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Operator: California Public Utilities Commission
public voting meeting on this day, Thursday,
October 7th, 2021.
Today's call is being recorded if you have any objections,
you may disconnect at this time.
President Batjer you may proceed.
-: Thank you operator.
Good morning.
We need to establish a quorum of the agenda
clerk Please call the roll.
-: Commissioner Houck.
-: Here.
-: Commissioner Shiroma.
-: Present.
-: Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
-: I'm here.
-: Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Here.
-: President Batjer.
-: Here, we have established a quorum, thank you all.
Welcome everyone to the public.
Excuse me.
Welcome to the California Public Utilities Commission.
I'm calling this meeting of October 7th, 2021 public agenda
item 34, 94, to order.
Due to the corona virus pandemic
and the shelter in place order we are conducting today
business meeting online and by remote participation
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-: Thank you.
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With that guidance in mind I welcome today's speakers,
I will now turn to the operator to open the public comment,
telephone line thank you.
Operator.
Operator: Thank you.
so our public comment, telephone line is now open.
If you wish to speak during the public comment period,
please press star one unmute your phone
and clearly record your name and organization when prompted.
Our first caller is Sudi Skull you may go ahead.
Sudi: Good morning.
The copper landline is a lifeline and a medical emergency
and incoherent landline 911 can be placed
and then an ambulance will
be automatically sent to the caller's address.
A cell phone does not perform this function.
In 2016 AT&T tried to unsuccessfully dismantle the landline
through a bill and state Congress.
Now by pawning the landline onto frontier,
which just emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April, 2021,
AT&T is attempting again to dismantle the copper landline.
Frontier is a mismanaged company that has not been able to
sustain profitability since they took over rural districts
in 2016 from Verizon,
they infuriate their customers routinely by exasperated
friend in Santa Cruz county has filed
four complaints for the FCC.
Their record of maintenance is poor.
Obviously Frontiers personnel do not have the years of
quality training and know-how
they come with AT&T is ability to provide reliable,
consistent copper landlines here in California,
which we desperately need.
Vote no on AT&T application thank you.
-: Thank you, operator the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Rob Holly.
You may go ahead.
Holly: Hi, I'm Rob Holly from the solar rights Alliance.
I wanna remind the Commission
that the ACC model was prepared by E3
a long time partner of the utilities.
The alternative is the non-biased fiber clean energy model.
The Fiber model looks out to 2050 using 10 times more data
to look at every possible way to make the energy system
more cost effective.
It shows that the path to cleaner green power
requires rooftop solar.
This over require fewer long distance power lines.
The report confirms a trend we've been witnessing over the
past several years.
In 2018 alone,
the state energy officials scale back $2.6 billion
worth of power line projects.
The ACC only looks out to 2030 relies on outdated
assumptions and an unrealistic build-out of utility solar.
Why is the Commission basing his decisions on a bias model
that lacks either the time span
or accuracy to predict what will happen?
Thank you.
-: Thank you, operator the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Brockie Payne
you may go ahead.
Payne: Hi, my name is Brockie Payne.
I'm here to speak on behalf of the Mermaid California
and a letter to be delivered to the Commission today,
188 advocacy organizations are imploring the Commission to
protect and strengthen the state's tent metering program.
These organizations and leaders are part of over 400
working together to save rooftop solar.
The letter states that the framework of net-metering should
be maintained and improved to meet the following goals.
One, keep rooftop solar growing to fight climate change
and build a safer, more resilient grid,
two prioritize equity, bring rooftop, solar,
and storage to more low income families and communities
and three it makes the large charge batteries standard
with rooftop solar by 2030.
That it keeps solar in the hands of everyday Californians,
we need to maintain a strong net metering program.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, operator the next caller please.
Operator next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Esther.
You may go ahead.
Esther: Hi my name is Esther Anciso
and I live in long beach, California.
Please don't buy the utility line
that rooftop solar is costing other people money.
Rooftop solar is reducing the cost
of long distance power lines,
which are the actual reason for high rates,
blackouts and wildfires.
Rooftop solar and battery storage projects
are one of the best shovel-ready jobs creators out there.
Rooftop solar offers lots of local jobs in every community
that cannot be outsourced.
Additionally,
California will not meet its climate change goals.
If we back off from rooftop solar,
they're the limit to how much large scale solar and wind
that they can build affordably
and without encroaching on protected natural areas
without a lot more rooftop solar,
the financial and environmental costs of clean energy
will prohibitively hike, Thank you for your time.
-: Thank you, operator next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is David McCord,
you may go ahead.
McCord: Hi this was a David McCord
and I'm a rate payer in El Sorito.
I ask the CPUC to strengthen net energy metering
for rooftop solar,
and storage to encourage equitable installation
on homes and businesses.
As a key state agency,
the PUC is charged with helping the state
to achieve its climate goals.
This means expanding renewable energy,
including solar and storage, rooftop solar and storage
enhances resiliency on the distribution
grid as well as for individual customers.
It also reduces the cost of long distance transmission,
reducing the electricity the rates that we pay.
The big utilities self-serving proposals
for an ethereum metering would do the opposite.
The PUC's role is to serve the public Good,
not to help the utility is to maximize the profits for
shareholders, thanks.
-: Thank you, Mr. McCord operator, the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Alan Marlene
you may go ahead.
Marlene: Hello can you hear me?
-: Yes, we can please go ahead.
Marlene: Thank you.
I'm Alan Marlene California residents.
Last few weeks ago, I was driving home,
saw a lightning storm and I was terrified not only because I
was unexpected, there was no rain or anything,
but also because I was worried it
would start another wildfire.
We were lucky that night,
but I don't expect us to be lucky in the future
and a more clean energy through rooftop solar will make
climate change not so bad
and we'll make future fire seasons, not so terrifying
and so I urge the CPUC to keep rooftop solar
and battery storage growing
when stuck in my house and get the wildfire,
smoke local clean energy micro grids are the most
effective way to do this and such as through rooftop solar,
and it's important that you do not by the utility lie that
we've taught solar is costing other people money.
They're breeding criminals
and don't trust anything they say, thank you.
-: Thank you, operator next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Mike Policek.
You may go ahead.
Policek: Hi, I'm a resident of San Mateo county,
about a half hour drive from Google, Tesla,
Silicon valley in general,
but it lost power five times in the last six weeks.
It's every few days,
these outages are typically lasting 24 to 48 hours.
PG&E's liability is normally not great in my area.
It's not uncommon for us to lose electricity
a few times a year,
but in the last few years and months it's gotten much worse
and this is happening at the worst time.
When many of us are working or going to school from home,
I understand this is a response to fire danger and PG&E
setting breakers incorrectly
and that these settings
are in the process of being adjusted,
but it's not acceptable to simply say
that we can either be safe or get reliable electricity.
I've heard PG&E is working on improvements,
but you at the CPUC must review how it is
that you let things get this bad.
Moving forward I urge you to demand detailed
urgent goals with metrics from PG&E
this is how normal businesses work.
You must demand actions with names and dates
that lead to the achievement of these goals
and you must share all of this with the public
so we can hold PG&E and the CPUC accountable, thank you.
-: Thank you, operator the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Dr. Sandra Miller Ross
with health and habitat, Inc.
You may go ahead.
Miller: I am a disabled hearing impaired senior citizen
and have not received notice
that AT&T is dropping landlines.
I have six and request CPUC reject AT&T's
application and guaranteed
present service will not diminish.
VOIP and wireless are not reliable
911 or emergency notifications very necessary
in the fire prone area while are I live.
My disabling electromagnetic sensitivity
prevents me from using cell phones.
I request CPUC,
make arrangements for people with disabilities to continue
to have copper landlines and hold remote public
participation hearings after clearly notifying all
customers in California, thank you.
-: Thank you, operator next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is David Rusha,
you may go ahead.
Rush: Hello my name is David Rusha.
The continued growth of distributed energy
resources like rooftop,
solar and community micro-grids is a vital importance in
advancing all of the goals that California energy Commission
has established for our state goals
that utilities alone cannot achieve.
The proposal submitted by to the PUC by investor owned
utilities are shortsighted and self-serving
and will cripple the growth of DER's in our state.
I urge you carefully to carefully review the detailed study
conducted by vibrant clean energy,
that presents a comprehensive analysis of the ways that
DER's bring long-term benefits to a broad,
diverse sector of the state's population.
