operator, are there any other callers on the line?
Operator: Yes, our next caller is from Bridget Palmer
who is a citizen.
You may go ahead.
Bridget: Hi. I'm from Santa Rosa, California.
And first of all, I just really wanted to say,
it was very touching listening to you guys talk
about George Floyd.
And during that time of silence,
what I really got in touch with was that he had no voice,
nobody cared, nobody was listening to him.
And that is what I feel is going on in my own neighborhood.
We live in a neighborhood
that had very serious fire damage in 2017.
And now PG&E has moved bunch of huge diesel generators
into our neighborhood without telling anyone here
about them coming in,
they're planning to tear up the street and bury some lines.
They just told us, just someone on the street pulled up,
but not any official information to us
that they were going to bury a power line
that that was going to send electricity away from us
to another part of our city.
But those of us that live right here will not get any
of that electricity.
We all have wells.
So, if they shut off the power,
we will, once again, have no electricity,
but we'll have all the smoke from the generators
and the sound.
And we all had to live with the small generators we put in
to survive last time.
Now we're going to have these huge generators
right by our homes.
And we've had absolutely no communication about this.
PG&E did say that they will come and meet with us,
and explain things, now that we're asking questions,
but they should have put it out there in the first place,
telling the community that there was a plan for this,
taking public comment,
taking our quality of life issues into consideration,
and none of that was done.
So, I think a lot more thought needs to go
into this diesel generator program
before millions and millions of dollars are spent on it
on a short term basis.
And I guess that's all I have to say.
Thank you for listening.
-: Thank you, Bridget. Appreciate that.
Next caller, please operator.
Operator: Our next caller is Jessica Tovar
with East Bay Clean Power Alliance.
You may go ahead.
Jessica: Hi, this is Jessica
and I actually wanted to speak out
against these fossil fuel microgrids from PG&E.
First of all,
it's absolutely ridiculous after giving them a bail out,
you're gonna allow them to put dirty microgrids.
We need to actually get more protections
for community choice.
My understanding is this is kind of a backhanded favor
to PG&E, allowing them to sell energy to community choice.
And I actually think that this project is really ridiculous.
The other thing is that we should be exempting
all these food banks and all of our vulnerable communities
from these power shut offs,
but it should be done with clean energy.
And I also want to address the issue
on the resource adequacy
because it interferes with the right
of community choice agencies
to actually procure energy for us,
which we have local power to do so.
And by taking that away to give more power to PG&E,
and we, I just think that we need to do more
if we're serious about vulnerable communities,
specifically black lives,
we would not be enabling monopoly utilities
to be bailed out, to poison our communities,
to actually burden them with more debt.
I think that the CPUC really should use their power
to challenge PG&E instead of giving them more power.
We need to protect community choice policy
because it is our power at the local level.
We are doing everything we can
to get our community choice program
to invest in community resiliency and clean energy.
And we need to protect that policy
and not enable these monopoly utilities
to continue dumping on our communities of color.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Jessica.
The next caller, please operator.
Operator: Our next caller is Harlow Pittenger
with Sunrise, you may go ahead.
Harlow: Hi, thank you, Commissioners.
Yeah, I would like to speak on the consent calendar
item number three,
the refinements to the resource adequacy program.
I would urge the Commission to reject this
because it is interfering
with the right of the community choice agencies
to procure energy for their customers.
And it's putting them in competition with PG&E and SCE
as the central procurement entities.
So, I think (coughs)
that this is going against the community choice law AB 117,
and it's really an unacceptable threat
to these public agencies and their role.
I also wanted to speak on the regular agenda item number 28,
this is referring to the microgrid deployment proposal.
And I also would
encourage the Commission to reject the proposal
for the temporary generation using diesel generators
because they're a dirty, polluting, fossil fuel.
They're gonna increase greenhouse gas emissions
and affect local communities with more pollutants.
I really feel that that utilities should be pursuing clean,
renewable options, energy storage and solar,
which could be used to meet these generation needs.
And we should not be using the same technologies
which got us into this mess, causing these wildfires,
in order to help us out during this time.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Harlow.
Operator, next caller please.
Operator: Our next caller is Francis Yang
with Sierra Club.
-: My turn. -: You may go ahead.
Francis: Hello. This is Francis.
I first want to start by saying thank you
for holding space for Black Lives Matter during this time.
I also want to just raise, like,
this has been kind of a nightmare on our end
to just give public comment.
I think I've been disconnected five times
and I talked to the operator twice I think.
Just want to flag that it's really difficult
for folks who aren't as tech savvy or patient
to make sure that they can actually get their voice heard.
I'm specifically commenting- -: Francis, I'm sorry,
I'm sorry about that, we are,
we have experienced some difficulty today and we will be,
we will be improving that connection
and I apologize that you had difficulties.
Go ahead.
Francis: Yeah, thank you.
So, I'm actually commenting on item number eight
about disconnections and I really want to thank you
for putting along to go up.
We're completely in favor and approve of this decision,
but really like we know that we need to do more.
We're all familiar with the systemic injustices going on
right now and have been since the creation of this country.
And now we see all of these different issues cascading
on top of each other in crisis after crisis.
And let's be real,
the reality is people are absolutely struggling.
People are having decisions
and conversations every single night,
of whether they're going to pay for rent,
they're going to pay for their utilities,
they're going to pay for childcare,
they're going to pay for food.
And it's a completely unfair scenario
that most of us probably don't think about
if we have that privilege.
And so, that's why we know that in this clarity
and these decisions, we have to take that initiative
to do everything we possibly can during this time
to create relief and provide assistance
so that everyday people can just live.
In prop, or in this item,
we know that the disconnection rates are very high
and we're really afraid of what's going to happen
if we don't take measures like this.
However we know that we can do more.
For example, right now the decision only says
that the utilities have to contact the customers
or get in touch with them.
I think that's actually the specific language,
but we know
that they should actually have an affirmative duty
to contact customers at risk of disconnection
and explain every single program
that'll help them get out of that rut
so that they don't go into debt vicious cycles.
Furthermore, I think that we need
to expand the bill assistance programs right now.
From what I understand,
even if you qualify for both CARE and FERA,
you only get up to 40% of your bill covered
and people were getting checks, or bills, at $250, $300,
regularly, with no consultation or explanation
of what exactly that is.
40% is not very much during these times.
We have to make sure that people are more eligible
to receive these programs
and they actually get more money from these programs.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Francis.
Operator, the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Harvey Eder
with Public Solar Power Coalition.
You may go ahead.
Harvey: Hello, I'm Harvey Eder,
I'm with the Public Solar Power Coalition.
This process is illegal.
There was nothing online to tell me how to speak.
This is just news that I'm speaking, okay.
The overview here is that public power's on its way out
and investor owned utility's on its way out
and public power is on its way in.
We started in Santa Cruz in the end of '73
with the Santa Cruz Alternate Energy Co-op,
a spoof on the AEC.
I would incorporate by reference our consulting contract
with the PUC low income solar equity program,
where we talked about this 40 years ago,
it was not followed up by the PUC.
We're proposing that the PUC take this up now.
Also Cal ISO, four or five years ago,
we went to 'em with paying for our solar
to go out of state.
And we made a proposal to deal with the debt, the curve,
the duct curve.
We were totally slammed by them.
Totally illegal. This is what's happening.
So, there's, where is Bill 917 to take over PG&E?
This has gotta be expanded into Edison's area and done,
with the Governor and with local corrupts,
the 22 entities that signed the law, working with,
with Eric, to do local co-ops and with the state
to take over PG&E.
They're on their way out. This is climate.
This is a vector. This is SARS three.
Everything I'm saying is copyrighted by the way,
by me, Harvey Eder and PSPC.
We had SARS one 20 years ago,
in '12, we had MERS, which is from that's the camels,
and it was 34% death rate.
Now we've got SARS three.
This COVID stuff is trying to get, you know,
Trump to not to get responsibility for it.
We are in litigation with the state
and the federal government EPA over the solar new deal
and the 16 plan from the Governor to the president on down.
And it's in federal and state court
that run out of Ninth Circuit on the 3rd of December
by the FBI and the federal marshals
under threat of imprisonment under cover of authority.
This is garbage. This is not America.
I will not stand next to you folks.
I was, I worked with Sylvia Seagull
back in the early '70s, the only,
the first solar job in Santa Cruz County, '77, '78,
entitled EC Solar, et cetera, okay?
(bell rings)
I don't know what that buzzer means, but,
-: That means, the bell that rings,
that tells you that you've hit, that your time is up.
Harvey: Okay. Well, I didn't have my time to start.
And I wanted to talk on three, eight and public comments.
So, I want to be open for public comments as well.
Thank you.
-: Thank you. -: This is illegal,
violates the Brown Act, et cetera.
And my civil liberty, rights.
-: Thank you.
Operator, the next caller, please.
Operator: President Batjer, there are no more parties
in the public comment telephone line at this time.
-: Okay well,
are there others
that have had difficulty calling in, operator?
Operator: We have had some parties
who have pressed star zero instead of star one.
-: Okay.
Thank you.
Operator: Check the email.
-: Yeah. Okay.
All right.
With no more callers on the line,
the public comment period is now closed.
Thank you operator.
And before I begin with the agenda changes,
which is the next item on our agenda today,
I believe Commissioner Randolph would like to make a motion?
-: Thank you, President Batjer.
Oops.
Sorry, I muted the wrong, I unmuted the wrong thing.
Okay, I would like to make a motion
to move consent items three and eight to the regular agenda.
-: Second. -: Okay.
Is there a second to that motion?
-: I second.
-: Okay.
It's been moved and seconded to move items three and eight
from the consent agenda to the regular agenda.
Could you please call the roll, agenda clerk?
Clerk: Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Aye.
Clerk: And President Batjer?
-: Aye.
Thank you. The vote is unanimous.
Turning now to the agenda changes.
Item number five will be held
until our July 16th Commission meeting.
Item six will be held until the June 25th meeting.
Item seven will be held until the June 25th meeting.
Item 12 will be held until the July 16th meeting.
Item 17 will be held until the June 25th meeting.
Item 29 will be taken up on the consent agenda.
Item 31 will be held until the July 16th meeting.
Item 38 will be taken up on the consent agenda
and item 39 will be taken up on the June 25th agenda.
We will now take up the consent items.
Is there a motion?
-: So moved.
-: And a second please? -: Second.
I'll second. -: It's moved.
(laughs) It's been moved and seconded.
Will the agenda clerk please call the roll?
Clerk: For the consent item, Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Aye.
Clerk: And President Batjer?
-: Aye.
Thank you.
I believe Commissioner Shiroma would like
to make some remarks on item 16,
the San Diego Gas Electric Company
default residential rate seasonal differential.
-: Yes. Thank you President Batjer and everyone.
Since March, the Commission has made a number of decisions,
actions, letters, and vote outs
to provide for relief during the pandemic.
And we just voted out another one on the consent calendar.
It's item 16, and it approves a decision
to permanently reduce the seasonal differential
in San Diego Gas and Electric's default residential time
of use rate.
This will have the possible effect of reducing summer bills
by 4% to 5% for most San Diego Gas and Electric
residential customers starting July 1.
And again, the Commission has done a series
of different actions to provide relief
for California customers.
In this case, this has to do
with San Diego Gas and Electric.
It is the third decision
affecting San Diego Gas Electric customers,
all geared again towards providing bill relief
during these turbulent times.
The previous two
that we voted out were the temporary reduction
of the high usage charge
and the removal of the seasonal differential
for those customers in San Diego Gas Electric's territory
on tiered rates.
And I would like to thank my advisor, Marie Claire Brown,
and wholeheartedly thank Judge Patrick Doherty
for his very, very lightening fast, detail oriented, work
on this decision and the previous ones
so that they would be voted out timely.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Shiroma.
