-: Let's go on the record
and I'll call to order docket number
five, two, three, two, one.
Application of ERCOT for a debt
obligation order under PURA Chapter 39,
Subchapter M and 5 2 3 2 2,
also an application of ERCOT this time for a debt obligation
order to finance uplift balances under
PURA Chapter 39 Subchapter N.
My name is Hunter Burkhalter.
This is a pre hearing conference being held on
July 28th, 2021.
Let me start by taking appearances.
We have two parties officially at this point.
So let me start with the parties first. ERCOT first.
-: Good morning, your honor.
Ron Moss in Juliana Morehead for ERCOT.
-: Welcome and Commission staff.
-: Good morning, your honor.
Eleanor D'Ambrosio and Floyd Walker for Commission staff.
-: Thank you. All right.
And so I haven't admitted any interveners yet,
but I do want to know if you're here.
So I'm going to go through my list of interveners.
Folks who have sought to intervene.
And the court reporter who wants me to remind you,
I'm not going to make, we're going to try this,
not making you come up to the mic to speak,
but so that she can hear please, be loud,
so she can hear it.
If, if that doesn't work,
I might have y'all come up to the mic,
but let's try this first.
And then when I call your name,
let me know if you were appearing for both dockets
or one docket or the other.
So T I E C.
-: Your honor, John Hubbard for both dockets.
-: Just energy.
-: Right here, your honor.
Kathy Webb here for Just Energy.
I'm also here for Gexa
A P G and E and Southern Federal in both dockets.
-: Sorry. So Just Energy, Gexa Energy
-: A P G and E.
It's probably on your afternoon list
and Southern Federal Power.
-: Maybe I mentioned it here.
-: Your honor, I apologize.
APG and E and Southern federal are
just in the two, two proceeding those Subchapter N.
Burkhalter: Ah okay. Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you for that. All right.
-: Thank you.
-: NRG.
-: Yes, your honor.
Andrea Stover and Christina Rollins.
-: For both dockets?
-: For both dockets.
-: Thank you. City of Garland?
Yes, your honor. Reid Barnes.
For both dockets.
Also here on behalf of the city of Lubbock,
the city of Denton and the city of Georgetown.
Burkhalter: Okay. Lubbock, Denton, did you say?
-: Yes, Denton and Georgetown.
-: And are they on in both dockets?
-: Yes.
Burkhalter: Thank you.
DC energy, Texas?
City of Austin?
-: Morning, your honor.
Thomas Porchetta
appearing on behalf of city of Austin in both proceedings.
-: Thank you.
Coalition, a competitive retail electric providers.
-: Good morning, your honor.
(inaudible)
Both dockets.
-: Thank you. LCRA and LCRA WSC.
Havan Grid.
Exelon.
-: Megan (inaudible) for both dockets.
Burkhalter: Thank you.
Shell.
Energy trading Institute.
City of Georgetown.
-: Yes, your honor.
Burkhalter: Oh, right.
Thank you.
BP
EDF.
-: Good morning, your honor,
James Guy on behalf of the EDF Energy Services.
Burkhalter: Both dockets?
-: Yes, both dockets.
Thank you. City group?
Texas retail energy?
Luminant?
-: Good morning, your honor.
Bill Moore and Melissa Warber on behalf of Luminant Energy.
Both dockets.
Burkhalter: Thank you. Tenaska?
Advant Power Alliance?
Golden spread?
-: Yes, your honor.
Todd Kimbro. And we're in both dockets.
Burkhalter: Texpo?
-: Good morning again, James Guy,
on behalf of Texpo in both dockets.
Burkhalter: Sarason?
Terraform Power?
-: Terry Collier Brown and Matt Heart for Terraform.
And we're also here for NL Trading.
Burkhalter: Are you in both in Terraform, both dockets?
-: Only in the 3, 2 ,1 docket, your honor.
Burkhalter: Okay.
And I'm sorry, what was the second company?
-: It is NL Trading, North America.
Burkhalter: And is that in both dockets or just?
-: No, only in 3, 2, 1.
Burkhalter: Thank you.
-: Thank you.
Burkhalter: How are you doing?
(laughter)
-: NG Resources?
-: Good morning, your honor.
Steven (inaudible) on behalf of NG on both sides.
-: Thank you.
South Texas Electric co-op?