Concluding also that DERS will
in the long run save money for all rate payers,
I and thousands of Californians invested in PV systems for
the sake of our planet's future not for our pocketbooks.
Let DERS continue to be a part of the solution
to global warming, not part of the problem thank you.
-: Thank you, operator next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Nina Beede you may go ahead.
Nina: I'm Nina Beede party state
that there's confusion about who AT&T
is application to anyone 0507 effects there's no confusion
AT&T has worked to eliminate copper line landline service
for years through legislation
and regulatory action and move customers
to grossly inadequate hazardous phone service
and to a phone company that's in quote,
"Chronic failure status"
AT&T wants to take away service to one group of us now
and another group soon when people call AT&T
for new service,
AT&T says it doesn't provide copper line landline service,
excuse me anymore.
I'm disabled by electromagnetic sensitivity as are thousands
and thousands of people in the state.
I can only use copper line landline service in my home.
I got no notice,
hold PPH hearings as parties request so that
our testimony and critical issues can be in the record
and why taking away these landlines is discriminatory
and can kill people,
recap fees so that everyone can afford this essential
and most resilient, dependable, and safe service
make copper line the highest infrastructure priority
along with the electric grid and stop AT&T
dangerous overloading of utility poles,
PG&E's mitigation plans on another topic are bunk
in my city PG&E refuses to eliminate dead tree
branches next to power lines and fuses
and does dangerous earth work around poles.
While the Commission allows electric and gas meters
that are known fire and electrical hazards
on every building they're on grounded,
they have inadequate surge protection
and they contain explosive lithium battery
protect public now.
-: Thank you for your comments
operator the next speaker, please.
Operator: The next caller is Marilyn Garrett.
You may go ahead.
Garrett: I agree with all the previous speakers
keep safe and reliable copper landmines
reject AT&T's plans to end residential land lines service.
Many of us have only landlines
which works during electric power outages.
I do not have a computer nor microwave radiation emitting
cell phone due to the negative impacts on my health.
If you were truly prioritizing public health and safety,
your policies would require AT&T's maintenance and
expansion of the reliable copper landlines
and removal of the dangerous fire prone,
wireless and health damaging microwave,
emitting cell phones, cell tower, and WiFi technology.
I call on you to prohibit corporations like AT&T from
discriminating against and endangering
and ostracizing anyone.
Our lives depend on reliable copper landline service
immediately deny AT&T's application to terminate
copper landlines, residential service, thank you.
-: Thank you operator the next caller please.
Operator: Our next caller is Margaret Jensen,
You may go ahead.
Jensen: My name is Margaret Jensen
and I live in Los Angeles.
I'm requesting that the CPUC protect and expand
rooftop solar and battery storage.
My solar panels were installed nine years ago.
They have generated 5,026 kilowatt hours so far this
year and over 47,000 kilowatt hours since installation.
In many years, months, weeks, and days,
my system has put free electricity back into the grid
for public use.
I am happy to share my extra electricity.
These panels have created local jobs,
both in manufacturing and installation.
I have not needed extensive grids to share my power.
My panels have not caused any wildfires
nor killed any wildlife.
They did not cause any power outages
or extensive maintenance.
The only maintenance needed on my panels
is annual washing.
As a citizen I must now thank you.
-: Thank you, operator the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Paul Arms you may go ahead.
Arms: Hello Commissioners, happy Thursday.
My name is Paul Arms and the here is my minute.
I live in Huntington beach,
California down here in Orange county,
right where the long beach underwater oil pipeline first.
I'm speaking as a resident,
but as a former president of the Bolsa Chica land trust
Bolsa Chica one of California's
largest coastal wetlands
and asking the Commissioners to come see the wildlife
and the devastation,
and then visit the burn forest of our magnificent state.
It's time for a change obviously and my ask
I want my country, my state,
and my community to lead with renewable energy.
I don't want to see burn forest or oil spills in Wetlands.
Let's keep rooftop, solar, and that industry in California,
let's see it made in USA and listen not add fees
to make it more difficult.
Remember in California,
we put a little helicopter on Mars to JPL.
It flies around on Mars using solar.
We can keep, and we can put solar on groups easily.
It's not rocket science that go around the sun
365 days a year.
Let's look up in the sky for our future and our life and not
down in the ground for our past.
I'm signing off thank you have a super day.
Nope, these please and remember one thing.
If smokey, the bear could testify right?
Only you can prevent, What would you say?
Thank you for your time I appreciate it
Have a super day.
-: Thank you.
Operator the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Erica Adelson
you may go ahead.
Adelson: Hi my name is Erica Adelson
I live in Ukiah and I'm a member
of the Redwood valley Grange.
The Grange is an agrarian based national community service
and mutual aid organization with 1700 local Chapters.
Here in our Redwood valley Chapter,
we are particularly worried about wildfires.
We lost nine lives and 545 structures in the 2017 fire
and our Grange building served as a critical community
resource for evacuees serving hot meals,
distributing supplies, and providing space for FEMA.
We're now exploring the possibility of installing solar plus
storage on our building so that we can serve as a cooling
and charging station
the next time there's a fire or a blackout.
Our fear of wildfires and interest in solar lead us to bring
a resolution to the California state Grange a few days ago,
the resolution which passed at the state level affirms the
Grange's support for solar
and opposes any efforts to roll back net metering
or impose any fees on solar customers thank you.
-: Thank you operator to the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Nancy Kelly
you may go ahead.
Kelly: Hello I'm Nancy Kelly
I was top solar rate payer from San Diego.
I'm 50 year plus resident of California,
I've raised my family here and taught school
until my retirement.
My two granddaughters who live in California.
There is nothing more important to me than that
my children Grant's daughters
and the families of my past students
are provided with their right to a sustainable future.
The only way this can be accomplished
is by inclusion of the growth
of equitable, affordable rooftop, solar and battery storage.
Please reject the inaccurate statements of IOUs
rooftop solar is vital and overall economically
beneficial for all,
and most importantly, an imperative for a livable future
for our children and grandchildren thank you.
-: Thank you operator next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Rocco Ocampo
you may go ahead.
Ocampo: Thank you and Good morning.
My name is Rocco Compo and I live in San Kundalini,
California I'm an advocate of clean and renewable energy.
I'm calling today that you to ask that you help keep solar
affordable for families of all income levels and promote its
use throughout our safe growth in the solar industry
would directly aid the mandate to California,
reach of fully renewable energy infrastructure,
which is why it can be puzzling to discern why the proposed
net energy metering 3.0 changes are even being considered.
I pray that you would take into consideration our best
interest before allowing the implementation of such a plan.
Our current system of energy is based on nearly essentially
a technology nearly a century old and not effective enough
to give us affordable power
without damaging the environment,
causing wildfires and leaving people in many areas,
experiencing power outages,
solar battery storage in a safe and affordable way for us to
have a reliable source of energy
without the danger of the property and lives.
During my three seasons fighting California wildfires,
I found that utility companies such as Southern California
Edison were found culpable for California wildfires,
such as the Thomas fire in Santa Barbara during 2017,
in which over 280,000 acres were burned
due to down power lines, many brave men and lots of lives.
-: Thank you, sir.
Operator the next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Rennie Wise
with solar rights Alliance.
You may go ahead.
Wise: Hi, my name is Ronnie Wise.
I live in Fremont.
I have kids two daughters that I'm very proud of.
I'm sure many of the attendees today have children too,
and you all want the best for them.
We want them to grow up and live a happy,
productive life only there's just one problem with that.
The planet is sick,
the hot days are hotter and the cold days are colder.
We suffer from droughts, forest fires and power outages.
A lot of those forest fires and power outages were caused
by the negligence of utility companies.
Many people have died in many homes were destroyed.
Does it seem right to you that we should reward that
negligence by allow them to penalize rooftop solar power too
why penalize something this successful in the fight to
end global warming
just so PG&E shareholders can make more money.
Is this the legacy you want to leave behind to our kids?
Vote with your heart against these net
entering metering changes
and help keep rooftop, solar alive,
and the fight to save our planet thank you.
-: Thank you, operator next caller please.
Operator: And our next caller is Lawrence Abbott
you may go ahead.
Abbott: Hi guess I have two comments
one is that landline service needs to be
maintained and restored and not cut back.
It's too important for communication to have
at least two types and of course landlines
are the most reliable and especially
every 10 years or so, we have a solar flares from the sun,
which will definitely knock out every now and then,
the major solar flares will knock out the wireless service
first and that will just cripple communication.