Are there any other comments on the consent calendar?
Okay, seeing none,
we will now take up the regular agenda items.
We will begin with item number three,
which is Commissioner Randolph's.
-: Thank you, President Batjer.
I am presenting item three,
which is a proposed decision
that adopts implementation details
for the central procurement of the Commission's
multi-year local resource adequacy procurement requirement
to begin for the 2023 compliance year.
This decision is the result of a significant amount
of thought, effort, comments,
interaction from a broad range of parties,
including the utilities, other load serving entities,
such as TCAs and energy service providers,
the CAISO, environmental,
and environmental justice advocacy groups,
rate payer advocacy groups,
distributed energy resources, developers, generators,
and Commission staff.
In our June 2018 decision, we directed parties
to propose central procurement structures.
In our February, 2019 decision,
we evaluated those proposals.
Acknowledging a lack of consensus among the parties
I mentioned earlier,
we directed parties to undertake a series of workshops
to develop workable implementation solutions
for central procurement of multi-year local RA.
Seven workshops later,
and several rounds of reports and comments,
we are here with a central procurement framework
for local multi-year RA.
Some of the parties did enter into a settlement agreement.
They originally proposed a residual model
where individual LSEs would procure all resource adequacy
and the central buyer would merely procure
any leftover residual amounts.
We were concerned, however,
that this would result in resource adequacy capacity
being purchased that did not meet the reliability needs
and thus would be ineffective capacity
that would then have to be repurchased by the central buyer
and lead to increased customer costs.
Instead, we pivoted to limiting the central buyer only
to local RA, which would leave other LSEs
to procure their remaining system and select RA.
This framework designates a central buyer
to procure local multi-year RA
in the PG&E and Edison service territories.
We did not include San Diego Gas and Electric
in the frame, in this framework,
because all RA in their territory serves as vocal,
both local and systems,
and that would leave no capacity for other LSEs to procure.
We still have an important aspect of this framework
to hammer out.
Parties have requested that the Commission consider a system
to allow LSEs to receive credit for resources
they develop themselves that could serve as local RA.
The Commission is open
to considering a compensation mechanism
for local capacity requirement reductions
that are achieved through shown local resources by LSE.
To that end,
we direct a working group to develop such a mechanism
and consider the treatment of existing contracts.
We want to receive that proposal by September 1st
and assuming such a mechanism can be developed,
we can do a proposed decision to add it to the framework.
As we discuss in this decision, it is critical
that this mechanism considers the effectiveness
of the resources procured.
I'm confident that the working group can develop
implementation details using the parameters set out
in the decision.
I also think it's important to address one
of the concerns raised about this decision,
that it will somehow retard the development
of preferred resources for local RA.
The purpose of the decision is
to create the necessary single entity purchasing power
for local RA.
Having numerous entities buying small strips
of RA is not cost effective and creates market concerns.
But there's no reason why
this purchasing power cannot be used
to procure preferred resources.
In fact, some of the best examples
of battery storage projects have been procured
either jointly between IOUs and CCAs
or by IOUs, including the Oakland energy project,
PG&E's battery storage project to meet reliability needs
in the Moss Landing area
and the Edison projects to meet reliability
in the more park sub area.
As the decision discusses in numerous places,
we expect preferred resources to be procured
to meet these needs as much as possible.
I do want to note that Senator Wiener sent a letter
asking working group to consider
whether load modifying resources can be used
to reduce the LCR requirements for LSEs.
That is beyond the scope of the working group,
which is not looking at how
to define resource adequacy capacity
or how to count resources.
So, I don't recommend that we add his requested language.
The parties in the proceeding have raised similar issues
in both tracks two and the upcoming track three however.
Thus far, we have been unable to give LSEs more credit
than their peak load for behind the meter batteries
because CAISO does not have the ability
to see and call those resources.
And of course,
load modifying readings sources are included
in the forecast which is used to determine LSE's LCR needs.
So, behind the meter resources do
reduce local resource needs. (computer notification rings)
But we have not had this conversation fully
about how to completely develop the opportunity
for behind the meter resources.
And we do have phase three of this proceeding
to consider other changes to the RA program.
So, that seems to be an appropriate vehicle to ask parties
for their thoughts on this topic
and to discuss those issues further.
I want to thank all the parties for the tremendous effort
and engagement in this proceeding.
And I look forward to continuing to work
as we pursue refinements to the RA program
to address reliability needs,
load migration and market power,
as well as meeting our greenhouse gas goals
at affordable cost.
I'd like to thank Administrative Law Judge Debbie Chiv,
who has been absolutely outstanding on this proceeding,
our brilliant and tireless energy division RA team
and management, Jamie Gannon, Simone Grant,
Michelle Quito, Judith Eclay, Pete Scala and Ed Randolph,
who've all rolled up their sleeves
to tackle a seemingly unending amount of challenging issues.
Our legal advisors, Elizabeth Dorman and Jack Mulligan.
My BK partner, President Batjer, and her advisor,
David Peck, my former chief of staff, Rachel Peterson,
my current chief of staff, Christine Powell,
and my stalwart RA advisor Onend Dravasilla.
Thank you and I ask you for your support of this decision.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Randolph.
Are there any comments on item number three?
Yes.
Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
(Marybel laughs)
-: I was, I'm muting the wrong one as well.
Thank you, President Batjer
and thank you very much Commissioner Randolph
for all of your tremendous work on this decision
and all of the parties
and all of the staff and judges that you have mentioned.
It really has been
a great challenge to develop what the structure
of this central procurement entity should look like
and take on.
And we're still going to be developing it.
I certainly agree that the reliability challenges
that we face today are real
and that the ISO continues to act in haste
to attempt solutions that are not sustainable.
The need to thwart the current tactics
of certain gas generators to extort more
of rate payers is ultimately the justification for me
for the need for this purchasing power
of this central procurement entity.
However, I have grave concerns,
many of which we heard today from the public
that while we create this entity
to balance the power,
not to use a pun there,
we do need to keep the future in mind,
the clean energy future.
And I agree that the loading order,
one person mentioned on the call from the public today,
that the removing order
on this competitive did structure is insufficient.
There needs to be localized and collaborative planning
by all LSEs in a local area.
And though this decision does not limit the LSEs
from engaging in this local planning,
it leaves it to the organic evolution of LSE partnership,
which is very rare.
Although, as you noted Commissioner Randolph,
it can happen.
I fear that without a requirement for this planning
and ultimately the joint procurement
that although we're managing for this counterforce
to the RMRs, we may not avoid what I fear
in the future is another request to extend the OTCs.
It's ironic I think that I'm not asking
for the CPE to do less.
I am asking for the CPE to do more.
To that end,
I appreciate the PDs commitment to explore
how the CPE may have an important role
in ensuring the orderly retirement of the gas fleet
in local areas, which is as you know,
about half of the state's use.
I urge the working group to bring back proposals
that will leverage the CPE's local RA focus
and develop pathways to transition
to more localized clean generation.
I look forward to what is yielded in next phases.
And I look forward to supporting this today.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
Are there any other comments on item number three?
Yes, Commissioner Shiroma.
-: Yes. Thank you, President Batjer.
And immense thanks to Commissioner Randolph
and Judge Chiv and the resource adequacy team,
for the hard work on balancing stakeholder perspectives
when establishing the central buyer procurement framework.
I especially appreciate the efforts made
to consider the impact of procurement decisions
on disadvantaged communities
and the framework that the team
with Commissioner Randolph's leadership
to provide for a future of opportunity
and through resource adequacy
and towards making a step in speeding
towards a greener future as we're making steps
in various other proceedings for our talks in the future.
So, I will be supporting this decision. Thank you.
Marybel: Thank you, Commissioner Shiroma.
Yes. Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
-: Thank you Commissioner Randolph
for leading this proceeding,
which has been extremely difficult and complex
over several years, Judge Chiv, and also the RA team.
We've been wrestling with this particular question
of a central procurement entity for a year and a half
or two years now.
And it's been very challenging.
In a perfect world, we might,
we wouldn't need a central procurement entity
and maybe down the road, hopefully down the road, we won't.
I am convinced that for now to have,
as Commissioner Randolph said,
efficient and low cost and an effective procurement
of resource adequacy in local areas.
We need some kind of central collaboration,
centralization rather.
The thorniest issue for me is one
that many commentators raised
and it's the issue of local autonomy.
And I very much support and respect the desire,
especially of the ECAs for that autonomy.
I had been hopeful throughout
that a full residual model,
that Commissioner Randolph indicated was a consideration
that we could get to a point where that would be developed,
but despite a lot of effort,
no model came forward that could overcome the concerns
that were outlined in the decision.
So, in light of that, I think this decision strikes
what's an acceptable balance between local autonomy,
and making sure that we procure enough RA
through essential procurement entity
to avoid very expensive backstop procurement.
I want to especially thank you,
Commissioner Randolph and Judge Chiv
for including the revisions Commissioner Randolph mentioned,
which is a commitment to explore
and develop a financial compensation mechanism
so that load serving entities that invest
in preferred local resources, which is what we want here,
are fairly compensated for these investments.
It's very complicated, it's tricky,
but this decision says we will try to figure out a way
to do that, which I very much appreciate.
As Commissioner Randolph
and Commissioner Guzman Aceves mentions as well,
the decision paves the way
for the central procurement entity
to start planning for the orderly retirement of gas plants.
We've all recognized that this is essential
for achieving our longer term climate goals,
and I want to specifically point out another provision
and that was changed from the first draft of the decision.
The decision has been revised to discourage gas procurement
beyond three years.
It now requires that an independent evaluator has
to approve contracts that extend to years four and five.
Thank you again, I will be voting
in support of this decision.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
I briefly want to add my thanks and my voice
to my fellow Commissioners, agreeing with many of,
if not, all of the comment just made.
I'd like to start by thanking Commissioner Randolph
for her incredible, my agli team partner,
for her incredible leadership on this complex, difficult,
but very important decision.
And I also add my thanks to ALJ Debbie Chiv
and the energy staff, the entire RA team.
And I'd like to add my personal thanks
to my advisor, Dave Peck.
I appreciate the enormity and the complexity
of developing a central buyer system
and have deep respect for the efforts
that you all have put in here.
I also would like to add
that this is not the final chapter,
as Commissioner Randolph said,
for the central procurement entity methodology.
The decision correctly recognizes
that there are important details
that still require more process and collaboration,
as my fellow Commissioners have commented.
The decision correctly,
it is critical
that the solution provides financial incentives
as has been mentioned for the load serving entities
to continue to invest in clean energy solutions
and to maintain fairness between market participants
procuring those resources.
I appreciate the changes that were included
in revision one BD.
First, the requirement of the working group
to develop a mechanism
that properly compensates load serving entities
for the local resources they procure
as has been mentioned.
It is important that all LSEs are incentivized
to participate in the state's clean energy future
and to avoid duplicated procurement costs,
as has also been mentioned.
Second, I support the proposed decision change
to further develop the safeguards associated
with the distribution utilities acting as CPEs
in order to mitigate conflict of interest
and anti-competitive concerns
and to maximize transparency.
Essential buyer methodology that works for all LSEs
in a fair and efficient manner is the goal.
But to get there,
we require a good faith effort and collaboration
by all the parties and staff.
I look forward to engaging further on these issues
as they progress and I will be supporting this item today.
Any other final comments?
Okay.
Item number three.
Will the agenda clerk please call the roll?
Clerk: For item number three, Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Yes.
Clerk: President Batjer?
-: Aye. Thank you.
The vote is unanimous.
We will now move to item number eight,
presented by Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Thank you, President Batjer.
I am very, very happy today to present this,
a decision that has taken us a couple of years to get to.