-: Morning,
Jennifer Littlefield
on behalf of the South Texas Electrical,
and the Subchapter N proceeding.
And I'm also here on behalf of Chariot-
Burkhalter: Sorry, M and N sound too much alike.
The two, one or two -- -: The 3, 2, 1.
And I'm also here on behalf of Chariot Energy
and the Subchapter N two, two proceedings.
-: Thank you.
Morgan Stanley?
Vital?
R W E. Renewables?
Texas Treasury Safekeeping.
-: Hi, yes, your honor.
Serena (inaudible)
for the Texas Treasury Safe Keeping Trust Company,
only for docket 3, 2, 1, please.
-: Thank you.
Alright. So this is my list for two, two.
And if I, if I'm redundant, bare with me.
Let's see, TSU Energy Retail?
-: Yes, your honor.
Good morning. Mike Wright here. (inaudible)
-: And you're only--
-: And I'm also here for Luminant DP services.
, Tri Eagle Energy, Value Based Brands,
which include For Change Energy,
Fresh Energy, Bedroom energy.
-: And they are all only appearing in the two, two?
-: They're all only two, two. -: Thank you.
-: Thanks.
-: City of Seguin?
AP gas and electric?
-: Your honor.
That's that APG and E I've mentioned earlier.
-: Ah right. Thank you. Thank you.
Tenaska Power and associated folks?
Southern Federal Power.
-: Yes, your honor.
Again, Catherine Webb King. Thank you.
-: Thank you. Calpine?
-: Yes, your honor.
Chad Johnson,
Maria Faccanti and the Elena Serrano.
And we're in both proceedings,
-: All right. Thank you.
1 7 4 Power Global?
Rayburn Country. Oh, I'm sorry.
-: Yes. It's okay.
Jennifer Littlefield, on behalf of 174 Power Global.
-: Only in docket two, two?
-: Correct.
-: Alright.
Rayburn Country?
East Texas electric Co-op.
-: Good morning, your honor.
Jacob Lawlor on behalf of East Texas Electric Co-op.
We should be in both dockets.
-: Thank you. OPUC
-: Good morning, your honor.
Adam Goodlet on behalf of the office of public utility
council, for both dockets.
-: I think that is everybody.
Is there anybody here who-
-: Yeah, Melissa Gauge.
An attorney for AP. We intervened this morning.
I apologize. We had an issue yesterday,
but it should be on file now for AP energy partners.
-: For both?
-: For both both dockets.
-: Thank you.
-: Anybody else?
Alright.
-: So the time for objecting
to a few motions to intervene has passed.
The time for objecting to by far of,
most of them has not passed.
I'm wondering, is there going to be any-
I'm wondering if I can rule on them now,
or would you like to have time to think about it or are they
going to be controversial?
ERCOT Rep: They're not your honor, we have no objections.
-: Is there-
Is there anybody else who has any hesitancy about me
just granting all the intervention motions now?
Then that's what I'm gonna do.
You're all admitted.
Okay. The, the,
the both cases have a request for a good cause exception to
the waive, the nodal protocol about confidentiality,
both ERCOT and Commission staff have given what I think are,
are good arguments based on practical considerations for me
to waive that.
But I don't think either has given me legal arguments as to
how I have the legal authority, authority to waive that.
So what I'm going to ask, ERCOT,
I would like a briefing- and it doesn't have to be elaborate
on what is my legal authority to grant a good cause waiver
of a nodal protocol requirement.
And, and, and now how much time do you need to do that?
ERCOT Rep: I think we can do that
by end of the day on Friday.
If that works for you, your honor.
-: That, that's fine.
Sure. That's fine.
-: And then Commission staff,
how much time do you need to respond?
I'll tell you what,
I'm just going to tell you to do it on the third,
and then I'm going to tell,
and anybody else can do it on the third day.
I'm they have an order memorializing this pre hearing
conference, but are you taking notes on that?
So, so, and,
and one of the things that'll say is for ERCOT to provide
briefing by the 30th
and for staff and everybody else,
staff must, and everybody else may
provide briefing on the same issue by the third.
Schedule.
So I can tell you that it will be a Commission held hearing.
I can tell you that it will likely be during the week of
August 23.
And I can tell you that there's a comm- Commission
work session on the 26th.