So we need to have wired for those events and for all
events, the backup system for net metering,
we must maintain that lead metering even
and no new fees on net metering.
In fact, we need to add more financial incentives
because we need to transition to renewable as you quicker
or we're all doomed.
Thank you so much.
-: Thank you, operator next caller Please.
Operator do we have another caller?
Operator: I apologize and at this time
I show no additional callers, but again,
if you would like to make a comment,
please unmute your phone,
press star one and record your name clearly when prompted.
So I may introduce you,
again that is star one to make a comment.
-: Okay let's check the line again, operator.
Operator: Yeah, please stand by for our next comment.
Our next caller is from Mike Lane you may go ahead.
Lane: Yeah.
I'm calling to objective the race of the so-called Wi-Fi
measurement, A20-02-003 and A21-08-015 so-called
cost of a capital application.
increased rate for that,
it sounds to me that is to guarantee the PG&E
to make a profit that's ridiculous.
That's no, any firms should be guaranteed
to make a huge profit and the way I look at it,
the PUC should not act as a rubber stamp
to approve each off their request for the rate increase,
besides that, for the residential
I think the first allowance is
204, 204K WHS a way too low
and once they go over, that would be jumped to tier two.
So the tier one allowance should be raised to 250.
Okay, so I hope PUC stand as a consumer's side,
he set up at,
the big corporate side to kind of balance thank you.
-: Thank you operator next caller, please.
Operator: Our next caller is Ann Harvey you may go ahead.
-: Hi, I'm Ann Harvey.
I'm a retired doctor in Oakland
and a member of climate health now
more than 500 healthcare professionals
who recognize climate change
as the public health and equity emergency
of our lifetimes.
As the most recent reports of the IPUC and international
energy agency emphasize we have a very narrow pathway to
avoid the worst irreversible catastrophic consequences
of global warming,
which is of course primarily due to
fossil fuel extraction and combustion
and the CPUC really needs to be a part of the solution,
not promoting the problem please keep rooftop,
solar and battery storage growing in California and make it
more equitable so that millions of working class people
can get solar in the coming years thank you.
-: Thank you, Operator
you think we have some more folks on the line.
Could you bring on the next caller please?
Operator: Our next caller is Nickton Champaneria
you may go ahead.
Nickton: Yes Nickton Champaneria,
retired quality engineer
CPUC must not change the net-metering policy.
It is promoted by utilities to make more money.
The current metering policy is working and many people are
interested in putting rooftop solar,
and CPUC his role is to look at the goals of,
our state that we need to be promoting green energy.
It will be shameful if CPUC caves in
with the utilities proposal thank you.
-: Thank you, operator next caller please.
Operator: And before we go to the next caller again,
if you would like to make a comment,
please press star one unmute your phone
and clearly provide your name
and organization when prompted.
our next caller is Zack you may go ahead.
Zack: Hi, good morning,
net energy metering through residential rooftop solar
is South side to the normal across
homeowners for low income renters.
It is an in equal policy, homeowners,
rooftop solar grossly overestimate
the value of the solar panels
because of the net energy leading policy subsidy.
These properties are not off the grid
rather they rely on the grant,
they rely on power from the grid,
and they're unfairly enriched by the policy.
-: Thank you operator the next caller please.
Operator: And President Batjer at this time,
I show no additional callers in the public comments queue.
-: Okay operator thank so much.
With no more callers on the line
the public comment period is now closed.
Thank you all for who called in this morning
we greatly appreciate it.
We have a slight adjustment to today's schedule.
Before we move on to agenda changes,
we will take up item 28,
which is the management report and discussion on recent
consumer protection and safety activities.
Today, we have a presentation on the Commission's actions to
protect consumers customers during COVID.
I will now turn to executive director Peterson
to introduce today's speaker Rachael.
Peterson: Good morning thank you, President Batjer
and thank you Commissioners.
I really appreciate the opportunity to present to you today.
This is the first of three presentations that I've asked
staff to prepare that focus on our work
on behalf of California customers.
The first one today,
you'll hear about the protections that the Commission
established during the COVID-19 pandemic for people who fell
behind on their electric and gas bills.
At the next voting meeting in October,
you'll hear about the work of our consumer affairs branch,
which handles individual customer complaints across all of
the types of utilities we regulate and the enforcement team
that executes enforcement actions to benefit consumers.
Then we'll hold off for a little bit because you'll have
very full agendas in November, December, and in early 2022,
we'll bring you our third presentation about how we are
transforming some of our customer programs in order to
further our mission of ensuring that utilities provide
affordable service to California.
If we can go to the next slide, please.
So as we turn to the protections
for electric and gas customers,
I do want to note that alongside these protections,
we took a number of different actions during the pandemic
because COVID-19 exacerbated the digital divide
across our state.
In the early part of 2020,
we requested that the five largest wireless providers
and the 10 largest internet service providers in California
wave data caps and overage fees.
Later in December of last year,
we impose a moratorium on late payment fees and
disconnection for non-payment for communications customers.
We also directed transportation network companies like Uber
and Lyft to provide their COVID response plans,
including details of how they plan
to keep drivers and customers safe.
In the event of increased community transmission
throughout the pandemic,
our rail safety staff figured out how to conduct virtual
security inspections on all 37 railroads
that operate in California
and finally, after a short pause,
our gas safety team resumed their regular inspections of gas
systems in mobile home parks across California.
They resumed those in summer 2020 and have continued
performing that essential safety work.
I'm really proud of the work that our Commission staff did
to continue to actively protect people in California,
both in response to,
and despite this global public health emergency.
So now I will turn to deputy executive director for energy
and climate Edward Randolph for a more in-depth look at the
protections that we've established for electricity and gas
customers and how now we are establishing and ensuring that
the utilities implement debt management programs
as different moratoria are coming to an end.
Ed turning over to you.
-: Thank you, executive director Peterson,
and thank you for actually scheduling this particular
presentation at this moment in time.
I think it's particularly timely to talk about the
protections we were able to put in place
during the pandemic.
Right now,
because we have a number of protections in place to
transition as off of the moratorium on disconnection
and other protections.
That it's very important that we discuss this publicly
so people are aware of this so this is,
I find very time that I do want to start out broadly and
similar to executive director Petersen's comments.
I'm incredibly proud of the work that the Commission,
the Commissioners staff and all the divisions have done,
but especially of energy division of my own teams
I did as a COVID stay at home orders
were put into place almost immediately
in the same days that we were dealing with
working from home for the first time
and transitioning to staring at video screens all day
and not being in offices and figuring out
internet connection issues.
We did not miss a beat in proactively going out and
identifying where they're going to be potential issues for
electric and natural gas customers,
and make sure we were immediately putting
protections in place.
I'm gonna focus on a few in this presentation,
but others that we don't talk about in this presentation is
that we were able to go out and very quickly track energy
usage and look at new trends and energy usage,
which did help us some down the road
with some reliability forecasting.
But that also allowed us to very quickly understand how
people's bills are gonna change and that with higher energy
usage under our tiered rate structure,
people's bills were potentially not gonna go up
proportionally, but we're gonna go up exponentially
and could be huge impacts on some customers
and that initial tracking and research was enabled you as
the Commissioners to quickly put in place some changes in
the tiered rate structures to minimize those impacts on
customers and to quickly pivot how we distribute climate
credits, which is a bill credit that shows up bi-annually on
customer's bills so that they were showing up in months
where the bill credit would be more helpful to customers
and reduce the risk of customers
not being able to pay those bills.
So I'm extremely proud of all of that work,
but moving on to specific actions there in this
presentation, if we can move to the next slide, please.
First and almost immediately,
the PUC was able to issue orders,
putting the moratorium on all disconnections,
that most of the slide I will skip over the text,
it's the process of how we got there,
but with the help of legal division executive division,
we were able to very quickly put in place a moratorium on
disconnection for all customers for nonpayment.
We also, it's not mentioned on this slide,
directed the utilities to go back and reconnect
any customer that was,
had been disconnected previous to the moratorium
and we're on a weekly basis
and then as we kind of got down to smaller and smaller
numbers, almost on a customer by customer basis,
we're working with the utilities to make sure that each of
those customers were reconnected out there
to the point that after a few weeks,
if you saw the weekly tracking of number of customers
that are disconnected,
the number we got zero across all utilities
and it's remained that way, which I find, quite amazing.