And it's a nice little glimmer of hope
in such a difficult time
that we've been having here in society.
First, I want to thank my partner,
Commissioner Randolph and her.
And just extremely professional
to all members of the public.
And it's something that I really treasure
from his participation
and the way he made it possible
for so many members of the public to participate
who rarely get the chance in our proceedings.
To that, and I also want
to thank the public advisor's office
who made many of these workshops possible.
We have multiple workshops,
I think it was a total of six throughout the state.
As you know, this is a quasi legislative proceeding,
and that was a conscious decision
so that we could have public engagement
and not have the public have to worry
about how to file an ex parte notice for public comments
that they would want to make on the proposal.
Anyway, particularly want to shut out to Love and Fodge,
who made many of these workshops particularly easy
for the public.
And they were at most of them.
I want to thank my former chief of staff, Adenike Adeyeye,
who many of you remember was tremendous in my office
and a huge loss for this institution.
My former assistant chief of staff, Marina MacLatchie,
who I'll speak of later because she,
although she's not in my office,
she is still with us here at the Commission.
And finally my new advisor, Justin Song
who has spent endless hours as he kind of just was baptized
into this proceeding.
I want to thank the energy division for all of their work.
Particularly Bruce Benshiro,
who also has a rotating staff during this proceeding.
And really the staff
that helped us the most from energy division is now over
at public advocates, Jenelle Sue, who, Janelle is just,
did over the top amount of work
in really analyzing the customer impact
and the demographics of the customers.
And most recently Antike Jaen,
who has been also a huge help in getting us to this point
and the team from legal, Ed Moroski and Candace Morey,
who also were a tremendous help.
Okay.
I also just, you know, some of us,
the recognition of our staff and the work is,
I've talked to my staff about this,
is difficult for me because I really want
to thank the folks who do not get paid to do the work
that we're doing and the amount of organizations
who took the time to participate.
I want to just recognize them.
I want to recognize Fathers and Families, Stockton,
based in Stockton,
the Stockton Economic Empowerment Development, excuse me,
demonstration project by Mayor Tubbs,
the Alameda County Public Health Department,
the Poverello House in Fresno that houses the homeless,
Center de Familia, Fresno Center for New Americans,
Central Valley Urban Institute,
the Central Coast Energy Services in Monterrey
who hosted us in Salinas,
Section Community Services who hosted us in Hayward,
the San Bernardino Community Action Partnership
who hosted us in San Bernardino,
Catholic Charities of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties,
Pastor Lawrence Van Hook
from the Community Church in Oakland,
the Housing Long Beach.
And in some of our more traditional parties
who assisted many of these local organizations
in getting their voices heard,
the California Low Income Consumer Coalition, Turn,
You Can, C for AP, National Consumer Law Center
and the Utility Workers Union of America
who had a particularly interesting of testimony
as we went through the state
and really spoke of the reality of the implementation
of some of our rules.
And finally, I want to thank the utilities.
This was a really engaged process.
They brought all of their folks who are on the front lines,
who are managing,
making the tough calls, have developed algorithms.
These folks who participated
from the utilities know their customers.
They know the trends,
they know some of the typical scenarios.
They know what works, they know what doesn't work.
And we had a lot of tough conversations
about some of the ideological differences
about the purpose of disconnecting
and really some of the hard conversations
that were had face to face from some of these communities,
organizations who represent individual customers,
and customers at large.
And some of the perspectives from the utilities
and I really want to thank them.
I think they came with many of their own recommendations
and solutions and they had a tough job in the room
to constantly defend why they needed
to collect people's stuff.
So, I want to thank them for continuing to show up during
those very, very difficult decisions, discussions.
And finally, I want to recognize one
of our renewed partnerships with our state,
our sister agency the CSD,
the community services and development department
and the leadership there of Jason Wimbley,
Aselmia Brit, Debra Brown,
Kathy Andrey and David Scribner.
All of them have, as you know,
lead the LIHEAP program for the State of California,
have a, hopefully a renewed relationship
with the agility partnership under our new MOU.
They have a different relationship, more collaborative,
more efficient, and really for us to continue to learn
and be adaptive, especially in a time of COVID,
to the needs of customers.
So, I want to thank CSD for all their time
that they've spent and are continuing to share with us.
I know we heard a lot today.
There's been, maybe another silver lining of COVID
is that we have new organizations
and old organizations starting to look
at some of these critical issues with fresh and new ideas.
Today we heard from Sierra Club, East Yard Communities.
We received a letter,
a separate letter from many organizations
that some of which participated today,
to ask for more,
to ask for us to do more for customers,
to go beyond what we have in this proposal.
And I really want to invite them
to participate in the continued phases of this proceeding
where we will be looking at more ideas
and potentially more relief,
such as a call for more debt relief for customers.
Something also with COVID that I think we all know,
as has been pointed out, you know,
the health disparities
that we knew existed today are more pronounced with COVID,
the economic disparities that existed pre-COVID,
are more pronounced with COVID.
Prior to COVID, one in five utility customers
in California could be disconnected.
One in five, that's 20% of Californians
could have been disconnected prior to COVID,
with COVID those same customers have a higher propensity
to be disconnected and even more.
So, this problem obviously has been not a new one,
but it's one that, fortunately,
given the proceeding and the wherewithal of the legislature
to tell us to start look at this in 2017,
in 2017 Senator Wessel, to SP 598,
directed us to establish
by 2024 a reduction in disconnection
and his impetus behind his call for us
to do this is that disconnections were continuing
to rise even though unemployment was continuing
to decrease at that time.
And so, some of the things that we feel are,
they were, obviously,
we would assume those to be correlated positively
and they were not.
And so, this was a call for us to look at this.
In mid 2018, we were able to open this proceeding
and soon thereafter,
we started to host all of these workshops
throughout the state. (computer notification rings)
And as you know, we did have an interim decision
that did establish some interim protections,
some of which we're making permanent,
which I'll talk about shortly.
And the other thing,
just to reiterate everything that we've talked about today
with Black Lives Matter in particular is,
is some of the work that Janelle did to analyze the data.
She's found that residential disconnections
were positively correlated most highly
with certain demographics,
low income families, Latino residents, black residents,
disabled residents, renters, number of heating degree days,
so, people with hot climates,
and the number of cooling degree days.
So, people with extreme cold,
the highest coefficient
among all of those were black customers,
by a multitude of 11.
It's another reality that we have not just
in this kind of unveiling of our reality here,
another fact, a hard fact, that our systems,
although we may not have consciously done it this way,
are yielding a very discriminatory result,
especially for black Californians.
I, with that, I think we,
we've taken some of these measures to try to address it.
So, let me get to some of the interim rules
that we have made permanent.
We made the baseline for the reduction goals,
we needed to know what we were reducing from, if you will,
for 2024, we established that to be the year 2017.
The year the statute was passed.
We made permanent the extreme weather conditions
that essentially capture extreme heat and extreme cold.
We have, we had,
an evolution and this I really credit
to my BK partner, Commissioner Randolph.
You heard many of the,
of our public comment talk about vulnerable customers.
We had to establish a framework
to protect vulnerable customers in two core ways.
One is to make sure that they were enrolled
in all of the eligible public service programs
that they were eligible for.
And secondly, that they'd be given
a longer term payment plan of 12 months.
And we got really interesting feedback from folks.
One set of feedback was from utilities that thought,
"Well, how are you going to check people's age?
"We have the 65 and older.
"We have the one year old,"
and there was a lot of concern
about the administration of being able to look through
and figure out, we had a section eight provision
to protect some folks who were, had public housing,
that could lead, a disconnection could lead
to them losing their housing.
And so rather, and then as you heard today,
we've heard from many people.
I spoke to a legislator in fact,
who called me to request that we include older children,
not just children under one years old.
And so, we stepped back,
and thanks to Commissioner Randolph,
had a proposal to apply it across the board,
apply it across, the protection across the board,
not just for the efficiency for the utility,
but to provide this greater protection
for more Californians.
So, the provision of a longer term 12 month payment plan has
to be afforded to a customer before they're disconnected.
That will be for all customers.
The other, there's so many smaller things
that really I credit to the knowledge
of the CSD local service providers.
Some of these include
that if they have a pledge from CSD through LIHEAP,
that the customer not be disconnected,
that they receive a notice,
that they received the ability to pay their payment plan
with their regular bill.
Very simple things like this.
I also want to just,
want to highlight a couple of other provisions,
as you know, Commissioner Rechtschaffen
as well as President Batjer
and Commissioner Randolph have all been really leaders
on really developing more enforcement,
administrative enforcement, here at the Commission.
And one of the provisions
in the decisions does direct our utility enforcement branch
to develop a citation program for disconnection.
And honestly, with the feedback we've been getting
from cab on what's happening,
continuing to happen, today with our customers,
there's a clear need to have enforcement provisions
of even the moratorium that we have in place today.
So, I'm very happy to see that that
that provision is in here.
Perhaps one of the other things
that we took the opportunity to try to mind shift
on the policy side with this PD was
to really move away from punitive measures
that we had in the past
to try to deter customers from doing things
and really eliminate those
and reform a structure into something that was
for the customer, assisting the customer,
recognizing that the customer wants to pay their bill.
And so, there's a series of measures,
including the elimination of all establishment
and reestablishment deposits of all reconnection fees.
And again, although these are really impacting
only a small percentage of customers
between 3% and 4% of customers,
we have a huge impact on those customers' lives.
We have also facilitated that more professionals
like physicians assistants
and other qualified medical professionals can verify
that medically vulnerable customers are
in fact more vulnerable
and include the ability for them to do that
in an electronic way.
We also changed another circumstance that again,
impacts a very small percentage of customers,
less than 2% of customers,
have a term called the benefit of service,
when somebody inherits the bill of the previous resident.
And this again is really putting the burden on the utility
and believing the customer.
The customer is who the customer says they are.
Finally, perhaps the two greatest measures
that are included here are the arrears management plan
and the furtherance
of the percentage of income payment plan.
The arrears management plan is a program
that will allow low income customers
to receive debt forgiveness
for paying their current bill on time
and it will work in that every bill that they pay on time,
1/12th of their debt will be forgiven.
And so, after a year's worth of timely payment,
their entire debt will be forgiven.
And as you heard today on the phone, there are really,
there are customers who can get tremendously behind
with thousands of dollars of debt in a summer.
It can happen so quickly,
particularly in areas like the Inland Empire
and the Central Valley,
where hot summer bills can yield $500 a month.
But this, this is again a renewed way
of looking at our customer, of assisting our customer.
That same customer that is trying to pay their bill,
but continuously is trying to get out of water.
We heard from the utilities
that of their three months payment plans,
well over 80% of those get extended beyond the three months.
So, we're signing people up
for something we know they can't pay,
let's sign them up for something they can pay,
which is their monthly bill.
And let's forgive that debt,
and there's obviously a lot to be figured out here.
Although the main framework is included in the decision.
There will be a process,
a short and tight and quick process for working groups
and advised further implementation by the utilities.
And finally, the PIP,
the percentage of income payment plan is the theory
that for the lowest of the low of our customers,
in terms of income,
they have an affordability problem.
It is not that they are trying to scam the system
or anything like that,
it's that they cannot afford their bills.
Majority of our customers have the ability,
have an affordable bill.
And usually the cause is something dramatic,
like COVID or unemployment.
But we have, I personally have less of a concern
that it made the affordability
for the great majority of our customers,
but for the lowest of the low income of our customers,
there is potentially a real affordability issue.
And so, we are directing a specific phase and this was,
this was another area where we had a request, you know,
for more process on all sides.
And, and I do have concerns
because this particular phase will be a rate setting phase
and we will have to deal
with how we can ensure continued participation
from low resource CVOs who wants to participate,
but we'll have to navigate the ex parte rules.