And there's ah, I don't know,
a Quasi state holiday,
the 27th is I think, that'll be LBJ's birthday,
and so that's like a skeleton crew around here.
So, that tells me that the, the most likely,
highly likely scenario, not certain,
but I highly likely scenario is there will be three days for
a Commission held hearing on both dockets.
And that will be the 23rd through the 25th of August.
I, my understanding is that that will be,
the decision will be made certain
at this week's open meeting.
The Commission will announce the-- announced that,
but my suggestion to y'all is to proceed on the assumption
that,
that's that's when the hearing on the merits will happen.
-: Yes, sir.
-: Your honor,
you said August 23rd, that's about three weeks.
Are we talk- should it be September?
Are we really talking about August?
-: We're really talking about August 23.
-: Okay.
Thank you.
-: Yes.
For better for worse. So, and as I say, I think you.
I think you will hear an announcement from the Commission on
the, on the they're open meeting on Thursday, the 29th,
July 29th, confirming that.
I believe.
So. I suggest you proceed on that assumption.
It will necessitate- That will necessitate
reworking the schedules that I've already issued and,
and obviously working out a schedule going forward from
here.
I have been working on the assumption that maybe the most
valuable thing coming out of today would be that maybe we
could recess and let y'all-
y'all are all in a room
and you can talk about schedules going forward.
Is that, has that been, are y'all envisioning doing that?
-: [Commission Staff] I think we have to now.
-: Okay.
-: Your honor, may I ask a clarifying question?
So that, that August 23rd,
that week for the hearing, still envisioned a possible
preliminary order addressing the briefing order questions on
August 19th?
-: That's my understanding.
-: Okay. Thank you.
-: Sure.
I also want to talk about the request for a parallel-
this parallel proceeding issue.
Thanks for Commission staff's briefing on it. Yesterday.
I remain confused.
Maybe everybody on the planet remains confused about how all
this is going to work,
but as I read Commission staff briefing,
there might be disagreement about whether the opt out
is a separate thing,
but the process for LSCs to demonstrate their
eligibility and all that might be part of this docket,
is that what Commission staff is envisioned.
-: What Commission staff thinks might be a contested issue in
5, 2, 3, 2, 2 is what documentation
an LSC needs to provide in the parallel docket to
substantiate its exposure.
I don't know everybody may, you know, once,
once we get an order to the briefing questions,
which I think is probably the more hotly contested issue
then it, it may be perfunctory to figure out what kind of
documentation is needed. I'm just not sure at this point.
-: But, so, so you are- I misread your,
your pleading from yesterday and, maybe I-
you are envisioning that separate proceeding deals
with not only the opt-out,
but also the quantification of their correct exposure and-
-: [Commission Staff] Correct.
-: Okay. Okay. I did misread it.
And you indicated that parallel proceedings should be filed,
but I'm still scratching my head on by whom?
-: Staff can open that proceeding.
We did not want to be hasty or put the cart before the
horse, but yes, if we are happy to initiate that docket.
-: Okay.
Okay. So- So what is the party's pleasure?
Would you all like to recess our pre hearing conference and
discuss schedule?
And then perhaps,
I don't know if it's too much of hope that you might be able
to come back with a new and approved schedule that we could,
we could get approved today,
or is that pie in the sky and you need more time.
What's your pleasure?
-: I think we can give it a try, your honor.
Maybe you give us 30 minutes and we'll see if we can
come up.
-: I'll give you as much. I'm here all day.
I'll give you as much time as you want.
-: Okay.
We will make an effort to get that done.
-: Maybe talk about this,
the logistics of this separate procedure too.
I think everybody's trying to get their wrap their heads
around that.
So is there anything else we need to discuss before we
recess, then let's do that.
We'll recess.
And then will you just come-
You or you or somebody come get me when you're, whenever.
Okay.
We're back on the record after a recess.
And sounds like the parties are ready with some sort of
announcement.
-: Yes, your honor.
So the parties have agreed
the current deadlines in order number one,
through the July 30th deadline for objections to
ERCOT direct testimony would stay the same.
Intervener direct testimony.
-: Do you have a- do you have any of this written out or-
-: Well, I have a clean copy
that you can then fill in what I'm.
-: That's good, that's good. Okay.
So let's see through-
-: Through the July 30th deadline for deadline,
for objections to ERCOT direct testimony.