Yeah and the next slide, please.
We also very quickly at the beginning of the moratorium,
took some other actions that to help customers a main one
out there was we directed the utilities to increase
their well, with a focus on CARE and FERA,
we took a couple actions there.
The first action with the low income programs
was to suspend,
any removal of customers from those programs in the suspend,
any post enrollment verification for customers.
So customers could automatically enrolled in the programs
with very little effort as a matter of fact,
these programs are, has still the case.
You just need to call the utility and verify a few data
points that you qualify
and then you can be enrolled into it.
But to that point,
we also asked the utilities to dramatically
increase their marketing and outreach,
both through their own channels and working with
community-based organizations.
So customers were aware of these options.
We really pushed them on messaging to customers
that if they have,
a simple message that if you have recently lost your job,
you're most likely qualified for CARE
and then it only takes a phone call to enroll,
and you were immediately enrolled in the program
and consequently there's data on another slide,
but I'll bring it up here
we saw an 18% increase in care participation
due to those outreach programs
and then on the energy savings assistance program,
which is a low income energy efficiency program,
we quickly identified risks to the workforce that works on
that, that in the time of the stay-at-home orders,
they were gonna be unable to do work and without
paychecks and if we were not able to find a stable,
stream to continue to pay those employees,
the program could collapse on itself over time
and so we're able to develop mechanisms to over a short
period of time,
keep the employees of those programs paid, next slide.
And then results of some of these protections
as I've already said,
enrollment and care has increased by 18% over time.
There's a statistic in here that care enrollment rate is a
100% of eligible customers for anybody looks at
that and says, well, that's an indication of fraud.
What that is an indication is of the baseline number we use
for eligible customers is actually pre COVID
and now the baseline number of eligible customers is
obviously much higher, but then the process in which,
we set those baselines, hasn't been readjusted out there
and then nearly a 1.5 million CARE and FERA customers
did not have to recertify
at the end of their initial eligibility period
and then we were able to work with 65 different
ESA Energy Savings Assistance,
contractors to provide them $44 million in advanced payments
to keep their employees employed
during the stay at home orders, next slide.
These next slides, I'm not gonna dwell on.
They can be found on our website after the presentation.
They simply show the growing amount of,
and the dollar amounts of arrearages mean unpaid bills from
customers across the utility, worth noting,
I'll kind of point this out in a later slide that,
as we've grown across the time,
we're at the 1.4 billion mark,
approximately in total on point I paid bills across
all the utilities and if we can move to the next slide,
and then similarly, this is tracking the,
just the low income customers,
customers who are enrolled in the care or the fear programs
and their arrearage one thing that is worth noting
if you were to flip it,
I'm not gonna do this back and forth between the two
slides is a large percentage of the customers who
do have unpaid bills or back bills actually are not enrolled
in the CARE and FERA program.
It's been hard to kind of explain some of that and do the
data dive on that over time.
But it does mean if, as we,
the disconnection moratorium is lifted or was lifted last
week programs that are aimed at the care and fear eligible
customers are not gonna cover all customers who were,
had not paid their bills
and over the next few months,
I think it's pretty important to track kind of both
categories of customers to see,
how people are paying down their bills now
that they're subject to being disconnected for nonpayment.
Next slide, please.
And then moving into, I think a very important thing
and another part that I'm really proud
of the Commission for,
and especially under Commissioner leadership
and pushing this,
having a lot of foresight to design some programs
that ease people off of the months
where they wouldn't be disconnected for nonpayment,
so that they have some mechanisms where they can actually
afford to pay down their bills and not be hit with a massive
requirement upfront.
The first program is actually
out of the state's budget this year
referred to as the California Arrearage
Payment Program or CAPP.
This is a billion dollars general fund money that has been
allocated to the department of community services CSD to
help pay down unpaid utility bills out there.
This doesn't the billion dollars
isn't just for our jurisdictional entities,
it also applies to the publicly owned utilities,
but the split between them as about a little under
$7 million, $700 million,
going to the investor on utilities or the CCAs out
there with the rest going to the POUs.
The way this mechanism will work is as the CSD developed
the rules, the utilities will be required to apply
on behalf of their customers for the funding
and once they collect that funding,
they apply it to the eligible customers bills
as they build credit automatically
and so the customer themselves don't
have to take any actions
it will show up as a bill credit on their own bill.
If we can move to the next slide,
actually one critical point on this last slide,
as far as disconnections go,
any customers that are eligible for this program
cannot be disconnected while the utility is
going through the application process to get the funds
and then the IOUs cannot disconnect any recipients of the
funds for 90 days after the credit is applied.
So there are some protections and safety nets against
disconnection of these customers
as we move through the process
to get them their bill credits next slide.
The by statute, the CAPP program has priority groups
on how to allocate the funding at this moment in time,
CSD is still working through guidelines on how applications
from the utilities should be submitted and how that would
apply to each of the priority groups, next slide.
Timeline for the CAPP program,
actually just kind of skipping to where we are now
by the middle of this month,
we expect CSD to open the application window.
The window will close in mid September or mid December
and we expect in the statute requires
that all the funds be distributed by the utility by the end
of January of next year, next slide
and then now looking at two programs
that the PUC has put in place around arrearage management,
the first one was approved,
by the Commissioners by you in June of this last year.
But this is from a proceeding in a process
that was actually started before COVID and applies
and it's intended to work for customers with I've had
trouble paying their bills over,
long after we get,
through the current disconnection in COVID,
it's a permanent program out there there,
and this program is set up to allow
for the eligible customers out there,
income based and based on how long your,
your bills are past due and the amount of money
in your past to bill on there.
But those customers will be enrolled
in this arrearage management plan,
where they will pay down a portion of their back payment on
their bill each month and as they pay down on each month,
one 12th of their bill is forgiven.
So if they are able to get on this plan
and stay on these plans,
they over time will actually owe less than less out there as
part of the process and the hope would,
these types of programs is you were giving an affordable
option to customers, so they aren't disconnected.
They aren't in default, but also allowing the utilities,
a path to recover,
much more revenue than they would if they had
just disconnected the customer entirely.
Kind of critically to know when we talk about this
in all of these programs I,
we talk about it as the IOU customers,
the community choice aggregator customers are,
billed by the IOUs part of their bill is to the IOU
part of the bill to CCA
and so for the generation point of this,
the CCAs can choose to participate in this program as well.
Next slide.
Early data from this program,
the arrearage management program just started
so this shows you the initial months of data
in terms of customer participation,
amount of money that has been forgiven so far minimum amount
of customers who've been enrolled in the program
that have been removed from the program for nonpayment,
given the kind of the youngness of the program
and there's really only a few months of data.
It's really impossible to kind of look at anything at this
point in time, in terms of trends out there.
We'd like to look at a longer-term data
to note bigger trends, next slide.
And then finally,
in response to COVID and understanding that very large
disconnection are very large amount of arrearage or
unpaid bills for the utilities out there,
knowing that there are a lot of customers that haven't paid
their bills for very many, many months,
have been unable to pay their bills for many,
many months that we needed programs that gave them the tools
to pay down their bills
once they were expected to do that beyond that arrearage
management program that I just discussed
with limited to low income customers.
So this is another program that the Commission approved
this program is all residential
and small commercial customers
are eligible for this program
any customer that needs that has a preset
or established amount of unpaid bills
as of September 30th,
will automatically be enrolled in this program.
They will be offered a 12 month payment plan
to pay down their bills.
Yeah and then critically on this exact number,
there's also prohibitions on disconnection
if they are enrolled in this plan and continue to make
payments in this plan and can only be disconnected
if they haven't made a payments under the new plan
for three months so next slide.
-: Ed I just wanted to maybe do a friendly amendment there.
I think you were on the side of what was in place for the
previous disconnections order in June of 2020,
and this COVID protection in 24 months, either defaulted,
into they have been defaulted except for the extension
to a 24-month plan.
-: Yep thank you.
That's why I was confused at the slide I was looking at.
I appreciate that.
So now we are on the right slide for,
the COVID protection plan
and as I've, as I said, yeah, this is for customers,
residential and small business customers who have unpaid
bills at 60 days or more as of the 30th of September
of this year, they're enrolled on a 20 months,
24 month payment plan
and there are the additional prohibitions
on disconnect for the customers in a role in these plans
until and unless they've missed up to three months
of the payments,
and then you can use the capitalistic model for any the CAPP
money for those eligible customers
to also help pay down these bills.