But that is something that I look forward
to getting a quick decision on
after much more process here to get input
on a percentage of income payment plan
for the lowest of the low of our customers.
And finally, I just want to reiterate
that we are seeing, obviously across our society,
our criminal justice system in particular,
has led the way
in reforming the way we have been criminalizing poverty.
And although we don't have criminalizing authority,
we have much,
we create much economic strain by adding more and more debt
to these very customers who have no wealth to begin with.
And so, we need to shift these policies to be non-punitive,
to be trusting in our customers
and to help provide a pathway
and to be consistently looking
and reflecting on our policies,
on what are the demographic impacts,
what are the racial implications?
What are the income implications that we're having?
And we've had the opportunity to look at it
with some disconnection rules.
We know they're discriminatory
and that they're harming people of color
and low income people in hot areas.
And these measures are the beginning of us
to try to shift our approach
to becoming one that is assisting customers.
And in the end,
providing more stability for the utilities.
I want to thank everybody.
And I really look forward to your support.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
Are there any comments on item number eight?
Yes. Commissioner Randolph?
-: Thank you, President Batjer.
I'll just be really brief
and thank Commissioner Guzman Aceves
for her leadership on this.
I appreciate, sort of three important things she did
with this proceeding.
She really did a lot of outreach and tried to pull in voices
that had not been heard before,
she delved into the data
and really tried to challenge some assumptions.
And lastly, she looked for creative solutions
beyond California, in and,
to see how other utilities deal with some of these issues.
So, I think all of this has resulted
in a well crafted decision with excellent proposals.
And I look forward to the next phase
to talk about the PIP program.
So, thank you very much Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Randolph.
Any other comments on item number eight?
Yes. Commissioner Shiroma?
She beat ya out, Cliff (laughs).
-: So, I add my thanks to Commissioner Guzman Aceves
and her BK partner, Commissioner Randolph
and Judge Kelly for a very in depth job
to effectuate the statutes
all through California to West LA.
That statute was a pretty broad brushed statue.
And I think that's the proposed decision
meets the spirit of it,
it is focused on the disconnections,
protections to low income customers,
provides tools to resolve bills
without getting into substantial debt.
That, that is so essential.
I shared before that when I was a kid,
our electricity was disconnected a couple times
and, you know, the first, the first time,
"Oh, great, we get to use candles."
Well, the second time it was,
"Oh gosh, what's going on?"
And a lot of worry, you know,
looking at my mother, and like, "What's going on?"
So, I look forward to the efforts on the PIP.
And also I want to do a shout out
to Commissioner Rechtschaffen's affordability proceeding.
No, we have a lot to look at
in terms of what Commissioner Guzman Aceves has pointed out
on the essential, the essential electricity,
the essential energy that's needed for life,
needed for life itself.
I'll, I look forward to voting "Aye" on this.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Shiroma.
Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Thank you, I thought you'd never call on me,
President Batjer.
Anyway, just kidding. (Marybel laughs)
Marybel: You're just too slow.
-: I know, I'm just not quick enough on the draw.
I don't have too much to add to what was said.
I want to thank Commissioner Guzman Aceves,
Commissioner Randolph, Judge Kelly,
and staff for this decision,
which as everyone has said,
and as many commenters pointed out,
could not be more timely given the economic hardship
so many people are facing.
This decision is, it's extremely thoughtful.
It's innovative, it's compassionate,
but it's also grounded in data,
as Commissioner Randolph said, it's realistic.
It's workable and it's cognizant
of the real world conditions that our rate payers face,
not just the customers who are threatened
with disconnections but the cost pressures
that all rate payers are experiencing.
And I very much appreciate the decision for that.
I want to echo what Commissioner Randolph said,
that Commissioner Guzman Aceves
and the team went the extra mile and then some
to convene workshops
that engaged a broader set of stakeholders
than customarily participate in our proceedings.
As Commissioner Guzman Aceves listed,
the participating organizations
that helped sponsor events and participated,
that shows how extensive this outreach was.
And it was really important to do,
to use these out of the box ways to get the public involved.
I very much appreciate the monthly reports that we got,
which gave us a real window into what's happening
with California households
and improve the transparency of the disconnection situation.
I think the arrears management program is really important
and interesting and it's modeled
after other successful utility programs.
It's very much worth trying.
The payment of income, payment of income paints the land.
I also hope we can do quickly,
and as Commissioner Shiroma mentioned,
this and other aspects of the decision dovetail very much
with our affordability proceeding.
We haven't set thresholds there,
and it's not our intention to do that yet.
But that proceeding is,
it's very much focused on the burden of all utility bills
on customers, given their ability to pay, with,
given their disposable incomes.
And it's a very important complement
to what's being done here.
I'll be happily and vigorously supporting this decision.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
I will just add my voice briefly
to those of my fellow Commissioners.
I want to thank Commissioner Guzman Aceves
for her deep passion, her deep thinking,
her innovative thinking.
And this proceeding started well before I joined you all.
I appreciate the months that you and Commissioner Randolph
and the entire staff and Judge Kelly spent working on this,
it was a huge undertaking with huge, huge impact.
And so, I will be voting for this enthusiastically,
and I appreciate the incredible energy
and effort that you have so thoughtfully demonstrated
with this proposal, proposed decision.
So, thank you.
Any other final comments?
Okay, seeing none, will the agenda clerk,
please call the roll on item number eight?
Clerk: For item eight, Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Yes.
Clerk: President Batjer?
-: Aye.
Thank you, the vote is unanimous for item number eight.
We will now be taking a 30 minute break.
So, let's see, my, it's 12:41,
let's say 10 after 1:00.
Please be sure to be back in your seats.
And we will resume at that time.
We will be taking up item 28
when we come back into session.
Thank you all.
Narrator: Thank you for your patience.
-: I think we're ready to go.
Narrator: Operator, take us out of the music on hold
and wait for the president's cue.
-: Okay.
Thank you all. We need to establish quorum.
So, will the agenda clerk please call the roll?
Clerk: Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Present.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Present.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Present.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Present.
Clerk: President Batjer?
-: Present.
We have established quorum. Thank you all.
We now will move to number 28 of the regular agenda.
Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Yes. Thank you, President Batjer.
I'm introducing item 28,
which is a decision on short term actions
to accelerate microgrid deployments
and related to resiliency solutions.
In 2018, the conditions, oh, sorry.
The California Senate passed SB 1339 carried
by Senator Stern,
which directed the Commission to undertake a number
of activities to develop policies related to microgrids.
As part of that legislation,
the Commission built a new section
in the energy division focused on these matters.
And we opened this order instituting rulemaking
in September of last year.
Now, shortly thereafter, on October 26, 2019,
in the face of winds approaching almost 90 miles per hour,
we experienced PG&E turning off power
to almost 1,000,000 customers across 38 counties
in an effort to minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfires.
From this experience,
we learned that not only was PG&E's execution
of the public safety power shut off protocols inadequate,
but that the Commission would have
to use a multipronged approach
to mitigating the effects of needed DSPSs.
So, we used this experience
to rescope the order instituting the rulemaking,
to focus on microgrids and resiliency,
with multiple tracks, three tracks for now,
to address in the short term,
how we can accelerate microgrids and resiliency projects
in preparation for our peak 2020 wildfire season,
just a few months away.
In fact it really, it has already started.
In addition to the longterm goal
of facilitating the commercialization
of microgrids through the requirements of SB 1339.
In a sense this proceeding is both a sprint and a marathon.
The sprint has been the last nine months
where we held a widely attended all day workshop,
joined by California Energy Commission Chair Hochschild,
issued a multi-part staff proposal,
where the team worked over the holidays in December,
and January, and reviewed proposals by our utilities
in preparation for the 2020 wildfire season,
this proceeding has had over 200 parties.
And I thank and commend them for their active participation.
Now this, the December workshop was an opportunity for us
to identify and vet short term actions
related to microgrids
that the CPUC could take in the first half of 2020
to reduce the impact of any outages caused by PSPSs
or other conditions this fall, fall of 2020.
The workshop also included examples of medium
and long term solutions and policy issues
to be addressed as part of the rulemaking.
This microgrids and resiliency track one's proposed decision
is an integral part, again, of the multifaceted approach
that the Commission is taking in preparation
for the 2020 wildfire season
and the resilient grid of the future.
The staff proposal took those learnings,
we developed a proposal that we put out for public comments.
It included development, pre-approved template based designs
and other modifications
for the Commission approved application process
that could be standardized for efficiency,
expediting utility sign off on installed projects,
accelerating interconnection by increasing staffing,
modernizing tariffs to maximize resiliency benefits,
and requirements to enhance collaborations
and coordination with local and tribal governments.
The proposals with refinements based on the feedback
from over 50 parties applies to all three IOUs,
PG&E, Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric moving forward.
Now, and I will come back
and outline some of the revisions made
when the PD was put out for comment.
Meanwhile, the utilities submitted proposals,
specifically PG&E and San Diego Gas and Electric.
So, in addition to the critical changes
in the staff proposal,
we will also be approving an array
of resiliency proposals set forth.
For PG&E, these include the make ready program,
a program for upgrading substations,
with the ability to be quickly and safely energized
with local sources power,
approving only for the 2020 wildfire season,
PG&E's temporary generation program.
As commenters commented on, it's a program
for procuring temporary diesel portable generators
to be used at the substations and other key locations
for public benefit,
for wide effectiveness for customers.
Now, I agree with the commenters
that relying on diesel is not an ideal choice.
To date, the record in this proceeding shows
that while there is much opposition
to the use of diesel generation,
as we understandingly, at this point,
parties have not proposed specific alternative solutions
that are off the shelf ready
that we can use in the 2020,
in just a few short months away, wildfire season.
Therefore, we will be inviting stakeholders
in this proceeding to engage with us
on this matter specifically,
bring their foresight on the sufficiency and viability
on non-diesel backup power at the substation level,
into the mainstream on this topic
to enhance our long term resiliency initiatives.
And we will be inviting stakeholders
to problem solve and work with us.
And then finally, we are approving PG&E's
community microgrid enablements program.
It's a program designed to augment utility technical
and financial support for community proposed microgrids
to enhance resiliency of critical facilities
and vulnerable customers.
San Diego Gas and Electric,
we're approving their local area distribution controller,
which is a software and hardware technology
that will enhance microgrid operation and augment
and inter operate the San Diego Gas and Electric's
existing advanced distribution management system,
and microgrid project is proposed in other proceedings.
All right?
Now, based on,
so this is going to be a little bit redundant,
but based on the comments received,
a number of revisions were made to the proposed decision.
We clarify that
the interconnection streamlining implementation process
contemplated under proposal 103,
well, make a clarification, I should say,
we add mitigation language
and a three year evaluation period
for the net energy metering tariff modification.
This will be in proposal two.
Okay, I'm sorry. In proposal two.
Clarify the instrumentation
and information sharing process
and roles between utilities, tribal governments,
local governments, and CCAs,
clarifies that PG&E's make ready costs will be subject
to a later reasonableness review
in an upcoming track of this proceeding
to determine whether it is appropriate
for PG&E to recover the forecasted costs and rates,
clarified the description of PG&E's
temporary generation program,
clarifies that PG&E's temporary generation program costs
will be subject to a reasonableness review
in an upcoming track.
And just as I outlined before,
clarifies, as I said before,
the use of diesel generation is
not a longterm resiliency strategy
and that this proceeding will immediately initiate an.
It's been both a sprint and it's also a marathon.
After completing all of the above in these past nine months,
our marathon will continue in track two
and track three of this proceeding.