-: Okay. Would remain unchanged?
-: Yep.
-: And the, and this is a schedule
that would cover in both cases?
Would be the same schedule in both cases?
-: Yes.
-: Okay.
-: The deadline for intervene or direct testimony or a
statement of position would be August 12th.
The deadline for Commission staff duress direct to testimony
is August 16th.
The deadline for ERCOT rebuttal testimony and a supplemental
intervener's statement of position,
depending on what the preliminary order on August 19th says-
-: Wait a second, so,
ERCOT rebuttal-
-: And an intervener supplemental statement of position
would be August 20th.
And there would be no cross rebuttal testimony.
And then, we're not sure,
we're not sure if this would, and we'd have to,
we did not talk about how to,
how exactly to adjust objections to testimony.
So we might need to adjust those, but we did,
we did settle on briefing proposed briefing deadlines.
And I don't know if this will jive with sort of the
timeframe that you were given,
but we were envisioning initial briefs on September 3rd and
reply briefs on September 10th.
-: Okay. I, I'm not even sure I'm prepared to put that in,
in a,
I think probably we'll resolve that at the hearing on the,
on the marriage when post hearing briefing will be due.
But, so, yeah, so the,
the blank in this equation is the blanks are the objections
to testimony.
-: Yes.
-: So that's still being, that's not agreed upon,
-: We didn't discuss it.
-: We didn't discuss that your honor, but we, we,
I think we probably can reach some agreement on that.
The one thing that I would add to what Ms D'Ambrosio said
was the statements of position on the 12th for interveners
is, is about everything except the netting issue.
The supplemental statement of position on the 20th is
restricted to party's position on the netting issue-
-: On the what issue?
-: The netting, N E T T I N G. -: Netting
-: Question number one, in the briefing order.
-: The the Commission will, we believe,
will make a decision on that on the 19th of August.
-: Understood.
-: And therefore parties will have til the 20th to make a
supplemental statement of position on that issue.
-: So. But that,
and that's the sole purpose of the supplemental statement?
-: Yes, sir.
-: Okay.
-: And we also agreed to, two procedural items,
the first is that drafts of testimony and emails,
transmitting drafts of testimony are not discoverable.
And we'd also like to use the service method that's used
commonly in the Commissions matrix,
matrix docket for setting the ERCOT wholesale transmission
rates, which is that service or filing via the interchange
constitutes service.
And that way people won't be getting lots and lots of
service emails.
-: Okay.
Well, what do you wanna do on these objections?
Objection, deadlines.
-: We haven't had an opportunity to discuss this,
but I think one thing you could do is handle objections
actually at the hearing. If we needed to,
since we have so little time in the schedule,
there may not be many obviously pre pre hearing conference.
If we want to take a minute off the record-
-: Let's do that.
We'll go off the record.
Here's, here's my understanding- We're back on the record.
And here's my understanding of the agreement of the
parties as to a schedule going forward.
The schedule I've already entered would be unchanged through
July 30th and going forward from there,
intervener direct testimony,
the deadline for intervener direct testimony
and statements of position would be due August 12th,
Commission staff direct testimony would be due August 16th,
objections to intervener testimony would also be due
August 16th.
The deadline for ERCOT rebuttal testimony and well ERCOT
rebuttal testimony would be due August 20.
There'd be no opportunity for Commission staff
and intervener cross rebuttal testimony.
There would be a deadline for a supplemental statement of
position,
and those supplemental statements of position
would only be allowed on
the question raised by the briefing order in and the docket
ending in two, two.
Those would be due by August 20 objections and Commission
staff testimony would be due by August 20 and objections to
rebuttal testimony.
There's not going to be any cross rebuttal testimony.
So objections to,
ERCOTs rebuttal testimony would be due at a pre hearing
conference that will likely be held on the morning of August
23.
And that's, as far as I can go with the schedule right now,
but that's, I will issue an order to that effect,
adopting that schedule.
Thank you all for working on that.
Is there any other matters?
Well, is there anything we need to discuss-
Any kind of decisions or agreement
that had been reached on this parallel docket issue?
-: Those discussions will be ongoing, so not at this time.
-: Fair enough. Anything else we need to talk about today?
Thank you all very much. We're adjourned.
-: Thank you, your honor.