Next slide please.
And this is a list of non-CPUC programs that are also out
there to help with energy assistance programs for folks that
need the additional assistance out there
and I think this is the last slide next slide.
Yeah and I won't go through these specific examples,
they're good illustrative,
examples of customers under different situations
and how they might be impacted by these programs
kind of on a broad sense.
You have a customer who couldn't pay their bill
from August to November in the last year
and has an unpaid balance of $500.
Should be automatically enrolled in the COVID
arrearage management program
and that would bring what she owes per month for that past
usage to $17 a month out there, a care customer,
it has $1,200 in unpaid bills can be enrolled
and the AMP program
and as each month that they're paying down that bill they'll
have $100 forgiven off that bill.
That's also,
if that customer is not enrolled in the CAP program,
and then, you have a small business
that has $4,000 in unpaid bills,
they could be enrolled in the program where ultimately
they'll need to only pay $133 a month over the period to
meet their, to pay down their bills
and then more important to you
if you're still trying to figure out how to show a graph
that shows all of this,
there is almost no customer,
there's no residential customer out there
who when the moratorium was lifted last week,
who would actually be subject to a disconnection
immediately, the overlay of all of these programs in
the periods and the requirements on the utilities,
to not disconnect customers
who were actively participating in
these programs and paying down their bills
mean at the earliest,
somebody could be disconnected would be the
end of this year, early next year.
But as long as the customers are paying the minimum
amount in, arrearage management programs,
they will not be disconnected
and with that, I'm available for questions.
-: Are there any questions of Ed or Rachel
from the earlier presentation?
Okay yes Commissioner Shiroma.
-: Not a question, but a kudos.
When you think about March of 2020, and
the teams that kicked into gear immediately,
as Ed said with really not skipping a beat in looking at
keeping our work on pace and looking at what needs to be
done, to provide core relief for residential commercial,
for the energy savings workers
towards navigating the pandemic.
It really is a testimonial to that the CPUC
and the utilities that they regulate,
can do things pretty quickly.
We as state government, oftentimes are painted with,
the review that we are are very slow,
that we move into snail space was this presentation today
really shows that,
when there is that when there are issues
right at our doorstep, we stand ready to address them.
So thank you and the work continues
and we have a lot more to do so thank you very much
for the presentation.
Thank you President Batjer.
-: Yes thank you.
Yes Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Yes thank you very much for the work
and I know all of our divisions have been doing just such
tremendous work during this time,
just to acknowledge that the worker's gonna continue as
Ed pointed out here.
There's, if we're lucky we're gonna have the CSD funding,
perhaps cover half of the debt, that it has a crude
and so we're still gonna need more work together with
our customers and our utilities
and I hope that we can retain the collaborative approach
that's been taking place with utilities and their customers
and without the tool of disconnection.
So this will be a new phase of how to maybe maintain a less
punitive approach to getting customers back on track.
So I wanted to just acknowledge that
and also in the COVID proceeding,
we still have issues that we are looking at.
Obviously the remaining arrears is one of those issues,
but also a more timely issue that we're looking at that
recently came up at the IOB last week again,
is this issue of having the tools to work with customers,
more of a case management approach
and as we heard today in our,
a little bit of confusion on the default
of the payment plans,
just as an example that we have put in a lot of protections
and options in place that they're really individualized
and so we need a closer approach to our customers.
So I hope to be developing that soon with the help of the
energy division and with the help of our
Stephanie Greenshop
and just wanted to highlight that
and really acknowledged just the continued work
that's gonna be happening,
especially as we start to face this reality,
of disconnections looming again thank you.
-: Yes Commissioner Houck.
-: Just briefly I just wanted to thank,
Ed and the staff for all their work on this proceeding,
as the assigned Commissioner on the disconnections
proceeding and decade with Commissioner Guzman Aceves
on the arrearages I know firsthand how hard staff
has been working in there.
There's still work to do clearly
as Commissioner Guzman Aceves said,
that I really wanted to commend staff for how intelligent
they've been in stepping up in such a unique
and difficult circumstance so thank you.
-: Thank you okay
I wanna add my thanks of course, to the energy Commission,
staff and energy division staff, excuse me
and also thank you for your leadership,
Commissioner Guzman Aceves,
you have done along with Commissioner Houck,
a terrific job on these proceedings,
not only being a thought leader,
but being a kind hearted thought leader and how we needed to
deal with these very difficult things.
So thank you, Ed.
Thank you for your team.
Thank you, Rachel Peterson
for your wonderful leadership as well.
I appreciate it all very, very much.
Okay we will now move on in the agenda.
First I would like to read the changes in today's agenda.
So item number three will be held
until October 21st, 2021 Commission meeting,
item number six will also be held until
October 21, 2021 Commission meeting.
Item 12 will be held until October 21, 2021 meeting,
item 13 will be held also
until October 21st, 2021 Commission meeting
and item 27 will be taken up with the Consent Agenda.
Item number three,
on today's meeting agenda was subject to a rate setting,
deliberative meetings an RDM and a hold to the
October 21st voting meeting was as been requested and
granted as I just remarked.
As a result of this item,
as a result decided will be subject to a default
ex-parte quiet period,
pursuant to public utilities code section 1701.3H6
This item may be subject to additional quiet time,
If the Commission chooses to extend the default quiet time.
The default quiet time is as follows, no oral
or written ex-parte communications
will be allowed from October 4th, 2021
to the end of the October 7th, 2021 voting meeting,
no oral or written ex-parte communications will be allowed
starting October 18th, 2021 to the end of
October 21st, 2021 voting meeting.
If the Commission establishes additional quiet time
for this item,
oral or written ex-parte communications will be restricted
during that additional quiet time.
If this item is held again,
the Commission will continue to have the ability to
establish further ex-parte quiet periods.
Okay with that, we will then take up the consent items.
Is there a motion?
-: So moved.
-: Okay and second has been moved and seconded.
We'll move the agenda clerk,
please call the role on the consent items.
-: Commissioner Houck.
-: Yes.
-: Commissioner Shiroma.
-: Aye.
-: Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
-: Yes.
-: Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Aye.
-: President Batjer.
-: Aye.
The Consent Agenda items have been passed unanimously.
Thank you.
We will now take up the regular agenda items.
Item number 22 is assigned to Commission Houck.
-: Thank you, President Batjer.
So prior to my assignment to this proceeding,
I just wanna note that a tremendous amount of work went
into the development of the mechanisms
to minimize customer disconnections.
Staff has worked hard to meet the mandates of SB 598 to
protect rate payers from disconnections as evidenced by the
phase one decision from June of last year,
which was referenced by Ed Randolph in the presentation
that we just heard
and as well as the proposed decision before us today,
I'd like to thank the assigned judge, judge Wang for all of
her great work on this proceeding,
energy division staff Ben Menzies and Paul Phillips
and legal divisions, Christopher Cho
for prioritizing this matter,
as well as Sarah Thomas and legal division and judge
Gerald Kelly for their work earlier in the proceeding.
I also wanna thank my advisors McBrown and Kathleen Yips
for all of their work in support of the PD
and I wanna particularly thank and recognize the
leadership of my BK partner, Commissioner Guzman Aceves,
and her office for all of the contributions to this
proceeding and for all of their creativity and being able to
hand off something to me that was already in process.
This order instituting rulemaking was open to address
disconnection rates across California's electric and gas
investor owned utilities.
The proposed decision if approved creates a pilot program
that will result in reduction of disconnections and improve
reconnection processes and outcomes for customers at risk.
As set forth in the order of the ramifications of
disconnections for customers can be far reaching,
including disruption of normal daily activities.
Energy access is critical to economic and social stability
and wellbeing even after a customer's paid their balance
the reconnection process,
particularly for gas service can be time consuming
and costly disconnection rates and the years proceeding,
the pandemic were increasing,
which resulted in the adoption of this OIR in 2018,
COVID-19 has greatly increased the number of customers that
are unable to pay their electric and gas bills,
and may still be at risk of disconnections without programs
such as AMPs and the proposed programs set forth
in this PD, but proposed decision directs,
PG&E, SCG&E, SCE and SoCalGas
to implement percentage of income payment plans
or PIP pilot programs to help reduce residential
disconnections of electric and gas service.