While track one focuses on fast tracking near term solutions
for microgrids and resiliency,
track two and track three
of this proceeding will help eliminate
and accomplish the state's broader policy goals
in the context of supporting microgrids
and resiliency strategies,
we will be using these upcoming tracks in this proceeding,
again, as I said, again,
explore the viability of non-diesel alternatives
for next year's wildfire season,
further develop the standards and protocols to support
and reduce barriers to lack of microgrid deployment
without shifting costs between rate payers
and developing rates and tariffs
that are just and reasonable
to support commercialization of microgrids.
So in closing, I would like to think many people.
First of all, our Administrative Law Judge, Colin Rizzo,
who has, it's been amazing to work with,
our energy division staff and Randolph,
Forest Kaeser, Joy Steindas, Jessica Keith, Julianne Ennis,
Rosan Rack, sorry Rosanne,
I'm gonna mispronounce your last name, Brachovitch,
Patrick Stackton, Andrew Salazar, Sophie Meyer,
Jose Aligacaro, Christopher Wrestling,
our advisory attorney Elizabeth Dorman,
my back looking partner, President Batjer,
and her advisor Josh Huneycutt
and from my office, analyst Christina Rivera,
my chief of staff Leuwam Tesfai, my advisor Justin Regnier
by the way, Justin will be returning to the energy division
to work on interconnection issues,
I will stay a proper thank in my Commissioner report.
With that, I ask for your "Aye" vote, thank you.
-: Thank you very much Commissioner Shiroma
for that very thorough description of the proposed decision.
Any comments on item 28?
(laughs) You're beat out again, Cliff.
Martha, Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Thank you (laughs).
Thank you, Commissioner Shiroma
and I think you described it really well,
which was it's a sprint and a marathon,
and I know we've, it's been a lot of false starts almost
because we spent a lot of time at the beginning
with a couple of concepts the utilities put forward
that were potentially going to be more permanent.
And then we kind of came back to this reality of this fall
and having to just get something there,
and I really wanted to stress
that I appreciate you giving more forum
to the need for non-diesel,
but also, you know, when we were in Lake County,
I know we talked about that visit, but also in Butte County,
but, you know,
the reality was people want whatever it takes
to keep the power on.
And unfortunately in this fall it will be diesel,
but I do really appreciate that you're going
to look in earnest to cleaner alternatives.
Also, just in reflection of this morning's comments,
I hope that, you know, the utilities
and obviously the local governments take back what we heard,
what we also heard in our community visits,
you know, the food banks and their impact
that they aren't really created like some
of the other critical facilities
that are already required to have that backup generation
and food banks usually have a more organic evolution
and do not always have that generation there onsite.
So, really hope the utilities can dig in
and work with their local government
to make sure that those critical facilities
that food banks are, can have the protection for this fall.
But most of all, I was very excited to see
that very specific coordination
with the local government and tribal government
and the need to really give them more specific information
on their distribution systems
and what each of the upgrades would mean
if there was different localized supplies put in place.
So, I was very happy to see that
and I look forward to that further,
that relationship being further developed
in so many aspects.
So, thank you for all your work.
Marybel: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Thank you.
Thank you, Commissioner Shiroma.
This is the, this proceeding should not just be titled,
microgrids proceeding, it's very much more,
and I very much appreciate your work
and Judge Rizzo and energy division staff,
and others in getting so much accomplished so quickly
in time for the 2020 fire season.
As you noted, it's just one of many steps we're taking
to promote greater resilience
in the face of high wildfire risk and shut offs
and will accelerate interconnection projects
and promote collaboration
between local governments and utilities.
And like Commissioner Guzman Aceves,
I'm very grateful that the decision has been amended
to include tribal governments
as among those who can get access
to the confidential data portal
that will allow all local emergency response agencies
and tribal governments to plan for microgrid
and other resilience efforts.
I also very much appreciate your strong words
about the temporary nature of the diesel generators
that are being deployed here.
I have one question, one comment,
and maybe I'll leave it with a question
for you Commissioner Shiroma.
But there was one aspect of the decision
that I would've liked to see come out differently.
And you mentioned it in passing.
We currently have a rule
under our net energy metering program
that does not allow solar or solar paired with storage
to be oversized.
So, they can't, for systems that's over 10 kilowatt,
they cannot exceed 150% of capacity,
and the decision waives that rule.
And I would have preferred that as we allow
for these larger systems, we also require
that these oversized systems have the ability
to island from the grid.
Marilyn: Yes hi, my name is Marilyn Gloria.
I have a, hello?
-: Uh-oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry,
Commissioner Rechtschaffen -: Hello?
-: That interruption.
Could, Robert, could you please check and see what the,
what that was?
Robert: Yes, President Batjer.
-: Thank you.
-: And when the time comes, I can respond,
Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
-: Okay thanks, let, Cliff,
do you want to continue with your remarks?
-: Yeah. Yeah.
So, as I was saying, I would have preferred
that we require these oversights instance
to have the ability the island from the grid,
that was under consideration,
the decision ultimately decided not to do that.
The reason for doing it is it's consistent
with the goal of this proceeding.
And also, we face a similar issue in the SGIP program.
That's consistent with the goal of SGIP
that we want to facilitate systems
that provide resiliency benefits.
And if you, if your island, you can provide
that resiliency benefit.
The decision acknowledges that longterm,
this is the appropriate solution,
it defers doing so right now,
because of concerns about added complexity
and that because of the added complexity,
requiring the island and requirement could lead
to potential for delays.
And as I think you said, Commissioner Shiroma,
the decision says will be taken, revisited in three years.
I'd like to see us take this issue up sooner than that,
perhaps in track two or track three of the decision.
The decision suggests that this is a possibility.
And so, I guess my question to you is,
are you open to revisiting this sooner
and as early in track two or track three of the proceeding?
-: Yes (laughs).
Yes, absolutely.
Absolutely.
And in fact, the (coughs) team's already,
oh, let's see.
Looks like we are, hm,
okay, I'm sorry.
Just looking at some of my little background notes here.
You know, the answer is yes, Commissioner Rechtschaffen,
definitely open to it.
I have a notion that we are already poised
to be considering it
in track two, if not track three, but,
and we, that's not waiting for three years on that.
-: Thank you very much, Commissioner Shiroma.
With that, I, I'll close
and I'll be strongly supporting this decision.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
And again, I apologize for the interruption
that you endured.
Any other comments?
-: I will just thank Commissioner Shiroma
for all your work on this proceeding.
I echo my fellow Commissioners' comments,
particularly on ensuring the temporary nature
of the diesel backup generation.
And so, I'll be supporting the decision.
-: Thank you.
I want to add my strong voice
to that of my fellow Commissioners
and thank my ably keen partner for her leadership
and really for the tremendous effort
that you have undertaken along with staff to expedite this.
We often are criticized for our 18 months that we take
to arrive at a decision
and for your rescoping that you did in December,
to date, six months.
And I think it's just extraordinary.
And I give you great thanks and respect for how hard you
and the energy division and the legal division,
and indeed my own advisor, Josh Huneycutt,
worked to make that happen.
There were many weekends, there were late nights.
The microgrid team was fantastic.
The way that was formulated,
the way they carried out their work, the updates,
the informational pamphlet, if you will,
that they put together was just a terrific, terrific to see,
and to be informed by.
I too, not only in this area,
but in the area of the telecommunications back up energy,
am very concerned about this fall and how much frankly,
dirty backup generation will be used.
But I'm pleased with the temporary nature of this.
And I think we'll get through the 2020 wildfire season
and look forward to a much cleaner approach
in the very near future.
So, I'm very pleased obviously to support this decision.
And again, thank you
and the team, Judge Rizzo, for all the hard work.
It was quite something.
So, I will also obviously be supporting this,
as I said earlier.
Okay.
So with that, any other final comments?
Seeing none, will the agenda clerk
please call the roll for item number 28?
Clerk: Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Yes.
Clerk: President Batjer?
-: Yes.
Thank you, the vote is unanimous for number 28.
We will now turn to items 32, 33,
34, 35, 36 and 37.
They will be presented
by our director of the wildfire safety division,
Caroline Thomas Jacobs.
She will present each one of these resolutions
and then, certainly, you can ask questions
as she makes her presentation.
Afterwards, we will take a vote on each individual one,
but following her presentation, your comments and questions.
So, we'll wait to vote.
And as I said, we have to vote individually on each of them,
but we won't have the presentation,
vote, presentation, vote.
We'll take all the votes together at the end.
Okay, with that, Caroline?
Caroline: Thank you President Batjer
and good afternoon Commissioners.
Thank you for the opportunity
to present the wildfire safety division's evaluation
and determinations on the electrical utilities'
2020 wildfire mitigation plans
for your consideration on ratification.
I will provide a short overview
of how we structured the evaluations this year,
and then provide a summary of our evaluation for each plan.
Newly established as of January 1 of this year,
the wildfire safety division's purpose is
to ensure utilities develop
and implement a longterm strategy
to reduce utility related wildfire risk.
Our primary vehicle to do this is oversight
of the wildfire mitigation plan.
In December of 2019,
the Commission released new plan guidelines,
which significantly raised the bar on the level of data
and justification utilities are expected
to provide in their plans.
The objectives for these new guidelines were
to increase standardization, improve objectivity,
and drive a forward looking focus.
On February 7th,
the electrical corporations submitted their 2020 plans
and supporting data.
The division conducted a thorough and consistent review
with a 27 member evaluation team,
consisting of 18 subject matter, writing,
and project management experts from across the Commission
plus nine additional subject matter experts from Cal Fire.
We hosted an information and technical workshops in February
and solicited and considered comments from the public
and the wildfire safety advisory board in.
Efficient use of resources and forward looking growth.
After a full and complete evaluation of each plan,
we selected one of the following determinations,
approved, approved with conditions,
or in one case, no determination.
We made the determination
to approve most plans with conditions,
while each plan meets minimum requirements
and is directionally focused on reducing wildfire risks,
there remains significant concerns
with specific deficiencies.
Deficiencies are organized into three categories,
class, A, B and C.
A class A deficiency means an aspect of the plan is lacking
or flawed, to resolve class A,
the utility must provide a remedial compliance plan
within 45 days.
A class B deficiency means
that there is insufficient detail
or justification provided in their plan.
To resolve a class B, the utility must submit a resolution
or pass a resolution in a quarterly report within 90 days.
A class C deficiency means there are gaps in baseline
or historical data.
To resolve a class C,
the utility must resolve the deficiency
by or within their 2021 plan update.
We received public comments
on the draft resolutions last week.
Some minor changes were made such as reclassification
of conditions and some clarifications were added.
Most of the resolution's substance remains the same.
In the guidance resolution,
we provided context and analysis
that applies to all of the utilities,
including common deficiencies
that apply to the large and small utilities.
There is one class A deficiency
for lack of risk modeling to inform decision making.
We also have, I'll call out for the comments
that were made earlier today by the public
that we also have two class B deficiencies,
guidance four addresses the PSPS metrics
that one of the commenters highlighted
and they must demonstrate the effectiveness
of their enhanced vegetation management as well.
There's also an additional class A deficiency
for the three large IOUs that requires them
to demonstrate the effectiveness
of this enhanced vegetation management practices.
As for our assessment of the individual utilities,
I will start with PG&E.
PG&E's plan met minimum requirements,
demonstrated an understanding of their top ignition drivers
and articulates activities to address those drivers.
Specifically, PG&E's top drivers are contact from objects
at 56% and equipment failure at 37%,
which they're addressing with covered conductor,
enhanced vegetation management protocols,
and a number of other system hardening efforts.
It is unclear, however,
how their risk models are used to drive prioritization
of specific wildfire mitigation initiatives
to minimize wildfire risk and PSPS.
For example, PG&E does not describe in a granular way
where asset remediation, vegetation management,
and grid hardening initiatives are most necessary,
how it prioritizes deployment of those initiatives
nor how it coordinates prioritization
at local jurisdictions.