PIP is a program that says the participants utility bill
payment amounts in an affordable
of the participants monthly income.
Participants will receive a monthly bill CAPP
for current charges
based on 4% of their household monthly income.
Customers of the large IOUs and participating
CPAs who enrolled in the care program
are eligible for the pilots,
if they are located in good codes with the highest rates of
disconnections or were disconnected two or more times during
the 12 months prior to the disconnection moratorium,
these are four year pilots and we'll test whether a PIP
program can reduce the number of low-income households
at risk of disconnection,
encourage participation in energy savings
and energy management programs,
increase access to essential levels of
energy service and control program costs.
This program was initially envisioned and developed
by my BK partner, Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
Commissioner Guzman Aceves
and her office have worked closely with my office
on finalizing this PD and again,
I want to thank her for all of the work that she's done in
this proceeding and would like to ask her to provide further
comments and background on this item.
-: Yes thank you.
Thank you Commissioner Houck.
It's really nice to see
this is the benefit of democracy and having new voices and
new visions, taking over ideas and making them better
and I wanna thank Mr. Houck for that
and certainly Judge Wang and all the energy division staff
that has done just that.
I do also wanna thank really the community organizations
that brought this concept forward
and like some of our other areas,
this is another area that California is not leading on,
many states that have utilities that offer these programs
and have offered them for some time, Colorado, Illinois,
Nevada, and New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, to name a few.
I know there's much more in the Northeast and really it's
the recognition that there are a subset of customers
that are extremely low income.
Some of the demographics of the other states have shown that
they're usually elderly customers,
very limited fixed income,
and they simply cannot afford to pay.
They do not have the disposable income.
They can't afford to pay for the entirety of their bills
and this is a dynamic that,
the hypothesis of this whole pilot is that,
we had an unfortunate situation is most likely prevalent in
extreme heat areas with these elderly customers.
So I'm very excited to be finally
pushing this load out today with great enthusiasm,
as we see the extreme heat that continues to grow
and the sub-population that as Commissioner Houck mentioned,
has been dealing with disconnections in a chronic way,
and really another identification of them being
a subset of customers that is,
that should be targeted for this type of program.
And I want to just highlight that having these fresh eyes on
this proposal allowed us to really incorporate other
proceedings work such as the affordability proceedings,
as well as just looking at some of the results from the more
recent findings of customers dealing with disconnection.
So one,
I really think judge Wang and energy division Ben Menzies
and Paul Phillips for their work on that
and of course, as Commissioner Houck mentioned,
I wanna thank, work that brought this about in particular,
I wanna recognize the Administrative Law Judge,
Gerald Kelly,
that put in a few years into this proceeding and just really
led in the innovation and hearing from communities
and doing the extra work on our end to take their ideas,
build it into making a ruling
and putting it into the record.
Things that some of these organizations don't have the
capacity to do.
So I want to thank him for that.
I also wanna thank
my former chiefs of staff Adenika Adeyeye,
who really did most of the drafting of this
looking at all these state's programs,
looking at all the comments from the stakeholders
and the parties and putting the first proposal together
over a year ago.
So, and then of course my current advisor on this topic,
Justin Fong, who has been just incredible
to try to manage all of these issues,
dealing with COVID years in particular,
in all of these great solutions.
So thank you Commissioner Houck for your leadership in
getting this across and to your staff, Kathleen Yip,
and everyone that you mentioned,
including Christopher Shel.
Thank you very much I look forward to supporting.
-: Thank you any other yes Commissioner Shiroma.
-: Yes thank you President Batjer.
I support this proposed decision
thank you Commissioner Houck, Commissioner Guzman Aceves
there's Wang and the team in designing this PIP pilot,
it will advance our knowledge and tools
towards providing stable bills and peace of mind.
I really appreciate too the PD speaking
to close coordination between this pilot
and the ISA and lyheep programs
towards really linking up those synergies.
Again thank you.
I look forward to supporting this proposed decision.
-: Thank you yes Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
-: Thank you (clears throat) excuse me.
I wanna echo the thanks and appreciation for everyone who
worked on this and in particular Commissioners Houck,
and Guzman Aceves, judge Wang,
and then these Paul Phillips and others.
It's a very creative program is innovative,
even though as Commissioner Guzman says points out,
there are a number of other states
that have adopted similar programs.
Without belaboring the points that have already made
it is very important to note that this is a problem
that predates the pandemic, too many utility,
too many of our customers struggle to afford their utility
bills and face this connection as a result
and this is despite the fact that we have very generous
and well subscribed consumer subsidy programs.
There are still people falling through the cracks.
This was made very clear in the Commissions,
relatively recent affordability report,
where we highlighted some of the hardships that are lower
income rate payers states the kind of customers
that Commissioner Guzman Aceves mentioned
and just for example,
we found that 13% of lower income households spend more than
15% of their disposable income on electricity,
11% pay over a third of their disposable income on
utility services.
So there are real hardships that people face.
This is an excellent compliment to the many programs,
including the loan, forgiveness arrearage management program
that director Randolph talked about.
We hopefully with the pilot customers will
not just see lower bill,
but reduce this connection fewer missed this payment.
So I'm very happy to support this and appreciative of all
the work that was done to get it ready, thank you.
-: Thank you, any other comments?
Okay seeing none will the agenda clerk
please call the roll for item 22.
-: Commissioner Houck.
-: Yes.
-: Commissioner Shiroma.
-: Aye.
-: Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
-: Yes.
-: Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Aye.
-: President Batjer.
-: Aye.
The item number 22 passes unanimously.
Thank you for all the hard work,
on this to all staff and Commissioners.
Item 23 is assigned to me and it says
the Order Instituting Rulemaking OIR
to develop safety culture assessments for the electric
and natural gas utilities.
The OIR will implement requirements of the state law
and build upon Commission rulings,
directing us to strive for greater utility safety.
The OIR will help us do this by developing and adopting a
safety culture assessment framework for regulated investor
owned utilities, Senate bill 901,
directed the Commission to establish a safety culture
assessment for each electrical corporation conducted by an
independent third party evaluator.
SB 901 also required
that the Commission set a schedule for each assessment,
including updates to the assessment,
at least every five years.
Additionally, it prohibits the electrical corporations
from seeking reimbursement
for the cost of the safety culture assessment
from rate payers.
The Commission will utilize this proceeding
to effectively implement SB 901,
any relevant public utility code sections,
which direct the Commission and each natural gas corporation
to make safety of the public and gas corporation employees
the top priority.
Safety culture is an organization's
values, principles, beliefs,
and norms shared by individuals within the organization,
manifested through their planning, behaviors and actions.
It shows how all members of an organization work towards
safe operations on a daily basis,
and how that translates into safety outcomes.
To be effective safety culture requires ongoing review
and refinement.
This OIR will allow us to build upon past efforts and
improve upon safety culture of the utilities
under our jurisdiction, all large electrical corporations,
small multi-jurisdictional electrical corporations,
large natural gas corporations and gas storage operators
regulated by the Commission will be required to conduct
safety culture assessment
and this OIR will determine their scope and schedule.
Emission of the CPUC is to ensure that consumers have safe,
reliable utility services at reasonable rates.
This OIR will help us fulfill that mission by requiring
utilities to proactively prioritize safety,
to better serve the public.
I would like to thank all of the CPUC staff who worked so
diligently on drafting this OIR from the ALJ division,
Colin Rizzo from the safety policy division,
Dan Baut, Benjamin Turner, Zava Gree, Emma Johnson, Ken Cost
Carolina Van Peres, Alex Penida and Rich White
from the legal division,
Jaylen Lemay, and from my own office, my chief of staff,
Shannon O'Rourke and my advisor, Nico Churchill,
Shell, excuse me.
I would like to ask, of course,
all of your support for this OIR thank you.
Are there any questions or comments?
Yes Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
-: Thank you, President Batjer.
This is an important rulemaking to set standards and
expectations to institutionalize safety culture assessment
for our utilities.
Safety culture is it's inherently
difficult to evaluate,
to monitor over time to know exactly what's being done.
Establishing best practices for industries is very,
very good policy.
As the rulemaking notes
we have a good foundation in place right now already.
We have ongoing safety, cultural assessments of PG&E,
as well as SoCalGas and Sempra,
as well as the framework developed by our colleagues at the
office of energy infrastructure safety.
I just wanna mention in terms of the process,
I agree with the recommendation to use workshops and staff
proposal to develop the overall safety culture framework.
We early on in 2019,
we had a very informative workshop when we were examining
what kind of safety culture and safety approaches we should
use with respect to PG&E.
We had outside experts in
and learned a great deal from that.
There's a very extensive body of research about safety
culture and what constitutes safety culture really evolve
over time with experience in different practices.
I was really taken by a comment that Kevin Payne,
the CEO of Southern California Edison made in August at our
public safety meeting on utility safety practices.
Well he pointed out how the organization's
diversity equity and inclusion efforts
have a very direct impact on safety culture.
He said an employee sense of psychological safety
impacts their performance
and their willingness to engage
and have common candid conversations
and that's really true and that's something that we.
One point the preliminary scope includes
the question about whether the proceedings should apply
to gas utilities and gas storage operators
in addition to electrical corporations
and to me, the answer yes,
that it should, we've already done this,
as I mentioned for PG&E and SoCalGas and Sempra,
we've also done this for two gas storage companies,
Wild Goose and Modi gas storage.
I think this OIR is the best way to Institute
a safety culture method,
the safety culture assessments and management systems for
all the energy utilities under our jurisdiction.
So I would answer that question.
Yes, of course we'll get public comments on that
through the proceeding.
With that I'll be strongly supporting this item.
-: Thank you for that further annunciation of,
of the OIR proposal Commissioner Rechtschaffen
and appreciate that greatly well yeah Commissioner Houck.
-: Thank you, President Batjer.
I'd also like to thank the safety policy division team
for all of their work on this and for your office president
on this important day rulemaking
that seeks to measure safety based on observable
factors and outcomes.
This OIR is required under SB 901 and represents an
additional proceeding examining IOU safety measures.
I am concerned,
and I think we have some discussion about this at the voting
meeting when the SCE general rate case was up regarding
the number of highly technical safety related proceedings,
that the Commission is engaging in that can potentially lead
to bifurcation of issues or an academic examination of IOU
safety matters as opposed to coordinated actual on the
ground oversight and improved safety practices by IOUs.
I believe this OIR however presents an opportunity for the
Commission to consider how to streamline the various safety
assessments that we kind of end,
that we can efficiently track IOUs investments of rate payer
funds and ensure that their expenditures result in
measurable on the ground,
actual improvements in safety
and looking to streamline these efforts,
we should also consider the timing of the various
assessments to ensure that information can be effectively
utilized across proceedings.
I support efforts such as this OIR to provide opportunities
that will allow for a close look at the number of
proceedings and the manner in which we're assessing safety
and we need to ensure that we reach meaningful
and implementable results,
that benefit rate payers and increased safety measures.
So we must ensure that the regulated entities are being held
accountable for safety to rate payers, communities,
and the Commission while maintaining reliable service.
I strongly believe this OIR has been crafted in a manner
that will further these efforts
and I also want to echo and agree
with Commissioner Rechtschaffen in comments
regarding incorporation of looking at
gas, safety issues as part of this OIR
and again wanna thank everyone that put in all of the effort
for this proceeding.
-: Commissioner Houck I wanna know if your dog
is supportive or not of this item.
-: I think it is and I really apologize for it.
-: We know it was wonderful no, I'm just teasing.
Okay any other comments?
Oh, yes Commissioner Shiroma.
-: Oh thank you President Batjer.
I'm pleased to vote for the opening of this new OIR
we have seen too many root cause analysis come back
with preventable lessons learned hindsight
certainly is 2020 in those cases,
but what's important is that we also take actions now
to be equipped with the foresight to prevent,
it could be incidences.
I believe this OIR will be a great opportunity for our
utilities to indeed institutionalized your hardware,
shaky culture throughout their organizations,
including the board of directors,
all geared towards rethinking and looking at
best practices, looking at new ideas for safety processes
and this is really the opportunity to look at what has been
done as we have responded to COVID-19 and how can those
activities, tools, and culture,
and leading the entire team of people at the utility littler
here, the CPUC have responded and responded as well.
So thank you to the staff and the judges who have worked on
this and brought this forward for our vote today, thank you.
-: Thank you any further comments?
Okay seen none will the agenda clerk,
please call the roll on item 23.
-: Commissioner Houck.
-: Yes.
-: Commissioner Shiroma.
-: Aye.
-: Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
-: Yes.
-: Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Aye.
-: President Batjer.
-: Aye.
Item 23 passes unanimously, thank you all.
Item 24 is assigned to Commissioner Houck, Commissioner.
-: Okay I think my dog has quieted down a little bit.
So this is an order extending statutory deadline for
complaint case C 19-04-05,
Fred Sahadi versus San Jose water company
on August 5th, 2021 a presiding officer's decision
was issued by the ALJ.
On September 7th, 2021,
the complaints and appealed the presiding officer's decision
and extension of the statutory deadline to
February 8th, 2022 is necessary to complete review
of the appeal and with that,
I asked for your support on the requested extension
for this item.
-: Thank you are there any comments or questions?
Okay seen none will the agenda clerk please call the roll.
-: Commissioner Houck.
-: Yes.
-: Commissioner Shiroma.
-: Aye.
-: Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
-: Yes.
-: Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Aye.
-: President Batjer.
-: Aye.
Thank you he vote is unanimous for item number 24,
moving now to item number 25
as assigned to Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Thank you, President Batjer.
This is another order extending the statutory deadline
for a proceeding,
dealing with the compliance and verification of our rules
regarding prohibited fossil backup
in the demand response programs.
I very much wish that I didn't need this extension,
but obviously the circumstances have much evolved since the
beginning of this program and the rules that tied to this
many of these programs.
But in addition, some of this,
some of the key staff on this have obviously been very
focused on all of the recent priorities, especially the,
some of the liability proceedings
and so therefore we needed additional time
to issue this as a proposed decision.
So I'm requesting an extension until October of next year.
Thank you.
-: Thank you very much.
Are there any comments or questions on item number 25?
Okay seen none will the agenda clerk, please call the roll.
-: Commissioner Houck.
-: Yes.
-: Commissioner Shiroma.
-: Aye.
-: Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
-: Yes.
-: Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Aye.
-: President Batjer.
-: Aye.
Item 25 passes unanimously.
Item 26 will be withdrawn because it is assigned
to Commissioner Shiroma.
It is because it is related to item 11,
which we passed on the Consent Agenda today.
So we will now move on in the agenda to management reports.
We had one earlier today and there is no report for item 29
management report and discussion
on administrative activities.
So we will turn now to the Commissioner's reports on the
agenda and who would like to go first?
Okay Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Did you say Commissioner Shiroma.
Okay I wanted to just share a couple of updates
that I've mentioned before,
but really want to really encourage all of you as well as
the public to join a workshop on Aliso Canyon and the
alternatives that will be presented by our consultants,
FTI consulting has been analyzing what will be needed,
what kind of investments will be needed to replace natural
gas function that Aliso Canyon currently serves.
They have four portfolios of resource options and actions
that they'll be presenting as well as a proposed portfolio,
which will be incorporating some of the most cost effective
elements from the four portfolios
that they'll be looking at.
And so this is on November 3rd, Wednesday, November 3rd,
where they will be presenting this.
We will obviously be looking forward to very much what the
public has for feedback and the parties,
and will be subsequently putting the report in the final
report into the record and taking comment on that
as we geared towards developing the set of actions that are
necessary to phase out our dependency on Aliso
and so I want to invite everyone,
particularly the public and all of the parties
and all of you Commissioners to join that workshop.
Thank you very much.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Shiroma.
-: Thank you President Batjer.
I have several items first.
Which I want to put on everyone's radar
that we will be having in micro-grids
and resiliency workshop.
Last January, we voted out a micro-grid incentive program,
like your fund,
clean energy market grants to support vulnerable populations
impacted by grid outages, PSPSS and so forth.
Over the summer PG&E Southern California Edison
and San Diego gas and electric held
community workshops to gather input on the design and
implementation of the micro-grid incentive program.
The 50 division staff is now finalizing the details
for this upcoming workshop.
During the workshop,
the investor on utilities will present on areas of agreement
from the summer workshops and share how they have community
input into their micro-grid and center program drafts.
This is all through the effort
of making this program responsive
to the needs of these vulnerable communities,
which include low income communities.
The date will be announced shortly.
So I encourage interested parties to keep an eye on the
R19-09-009 service list the data calendar for more details
and then on October 22nd,
we will be hosting a workshop on the iFoster pilot program.