We assessed a total of 29 individual deficiencies
on PG&E's plan.
There are seven class A deficiencies,
including aggregation of initiatives,
lack of detail on how to address personnel shortages,
high incidents of conductor failure
and poor coordination with local government.
As previously mentioned,
we also have a class A to demonstrate
that PG&E must require a,
is required to demonstrate effectiveness
on their enhanced vegetation management clearances.
Wildfire safety division issued a determination
of approval with conditions
on the PG&E 2020 wildfire mitigation plan.
As for Southern California Edison,
their plan met minimum requirements
and articulated activities to drive down wildfire risks
within their service territory.
Edison has allocated over 40% of their plan spend
to cover conductor.
And it's deploying 700 circuit miles of cover conductor
in 2020 with a target of 4,500 miles by the end of 2022.
Due to this large investment,
we have asked for more detail and more justification.
Edison failed, however,
to adequately address how they are driving reduction scale,
scope and frequency of the need
to use public safety power shut off.
They provide no firm commitment to PSPS reduction
and do not describe
how their risk hardening work affects PS,
that's initiation threshold.
We've assessed a total of 22 individual deficiencies,
including three class A deficiencies,
one being determining cause of near misses,
lack of effectiveness
in their enhanced vegetation clearances,
and lack of advancement
in vegetation management and inspection.
I also will mention that they have a class B
that addresses one of the public commenters questions
that they must justify the 70% reduction
in ignition risk.
Wildfire safety division issued a determination
of approval with conditions
on Edison's 2020 wildfire mitigation plan.
San Diego Gas and Electric's plan
also met minimum requirements,
demonstrated a clear understanding of their risks
and articulated multiple initiatives
to drive down wildfire risk
within their service territory.
As is generally accepted,
they remain ahead of their peers in wildfire risk reduction.
They continue to explore new emerging technologies
to strengthen their risk reduction capabilities.
And are developing the infrastructure
to allow for longterm growth.
They are not perfect, however.
They do not always provide detail to justify
or articulate how their investments are an efficient use
of resources and provide the greatest risk reduction.
And they run the risk of diminishing returns.
They need to show how continued investments provide
additional reduction in risk.
We assessed a total of 16 individual deficiencies,
including one class A deficiency,
related to the enhanced vegetation management clearances.
Wildfire safety division issued a determination
of approval with conditions on San Diego Gas and Electric's
2020 wildfire mitigation plan.
Liberty and Pacific Corp's plans met minimum requirements,
both made a good faith effort to comply
with this new 2020 wildfire mitigation plan guidelines,
many requirements were new, as they are not,
have not been subject to the S map
and ramp requirements of the larger IOUs.
Initiatives generally address major risk drivers,
including vegetation contact and system hardening,
the capabilities required to justify these
based on risk reduction,
or layout and risk informed deployment strategy
have not yet been developed.
Liberty assessed at a lower maturity baseline
than Pacific Corp,
but both were targeting growth in capabilities related
to risk informed decision making
over the course of their plan.
We assessed a total of five individual deficiencies
for Liberty and seven for Pacific Corp.
There are no class A deficiencies for either.
The wildfire safety division issued a determination
of approval with conditions
for both Liberty and Pacific Corp's
2020 wildfire mitigation plans.
The division approved in full the Horizon West
and Trans Bay plans.
They addressed all requirements
in the wildfire mitigation plan guidelines
and do not face the same risk exposure.
One undergrounding initiative of Horizon West is delayed
to a San Diego easement.
And our determination
on the Bear Valley's electric plan is on a two week hold
due to a dorada.
Bear Valley submitted a change to the plan on May 22nd,
which substantially altered the contents of the plan
and reduced the total spend from 247 million
to 46 million.
It is also worth noting that they initially did not comply
with the 2020 guidelines
and submitted their plan in the 2019 format.
The division issued a statement earlier this week,
extending our evaluation timeline,
and we'll be issuing further guidance shortly.
In summary, all of the submitted plans
for which we were presenting resolutions today
will drive down our shared utility wildfire risk.
There remain, however,
a significant number of deficiencies
in their wildfire mitigation plans,
that must be addressed before we have full confidence
that the plans articulate
prioritized wildfire mitigation investments
that buy down the most risk.
The true reduction in this risk will come
from the execution of these plans,
which we will hold each of the utilities accountable to
through the division's compliance activities.
To date the division has conducted
over 500 field inspections
on wildfire mitigation activities,
and we expect to complete over 2,000
by the end of this year.
Before I close, I'd like to wish a big thank you
to the talented technical experts, public commenters,
wildfire safety advisory board,
and our partnership with Cal Fire in this effort.
It has been a true team effort to get this done
in the timeline we were given.
With that, I submit to you for your consideration
of ratification, the guidance resolution,
and six individual resolutions
that articulate the full context
and analysis of the wildfire safety division's assessment
and determination on the electric utilities'
2020 wildfire mitigation plans.
Thank you and I'm happy to take questions.
-: Thank you.
Are there any questions from the Commissioners
on the presentation that Director Thomas Jacobs just gave?
Yes, Commissioner, no, no, no.
You won this time. Commissioner Rechtschaffen (laughs).
-: I thought, If I was there first,
I'd be elbowing people out.
Caroline, can you comment on the role
of the wildfire safety board in this process?
I know they reviewed the plan,
submitted 12 or 15 recommendations.
So maybe, could you just elaborate on that
and what's the status going forward
of the recommendations that they submitted?
Caroline: Yes. Thank you, Commissioner.
So, yeah, so they reviewed the plans,
provided comments in our initial round
of developing the draft resolutions
and we incorporated their comments.
They revolved around a lot of the metrics
on public safety power shutoff,
as well as vegetation management,
making sure that we were assessing properly the way
that the utilities are addressing those issues.
We very much appreciate their comments
'cause their technical expertise in this area was vital
in our evaluation.
In terms of going forward,
they are in the process of developing recommendations
for furthering the guidelines on performance metrics
around wildfire mitigation plans
and they're going to be submitting those
by the end of this month.
And then we will be incorporating those
into our recommendations
that we'll put before the Commission by October
for consideration in the 2021 plan guidelines.
-: Thank you.
-: Are there are questions or comments from the,
oh, I'm sorry.
Commissioner Guzman Aceves, you had a question.
-: Thank you.
And thank you, Caroline,
for the tremendous and excellent work
that's been done today,
this is really been amazing to see come into fruition
and come into such clarity
and the ability to really be able to track the progress,
to measure the progress with expertise and comparability.
I want, I had two questions that I know we talked about
in some of the briefings
and I wondered if you can talk a little bit
about what you're seeing moving forward
in terms of accounting for the resources,
in terms of the revenue that's going to be used
to pay for all of these investments
and how we're going to be able to continue
to cross check that there's not a potential for, you know,
for charging for some of these investments multiple times
or for being able to do so
in a uniform way in the future.
Caroline: Sure. Thank you for the question Commissioner.
So, absolutely, one of the,
one thing we clarified in the resolutions was
that the approval of the plans does not approve,
necessarily, cost recovery of any of those investments,
that will be handled through the standard mechanisms
within the Commission.
In the meantime,
we are also in the process of executing a contract
with a forensic accountant to look at the 2019
and the 2020 plans.
And to compare those to the past general rate cases
and other cost recovery mechanisms that have been approved
to ensure that we're,
that the utilities are not submitting duplicate
cost recovery efforts for these activities.
-: Great, and then, and the other question I had was
on the corrective action plans.
I forget the term you're using for them,
but for the A and the B categories,
do we know what kind of public process we'll be using
to allow the public to comment on those?
Caroline: So, we're in the process
of finalizing the process we will have in place for that.
And the division will be issuing guidance
on that very shortly.
But I, the, just to clarify for folks on the class A,
the remedial compliance plan will be due within 45 days
and it is my intention to be able to get comment on that.
-: Great. Thank you.
-: Great, other comments or questions
of Director Thomas Jacobs?
Yes, Commissioner Shiroma.
-: Okay. Thank you.
Comments, really.
And I hope this is the proper time to be saying all this
and say, thank you,
to the wildfire safe division,
boy, I tell ya, this last year
and these last few months have just been a testimonial
to the tremendous amount of work
that the Commission is doing and to meet deadlines,
to address issues, to get our work done,
all in preparation for (coughs),
well, in the near term, but also a longterm.
So, the guidance, the resolutions,
I'm just gratified that they represent
like a step
in California's increasingly sophisticated response
to mitigate wildfire risk.
From the the wildfire technology summit held last year
at CSU SAC state,
to the creation of the wildfire safety division
and wildfire safety advisory board,
to the review of this year's wildfire mitigation plan
and holding in techniques like maturity model,
we've come a long way in our efforts
to ensure we're doing all we can
to reduce the number and severity of the,
of the utility caused wildfires.
Now, I have touted California's efforts
to our national colleagues,
the national regulatory utility Commissioners,
and it is, it's a sort of pride to tout this good work.
Now that being said,
of course we have lots of work to do ahead.
And I'll be looking with a keen eye
to what the utilities submit in the next 45 days
and 90 days regarding plans
to address the deficiencies outlined
in the proposed wildfire mitigation plan,
and a particular concern for me,
I mentioned last year and throughout this process
about certified arborists
and the importance of using certified arborists
to guide the vegetation management efforts.
This arises out of my 20 years of experience at SMUD
where, whether it's the transmission lines
or the distribution lines, the vegetation management trees,
vegetation and so forth, it's so essential
that you do it right.
And the dividends that were paid
by having a certified arborist there to guide that,
and I mean, I went to a community meeting
in the South County area
and I faced television cameras which showed up
and a very outraged community
because some of the tree trimmers had come through
and taken these 100 plus year old oak trees
and cut those V cuts into them,
it was quite horrendous,
and having, and so assuring,
particularly after that experience,
that we had certified arborists on task, on staff,
helped guide the tree trimmers
and also helped us to have a good working relationship
with the communities affected, both ways,
for safety, applied the laws
and also, to really pay attention
to the vegetation management.
So, I'll be paying particular attention
to the utilities' performance in respect to this piece
And of course, all of it, all of it,
45 days to 90 days, we'll be receiving their action plans.
All right?
Addressing the deficiencies and the follow up items
that are needed by all of the IOUs
to comply with these plans, that we are poised to vote on.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Shiroma.
Yes, Commissioner Randolph.
-: Sorry, I was trying to mute the wrong thing again,
unmute the wrong thing again (laughs).
I just wanted to thank Caroline for all of her work.
The distance we have come
from our first set of wildfire mitigation plans
to this set has been incredibly dramatic
and the development of things like the maturity model
to be able to track and assess the progress of the utilities
as these plans improve over the years
is a really important addition to this process.
And as I've said before in the past,
the close supervision that we are now providing
with regard to the utilities adherent
to their wildfire mitigation effort is reaping dividends.
And I think will continue to reap dividends going forward.
So, I appreciate all the analysis
and hard work and supervision.
And I am hopeful that as the years go by the frequency
and severity of wildfire events will dissipate significantly
as a result of all of this work.
So, thank you so much for all of this thoughtful
and careful analysis.
-: Yes, Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Commissioner Randolph said exactly what I was about
to say, which is, it's astonishing.
When we approved the first set of plans
or the first set of plans required by AB 1054 last year,
we knew that it was just a start of an iterative process,
but the amount of progress that's been made in just a year
or two is really astonishing.
And especially given the punishing pace and the schedule
that Caroline and her team and all the ALJs
and staff have had to work under, the maturity matrix model,
the new outcome and progress metrics,
the standardized data are cutting edge.
They're really important. They're very objective.
They're detailed, they're highly sophisticated.
They allow for peer to peer comparison
and they really do move the ball very much forward.
So, I completely share
and adopt what Commissioner Randolph's remarks.
I wanted to say, one of the things which I think,
which is that the focus
of the wildfire safety division's analysis
of deficiencies on, is just right.
And particularly important is highlighting the failure
of the utilities
to explain how the mitigation measures they are choosing
are resulting in real risk reduction
and real risk reduction at the lowest cost.
This gets at a point that we've grappled with
for many years, that Commissioner Guzman Aceves mentioned,
we don't want simply spending for spending sake.
We want it to be smart and effective and efficient.
And it was,
it was disappointing to learn that the utilities had,
none of the major utilities had employed risk-spend
efficiency analysis in their wildfire mitigation plans.
This was, not just more important than ever
given the scale of the investments,
we're talking about billions of dollars
in these wildfire mitigation plans,
even more important with the rate pressures we're going
to face with dealing with COVID.
This is not a novel concept.
It's a concept that we've been working with utilities on
for a number of years
through the general rate case process,
as required by ramp and S map,
so, it's a process we're trying to embed
in all of the utility spending
and it's particularly important and appropriate here.
So, I want to commend you
for focusing the utilities' attention on these areas.
And I do want to thank all of you,
including the, a special shout out
to the three or four ALJs who worked on this
as well as your 27 person staff talent,
for such an expeditious and thorough set of resolutions.
-: Well, all of my very articulate
and brilliant fellow Commissioners have taken
all of the less brilliant and less articulate things
that I was going to say,
and have said them brilliantly.
I do want to repeat a few things, however,
and that is just reminding everyone,
not only has this been lightning speed,
but Caroline was brought onto the Commission,
I believe in October.
And there was no wildfire safety division,
executive director Stevens had been working hard
to put the framework together.
However, you walked in pretty much with a framework
and have hired 27 people,
all the while finishing the maturity model,
not finishing, starting and finishing the maturity model
and applying the new template,
having the IOUs report out in February.
This is really remarkable.
It's, I have to say, I just,
we've had incredible decisions that we've made today.
And we know what it takes in the resource adequacy,
in the disconnection,
how long it takes to make sure that we have adequate input
from the public and that we have the importance
of all the expertise that we can apply
so that we come to a very good decision for the rate payers.
The microgrid, six months,
you completely standing up the wildfire safety division
and applying a whole new template.
It really does, as my fellow Commissioner says,
bring about great data,
brings about that we can now adequately
measure the kind of improvements
that year over year will be made
by the IOUs for wildfire mitigation.
And that goes to the most important thing that we,
we here oversee, and that is the public safety.
And so I just,
I'll add my voice to those of my fellow Commissioners
in awe of what you have done,
in great respect for what you and your team have done.
I too thank the ALJs and all the other experts
that you have used from Cal Fire and elsewhere.
I think we're off to an incredibly good start.
And I think we will finally be able to properly measure
both risk and spend, and progress made in terms
of wildfire mitigation with all of the IOUs in the state.
So, I congratulate you and your team, Caroline, thank you.
And thank you for that hard work,
because it truly will go to save lives in this state.
So with that, we will take up, as I said earlier,
each individual resolution.
The first resolution on our agenda is number 32,
it's resolution WSD-002,
guidance resolution on the 2020 wildfire mitigation plans
pursuant to public utilities code section 8386.
Is there any further comments on item number 32?
Okay.
Seeing none, will the agenda clerk please call the roll?
Clerk: For item number 32, Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Yes.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Yes.
Clerk: President Batjer?
-: Yes.
Thank you. The vote on item number 32 is unanimous.
Moving now to item number 30, resolution WSD-009,
ratifying action of the wildfire safety division
on Horizon West Transmissions
and Trans Bay Cable's 2020 wildfire mitigation plan.
Are there any questions or comments?
Seeing none, will the agenda clerk
please call the roll for item 30?
Clerk: For item 30, Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Yes.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Yes.
Clerk: President Batjer?
-: Yes, thank you,
the vote for on item 30, excuse me, is unanimous.
Moving now on to item 33.
That's resolution WSD-007.
Ratifying action of the wildfire safety division
on Liberty Utility's 2020 wildfire mitigation plan.
Are there any comments?
Seeing none, will the agenda clerk please call the roll?
Clerk: For item 33, Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Yes.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Yes.
Clerk: President Batjer?
-: Yes.
Thank you. Item 33 passes unanimously.
Moving now to item 34, resolution WSD-008.
Ratifying action of the wildfire safety division
on Pacific Corp's 2020 wildfire mitigation plan.
Are there any questions or comments on item 34?
Okay, seeing none, would be agenda clerk
please call the roll?
Clerk: For item 34, Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Yes.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Yes.
Clerk: President Batjer?
-: Yes.
Thank you. The vote is unanimous for item number 34.
Moving now to item 35, resolution WSD-004.
Ratifying action of the wildfire safety division
on Southern California Edison's
company's 2020 wildfire mitigation plan.
Are there any comments or questions on item 35?
Okay.
Seeing none, will the agenda clerk please call the roll?
Clerk: For item 35, Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Yes.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Yes.
Clerk: President Batjer?
-: Yes.
Thank you, the vote on item number 35,
(laughs) I lost my place, is unanimous, thank you.
Moving now on to item 36, resolution WSD-005.
Ratifying action of the wildfire safety division
on San Diego Gas and Electric Company's
2020 wildfire mitigation plan.
Are there any comments or questions?
Seeing none, will the agenda clerk please call the roll
on item 36?
Clerk: For item 36, Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Yes.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Yes.
Clerk: President Batjer?
-: Yes.
Thank you. The vote is unanimous on item 36.
Moving now onto item 37, resolution WSD-003,
ratifying action of the wildfire safety division
on Pacific Gas and Electric Company's
2020 wildfire mitigation plan.
Are there are any comments or questions on item 37?
Okay, seeing none, agenda clerk please call the roll.
Clerk: Item 37, Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Yes.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Yes.
Clerk: President Batjer?
-: Yes.
The vote on an item 37 is unanimous.
Thank you, Caroline and congratulations (laughs).
Moving now onto item number 40.
That is going to be presented by Commissioner Randolph.
-: Thank you, President Batjer.
Today, I ask for your support on item 40,
an order extending statutory deadline
for PG&E's general rate case for the 2020 test year.
This is a large and highly complex general rate case
and includes important wildfire related investments
and risk mitigations,
as well as many of their other business expenses
like asset depreciation, taxes, human resources,
operation and maintenance, and others.
PG&E filed a joint settlement
with a large number of parties to the proceeding.
And we are closely reviewing that settlement now.
On May 15th, the Administrative Law Judges
on the proceeding issued a ruling seeking more information
from PG&E and the settling parties
for the purpose of updating the calculation
of the revenue requirement.
Specifically, the ruling asked PG&E
to update the 2018 capital expenditure forecast,
initially filed in this application,
with it's 2018 recorded actual capital expenditures.
This updated information will help us fully understand,
analyze and deliberate on the provisions of the settlement.
This order would extend the statutory deadline
to December 18th, 2020.
However, we do aim to have a decision issued
in the early fall for a Commission vote.
With that, I ask my colleagues for their support
on this item.
-: Are there any questions or comments on item 40?
Okay, seeing none,
will the agenda clerk please call the roll?
Clerk: For item 40, Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Yes.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Yes.
Clerk: President Batjer?
-: Yes.
The vote for item number 40 is unanimous.
Item number 41 is an item I will present.
This order extending statutory deadline is the application
18 dash- -: Hello?
Hello? -: Excuse.
Excuse me.
Man: Hello?
-: Robert, could you please check the line
for me? -: You there?
Robert: Yes, President Batjer, I'll check it.
-: Thank you.
Okay. I'll resume my comment.
This order extending statutory deadline is
for application 18-03-009,
Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric's
2018 nuclear deCommissioning cost triennial proceeding.
The purpose of this recurring proceeding is
to set the annual revenue requirements
for the deCommissioning trust
for the nuclear power plants owned by SCE and SDG&E
and to determine whether actual expenditures by utilities
for deCommissioning activities are reasonable and prudent.
Briefs and reply briefs were recently filed in March.
An Administrative Law Judge, Robert Haga,
is currently drafting the proposed decision,
an extension of the statutory deadline
to December 19th, 2020 is necessary
to allow enough time to issue a proposed decision
for public review and comment,
and to allow the Commission enough time to deliberate
and issue its final decision on this item.
I request your support.
Are there any comments or questions on item 41?
Okay, seeing none,
will the agenda clerk please call the roll?
Clerk: For item 41, Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Commissioner Randolph?
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Can you guys hear me?
-: Now we can.
-: Okay, that was weird, 'cause I was unmuted.
Yes (laughs).
Clerk: Good. Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Yes.
Clerk: President Batjer?
-: Yes. Thank you. (computer notification rings)
The vote is unanimous on item 41.
Now turning to item 42 will be presented
by Commissioner Randolph.
-: Okay, item 42. Can you guys hear me?
Marybel: Yep. You're good.
-: Okay, good.
This rulemaking was opened to improve public access
to public records pursuant
to the California Public Records Act.
We are currently drafting the latest PD in this proceeding
and aim to publish it very soon for public comment
and a vote this summer.
Our objective is to establish a framework
to ensure that parties making certain claims
to confidentiality are required to make consistent showings.
These requirements will help ensure
that the Commission has a consistent set of relevant facts
every time it considers certain confidentiality claims,
which will assist in adjudicating those claims
in a consistent way.
To accomplish this,
the order extends the deadline to December 18th, 2020.
Although, as I indicated,
we plan to have the decision well before then.
With that, I ask for the support of my fellow Commissioners.
Thank you.
-: Thank you.
Are there any comments or questions on item 42?
Seeing none, will the agenda clerk please call the roll?
Clerk: Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Yes.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Yes.
Clerk: President Batjer?
-: Yes.
Item number 42 has been voted unanimously.
Turning now to the last item on the regular agenda,
item number 43, that is my item.
This order extending statutory deadline is
for rulemaking 18-12-005,
examination of the electric utility de-energization
of power lines in dangerous condition.
The Commission opened this order instituting rulemaking
to examine its rules allowing electric utilities
under the Commission's jurisdiction
to de-energize power lines
in case of dangerous conditions
that threaten life or property in California.
We've been very active in this proceeding,
including the recent adoption of phase two,
additional guidelines for the public safety power shutoff,
or PSPS, in decision 20-05-051, on May 28th.
This rulemaking remains open to pursue a third phase
that will develop a general order
that will codify the guidelines
and directives contained in phase two decisions
and previous authorities.
Other issues may also be taken up
in the third phase of this proceeding,
including issues already scoped into phase one and two
that have not fully been addressed.
This proceeding also includes a rule directing PG&E
to show cause why it should not be sanctioned
for violations of the public utilities code
and PSPS authorities during the 2019 PSPS events.
Evidentiary hearings for this issue were delayed due
to COVID-19 pandemic and will be rescheduled.
In extent shortly,
an extension of the statutory deadline to May 28, 2021,
is necessary to allow enough time to resolve these issues.
Oh, I will do everything I can
to conclude these matters in a more timely fashion
than in one year, underscored (laughs).
And for that, I request your support for item, this item.
Thank you.
Are there any questions or comments?
Seeing none, thank you (laughs),
will the agenda clerk please call the roll?
Clerk: Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Randolph?
-: Yes.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Yes.
Clerk: President Batjer?
-: Yes.
Item number 43 is passed unanimously.
Thank you all very much.
We will now leave the regular agenda
and take up management reports.
There is no report for item 44,
report and discussion on recent consumer protections
and safety activities.
And I turn to Chief ALJ Anne Simon for item 45,
which is management report on administrative activities.
Judge Simon?
Anne: Thank you, President Batjer.
I would like to take this opportunity to briefly introduce
to the Commission four Administrative Law Judges
who started in February
and our class of interns for this summer.