With many thanks to Commissioner Guzman Aceves,
the IFoster pilot was adopted in a 2019 decision in order
to bring foster youth in need to the lifeline program to
access free and discounted communication of service,
both telephone and WiFi hotspot service.
We have gained a learning about the challenges
of putting at the program
and I've also identified the program as being
very successful in a staff report,
adopted by the Commission and a decision comes July
of his past year.
The workshop will include discussions on how the iFoster
pilot can become a permanent part of the lifeline program
and how to ensure continuity of service in foster
youth age, out of the foster system
and again, that will be on October 22nd, it'll be virtual.
Start 10:00 AM all are welcome
and details are on the Commissioners daily calendar.
And then I'm pleased to announce a new advisor
joining my team Andrew Dudican.
Andrew will cover energy and transportation matters.
Andrew comes from our consumer protection
and enforcement division,
where he was a senior analyst supporting the Commissioner's
transportation network company,
rulemaking and inter-agency coordination,
including as the lead analyst
on the autonomous vehicle program.
Prior to joining the CPUC in 2019,
Andrew spent a decade developing policy to support
disadvantaged communities at Southern California Edison.
He also co-led a partnership between utility and community
based organizations to construct clean energy projects
in their local communities,
and to hold a bachelor of arts degree in mathematics
from Pomona college,
please join me in welcoming Andrew to my team,
and he looks forward to continuing to work with all of your
teams and the industry divisions thank you.
-: Thank you, Commissioner.
Anyone else wishes to yes Commissioner Houck.
-: Thank you.
I also would ask that you join me in welcoming some new
staff in my office.
First I'm pleased to announce that Christie Chu,
who was recently at the energy Commission will be joining my
office prior to joining the PUC
Christie worked for 19 years
at the California energy Commission,
where she started as a project manager in the sighting
transmission and environmental protection division.
She went to work in the energy resource division as a demand
response research manager,
and as the project manager for the desert renewable energy
conservation plan as an advisor,
she also served as an advisor to energy Commissioners,
Jeff Byron and Karen Douglas
as the liaison to the disadvantaged
communities advisory group
and most recently in the efficiency division,
working on building de-carbonization policies.
So before working in the energy realm,
Christie worked in the public programs office of the
California integrated waste management board
and for the city of Sacramento is a land use planner.
Christie has a degree in environmental policy analysis
and planning from UC Davis,
and she looks forward to learning all about working
at the states, post other energy agencies.
So please join me in welcoming Christie to my office.
I also will be having a new temporary advisor in my office
Erin Seibert will be working in my office,
starting on Monday through the end of March
to cover MC Brown's workload
MC will be starting maternity leave in the very near future
and returning in roughly late March, early April.
Aaron joined the Commission in 2011
and comes to us from the ALJ division.
During his time at the Commission
Aaron has served as an Administrative Law Judge,
former advisor to Commissioner Peterson and an analyst and
program and project supervisor and energy division.
Aaron holds a BA in English and psychology
from Butler university,
a master's degree in public administration from Columbia
university and spent a year studying abroad in Oxford.
In his free time he enjoys trying to keep up with
his three energetic children,
rowing and reading detective novels.
So we're excited to have both of them
and I also wanted to just mention the hyper workshop that
I attended this week
on grid interactive efficient buildings.
On October 5th, 2021 the CEC
held an eye for grid interactive efficiency
workshop, which was a full day workshop
and the morning was filled
with a number of great presenters,
including a keynote presentation from David Namso
from the U.S. department of energy
and I thought his talk was particularly interesting as he
laid out the potential value of having grid interconnected
buildings and recommended actions as to how we can get there
and discuss her current DOE pilot projects underway
and there was a lot of discussion concerning several actions
that can be utilized and supported through the work we are
doing here at the CPUC
and I'm looking forward to having partnerships with the
federal government and working in the same direction.
Panelists also spoke about available and needed technologies
evolving customer programs, equity issues, and overall,
I thought it was a great workshop that highlighted synergies
between the two agencies and a lot of the work that we're
doing here at the PUC in regards to load flexibility,
demand, response, and reliability issues.
So I'm looking forward to seeing how we can work together to
implement some of these measures.
I also wanna thank Commissioner Guzman Aceves
and her staff for leading
events this month in honor, of a Hispanic history month,
we had a number of great presentations on community
organization and voting impacts.
I also want to acknowledge that this coming Monday is
indigenous people's day,
and there's a number of activities
going to around the state.
I also noticed that the California Indian museum that was
recently closed for repairs is now reopened and want to
recognize and command Governor Newsome's administration for
its recognition of indigenous people's day,
as well as creating the truth and healing council and
supporting policies such as the Commission or the land
transfer policy and other efforts to develop meaningful
consultation measures that ensure opportunities
for tribal voices to be at the table
and just a little history regarding indigenous peoples day.
The first documented observance of Columbus day in the
United States was in New York city in 1792.
Any native people oppose the celebration of Columbus as it
honored colonialism in the Western hemisphere,
and that represented mass death and forced assimilation
of many indigenous peoples.
It wasn't until 1977 that the United nations international
conference on discrimination against indigenous populations
in the Americas proposed that Columbus day.
We replaced with indigenous peoples day and an effort to
recognize native peoples and encourage the Americans to
rethink their history.
Cities and states across the U.S.
have replaced Columbus day with indigenous peoples day
and the first date to do so with South Dakota in 1990,
Berkeley was the first city to make the change from Columbus
day to indigenous people's day in 1992 and by 2015,
there was a gathering of over 6,000 native people and
supporters at Randall's island in New York to recognize the
history and continued perseverance of native peoples,
which received worldwide attention and further the movement
to formally recognize indigenous peoples day.
In 2019 and 2020 California's Governor Gavin Newsome issued
proclamations declaring indigenous peoples day,
joining 18 other states in such recognition
and I just want to end with a quote
from Governor Newsome's proclamation,
as we're moving, as Monday will be indigenous people day
that in the spirit of reconciliation and re-examination,
he said that he encouraged all Californians today to take
time to celebrate indigenous peoples rather than the forces
that tried and failed to eradicate them and let us reflect
on how their resistance and persistence has shaped
California for the better
and so thank you for allowing me to provide that information
in my report today.
-: Thank you for that terrific reminder,
of Monday being indigenous peoples day,
Commissioner Rechtschaffen
-: Thank you and thank you, Commissioner Houck.
That was an extremely instructive and powerful summary.
So really appreciate your providing that.
Since everyone else's is hawking and advertising
their panels, I wanna tell people about a two for one deal
that you can take advantage of next week.
If you really interested in transportation electrification,
we have two great panels coming up on Tuesday of next week.
The PUC and CEC and Gobiz are sponsoring the joint
program from 9:30 to four about
accelerating Ed infrastructure
and deployment three panels on permitting rates
and interconnection and Ed integration.
The next day, Wednesday the 13th from one to four,
we're gonna be having an on bonk with all of the
Commissioners on electrification
and it's a unique opportunity for us to discuss among
ourselves in a public setting some of our priorities,
we're gonna start out with a presentation
from the energy division level setting,
where we are our progress in our gaps.
We'll hear from our sister agency at the energy Commission
about the work that they're doing and the areas of focus for
their infrastructure investment
and then we're gonna have a one hour Commissioner round
table discussion about what we collectively think our vision
should be for optimizing the use of rate payer funds,
what the utility role should be in the transportation
electrification market,
and specifically accelerating the adoption of Eds.
So that's next Wednesday from one to four,
I look forward to all my fellow Commissioners
participating in of course the public
and stakeholders are welcome to join as well
and we hope that you do thank you.
-: Thank you Commissioner.
I would like to share a reminder that next Thursday,
October 14th is our 19th annual supplier diversity on bunk
on general order 156.
This year is on bunk's, entitled,
thriving and surviving during a pandemic.
We hope the discussion will shed some new light on
procurement challenges due to the pandemic and provide some
solutions on how to increase participation with diverse
suppliers in the utility supply chain.
The on bunk can be viewed for the public on
live on www.adminmonitor.com/CA/CPUC
this is your viewing today's meeting,
and the agenda is available on the CPUC website.
We hope that many of you will join us.
So with that,
that finishes the Commissioners reports and the public
meeting for today is now adjourned.
Thank you we will be taking a 10 minute break,
so let's just make it 10 minutes after 12 noon.
Thank you.