Starting with the ALJs,
Dan Bush joined the Commission in 2013
as an analyst in energy division's energy efficiency branch,
in 2015, he moved to the public advocate's office
customer programs team, first as a senior analyst
and then as a supervisor.
Prior to coming to the Commission,
he spent a decade conducting research on experts
and policies in Latin America.
He lives in Oakland with his wife and two daughters.
Amin Nojan joined the ALJ division
after working on energy policy
in the public advocate's office
and on service quality in the communications division.
Prior to joining the Commission,
Amin advised policy makers in Sacramento
and in Washington DC on energy,
environmental safety and foreign policy.
He holds a master's degree in international relations
and economics from the Johns Hopkins School
of Advanced International Studies.
He enjoys hiking, reading fantasy novels,
and spending time with his family.
Camille Watts-Zagha joined the Commission in 2000,
beginning as a communications division analyst
and moving public advocate's office
where she supervised work on rate cases,
affordability and public purpose programs.
She holds a bachelor's degree in political science
from UC San Diego
and a master's in public administration
from Syracuse University.
She enjoys cooking, being outdoors and Israeli folk dancing.
Peter Wercinski served since 2004
as an Administrative Law Judge
in San Francisco and Oakland
with the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board
before starting at the Commission this February.
He received a bachelor's degree in political science
from the University of Michigan and also graduated
from the University of Michigan Law School.
He lives in San Francisco with his wife and son.
And if I could have the next slide, please.
If, yes. Thank you.
You are now looking at our summer intern class,
Jessica Jandura has been an intern
at the Commission over the last year,
both for the ALJ division
and in Commissioner Rechtschaffen's office.
She graduated from Golden Gate University School of Law
this May, with specializations in environmental law,
and public interest law.
Prior to attending law school,
Jessica earned a master's degree in applied human rights
from the University of York.
She has the bar exam to look forward to
at the, after the end of the summer (laughs),
but better than that, after the bar exam,
she will be getting married.
Bradan Litzinger is a rising 2L at UCLA School of Law,
where he is specializing in critical race studies.
Prior to the law school,
Bradan was legislative director
for Council Member Sophie Hahn in Berkeley,
where he worked on over 50 pieces of legislation.
When not studying or doing many of his volunteer activities,
which I have cut in the interest of time,
Bradan can be found cooking and baking with his wife,
enjoying all manner of science fiction and fantasy media
and exploring parks and green spaces in the East Bay.
McKayla MacMahon is a rising 2L at Hastings College of Law.
Before attending Hastings,
McKayla worked on sustainability programs
for the City of Half Moon Bay.
She earned her undergraduate degree from Sonoma State
in political science and philosophy.
She enjoys trying new restaurants,
which hopefully she will be able to do again soon,
traveling, ditto, and taking her German shepherd,
Desi, on hikes.
Isaac Serratos is arising 2L
at Hastings College of Law as well.
He received his bachelor of arts in environmental studies
from UC Santa Cruz with minors in sustainability studies
and legal studies.
His focus has been on pragmatic solutions
to environmental problems.
Isaac has always lived in the East Bay
and hopes to travel throughout the United States,
particularly to see our national parks,
when that becomes possible again.
Finally, we have one college intern this summer,
Lizet Rivas Villanueva,
who is an undergraduate at American University.
She wants eventually to be a civil rights attorney.
In summer 2018,
she interned at Bay Area Legal Incubator
and then followed that up
with an entire year of volunteering
during the academic year 2018, 2019.
When she finished that,
she went back to her school at American University
and last summer volunteered at Common Sense Media.
We welcome all of our, now not so new ALJs,
and our summer interns to the Commission.
And thank you, President Batjer and Commissioners
for these introduce, allowing these introductions.
-: (laughs) We're all waving and clapping.
Anne, thank you so much.
What an impressive group of ALJs and summer interns.
Aren't we lucky?
I always love to welcome people to public service,
the most noble profession in my belief.
And, so pleased to have you among us.
We are honored and very fortunate.
Thank you so much Anne for those lovely introductions.
Is there any comments from the Commissioners?
Other than clapping and waving (laughs).
Okay.
That ends the, that the management reports.
So, we'll now move onto the Commissioner reports.
Who would like to go first
in among the Commissioners to report?
Commissioner Guzman Aceves?
-: Thank you.
Just want a report on a couple of things.
One I mentioned earlier, which is to wish my,
my deputy chief of staff Marina MacLatchie the best of luck
as she's joined Hazel Miranda's team over there
at the office of government affairs.
I, and as you know, she, Marina has done so much
and really the disconnections proceeding is
as much of her and Manriquez's work
to get it to completion and all the work that she did.
But there's really not enough I could say about Marina.
She has, she improved my quality of life tremendously.
And so, I'm anticipating a decrease in that
in the next month here (laughs)
until we find somebody new,
but I really wish her all the best.
And it really is a good story about the Commission
and the ability to continue
to progress in your career and find new opportunities here.
So, I wish her the best of luck
and wanted to share that good news with all of you.
And then I did just want to share
that we did have the FCC hosted a webinar here
with us yesterday to discuss the opportunity
for the federal funding,
the rural digital opportunity fund
that we have, our communications division,
Rob Osborn and his staff have been really trying
to work collaboratively with the FCC
and also to encourage California applications
to come forward because that's the structure,
folks have to apply,
we cannot apply in the state for them.
And so, we're, there was a good attendance,
about 200 or so participants,
hopefully all of those participants are future applicants.
And the timeline is pretty quick.
The folks who are interested
need to provide their short form,
which is basically a letter of intent
between July 1st and July 15th of next month.
And I just share all of this
because we are also in the midst of figuring out
how best to optimize the remaining TASF funds.
And as I've said before,
just to continue to reiterate,
the need is greater than the availability of funds.
And so, we're really looking to this federal opportunity
as a way to meet the need
and the half a billion that came in,
need, is still not even covering
the actual unmet need in California.
So lots to do,
and hopefully the legislature will continue that program,
but just wanted to share
that the communications division did work with the FCC
in making that happen yesterday
and getting a little bit closer
to having applicants from California,
hopefully bid successfully for this federal opportunity.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
I want to congratulate Marina.
I'm particularly thrilled
that she's climbing the career ladder here at the PUC
and is not flying off to some other department
or agency in California government.
So, I'm thrilled
that Marina is taking on some new responsibilities
and I'm sure your quality
of life will improve again soon (laughs).
Any, and also very great
to hear the participation yesterday.
So hoping that we have subscribers,
it's incredibly important
and I'm glad that there were that many people
that were involved in the webinar, that's super.
Any other Commissioners would like to report?
Yes, Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
(computer notification rings) -: I have two announcements
of upcoming events.
Next Friday, June 19th,
the disadvantaged communities advisory group will be meeting
and among other things on the agenda is a discussion
of the impacts from COVID on disadvantaged communities.
More information can be found
on our disadvantaged communities webpage.
Secondly, we have scheduled tentatively a discussion
on July 1st, Wednesday, July 1st
at our policy and governance committee
of a proposed CPUC enforcement policy.
This is an outgrowth of the enforcement initiative
that we have been working on over the past couple of years.
If you recall,
we approved a set of enforcement principles last year,
building on those principles,
we've been working internally to draft an enforcement policy
that would apply to all industry divisions.
The thought is at the policy and governance committee,
we would open it up to discussion from other stakeholders,
members of public, members of the public,
and other Commissioners to get feedback on the draft policy.
We'll post the draft policy,
hopefully in the next couple of days
to give people a couple of weeks to look at it
and prepare for the meeting.
But if you could hold that date,
Wednesday, July 1st, it'll be in the morning
when our committee meetings are scheduled.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
Any other Commissioners wish to report out?
I don't know who, whose hand went up first?
Commissioner Randolph, let's go with you (laughs).
-: Okay.
I just wanted to highlight that on Monday, our staff,
and we'll be participating in a joint workshop
with the California Energy Commission on the BUILD program,
which is the implementation of SB 1477
to provide funding for decarbonization incentives.
And so, we will be spending all day
with our CEC colleagues on Monday,
discussing those issues
and getting that program off the ground
as CEC is going to be administering the distribution
of those funds.
So, looking forward to that discussion on Monday.
-: Yeah, terrific. Thank you.
Commissioner Shiroma?
-: Hi, thank you. I have a number of things to highlight.
We've got the low income oversight board meeting tomorrow,
June 12th, starting at 9:00 AM.
These board meetings are all day long,
really good agenda items.
The LIO news will present their latest information
about their low income programs and so much more.
And the details can be found, it'll be on WebEx,
details can be found on the LIOB website,
liob.cpuc.ca.gov, and then, next week,
Monday, June 15th, we'll have, again by WebEx,
the quarter meeting of the Universal Lifeline Telephone
Service Administrative Committee.
And this committee advises the Commission
on all matters having to do with Lifeline
and those details can also be found
on our Commission's daily calendar area.
That'll be at 1:00 PM on Monday.
Then on Wednesday, June 17th,
the Commission has its committee,
emerging trends committee meeting, that'll be at 10:00 AM,
also via WebEx.
This coming Wednesday,
we'll be hearing from a number of our industry divisions
on the host of that actions that they have taken,
and we have taken to address COVID 19 and the pandemic.
And that should be a really good, really good sessions.
And we should be very proud of the work that has been done
and continues to be done.
And then finally,
I've got my Southern California Edison PPHs,
public participation hearings.
It'll be, I'll be first out the gate on the,
whereas before we had, gosh, I don't, got a bunch,
eight to 10 in person meetings around the Edison territory.
Now we will provide four opportunities for customers
to comment to us on the Southern California Edison's
proposed general rate case.
June 30th at 1:00 PM, and let's see, oh boy,
4:00 PM and 7:00 PM.
And I'm, looking at the one, let's see,
I'm looking at my notes.
Okay, anyway there were only two, one in the afternoon,
one in the evening and then on following day, July 1st,
again at 1:00 PM and 6:00 PM,
but all of these things are gonna be on our website.
They already are our website.
I'm sorry, 2:00 PM, (laughs) 2:00 PM and 6:00 PM,
June 30th and July 1st.
Southern California Edison, fall participation hearing,
opportunities, it will be an online effort
where Judge Steibert and I,
Judge McKinney and I will be seeing live
and then we will have as many people who want to talk to us
and comments here as possible.
It can be found at cpuc.ca.gov/pph.
Okay then finally, to wrap up,
I just wanted to say thank you to Justin Regnier,
who has been my energy advisor
on energy and transportation issues,
pretty much all of the rail crossings,
likely rail and so forth.
Justin has advised me on those,
worked with our judges on those.
And prior to state service,
Justin was a design engineer
in the semiconductor, biotech, and HVAC industries
as well as being
a commercial building Commissioning engineer.
He spent a number of years
at the California Energy Commission
working on existing building energy efficiency programs
and then,
and also on transportation electrification projects.
And then came to the CPUC's energy division,
spent not quite two years there before coming to my office.
Now he's returning back to where he was pretty much before,
probably new things that he's got to take care of,
all our electrical interconnection and reliability,
he'll be working in Bruce Kaneshiro's group.
And so, during these past months
that Justin has been an advisor to me,
he has worked on the microgrids proceedings,
the Edison, GRC, all of the rail crossings and much more.
And I, what I'd like to believe is that he is now taking
that extensive Commission wide experience back with him
to the energy division,
hopefully with some new insights, experience and knowledge.
So, we do congratulate Justin and wish him the best.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Shiroma
for a very busy schedule that you have
and best wishes to Justin, again,
glad he is staying within the PUC family.
That's wonderful. (computer notification rings)
Any final comments from the Commissioners?
Okay. Seeing none, this public meeting is now adjourned.