Operator: California Public Utilities Commission,
public voting meeting,
on this day, Thursday, May 6th, 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 very much operator.
Good morning,
we need to establish a quorum, will the agenda clerk,
please call the roll.
Clerk: Commissioner Houck.
-: Here.
Clerk: Commissioner Shiroma
-: Present.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
-: I'm here.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Here.
Clerk: President Batjer.
-: Here, we have established a quorum, thank you.
Welcome to the California Public Utilities Commission
meeting, I am calling this meeting of May six, 2021,
public agenda number 3485 to order.
Due to the Corona Virus pandemic
and the shelter in place order,
we are conducting today's business meeting online
and by remote participation.
The meeting is live-streamed on the CPUC's website,
you can view the meeting at www.adminmonitor.com/ca/cpuc.
Admin monitor is one word.
Closed captioning is available in English
and Spanish throughout the webcast.
You can click on the green button
to select your language of choice.
Public engagement is critical to us here at the CPUC,
if you wish to make a public comment,
dial into 800-857-1917
and enter pass code, 9899501
and press star one.
You'll be placed into a queue
and the operator will take your name
and information if appropriate.
You will be called upon to speak when we get
to the public comment period in today's agenda.
If you encounter any difficulty
calling into the public telephone line,
please email, votingmeetinghelp@cpuc.ca.gov.
Voting meeting help is all one word.
Before we commence with the public comment,
I want to highlight two very important things,
that are in May, in the month of May.
May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month
and I want to begin by acknowledging that AAPI communities
have shaped the history
and the culture of California, well before statehood.
AAPI communities consist of approximately 50 ethnic groups
with incredibly diverse histories, perspectives
and cultures.
The contributions of these diverse communities to civic life
in areas such as, the arts, politics and commerce,
are part of what makes California, a unique place to live
and experience.
In that spirit, I am pleased that
under the leadership of Commissioner Shiroma
and the CPUC's AAPI Heritage Month Planning Committee
throughout the month of May, CPUC staff
and Commissioners will participate in a variety
of thought provoking educational events
to help us all be better colleagues
and more effective stewards
for California's diverse communities.
Mr. Shiroma will be sharing more information
and thoughts on the events during her Commissioner remarks.
The second event that I want to highlight is
that Governor Newsom has declared this week,
Wildfire Preparedness Week in California.
As the Governor stated, hotter, drier conditions driven
by climate change are contributing
to unparalleled risk of catastrophic wildfire
across our landscapes,
with continued dry conditions
and ever present climate change,
California is facing another difficult
dangerous wildfire year, end of quote.
But, as a state, we are taking important actions to prevent
and prepare for wildfires.
Notably in April, Governor Newsom signed
an early action funding package to accelerate projects
that will protect high-risk community,
as part of his overall proposed $1 billion investment
in forest health and community fire resilience.
At CPUC, our wildfire safety division is continuing
its oversight of utilities wildfire mitigation plans
to help prevent ignition of wildfires
by utility infrastructure.
We are also continuing our oversight of the utilities use
of public safety power shutoff events,
to ensure that the energization is only used
as a measure of last resort
and to verify that the utilities are taking action
to mitigate impacts, to the greatest extent possible.
In the coming weeks,
we will issue additional PSPS guidelines
that the utilities will be required to adhere to
in the 2021 wildfire season,
to more fully support customers
and vulnerable communities when they are without power.
This week highlights that we all need to take actions
to prepare for wildfires
because the question isn't if there will be wildfires?
The question is where and when there will be wildfires?
I encourage everyone to visit Cal fire's website
ready for fire.org, which includes information
on steps to protect homes
and prepare for evacuations.
The better prepared each of us is,
the safer we will be as individuals
and communities, thank you.
We will now turn, to the public comment period
of our agenda,
If you wish to make a public comment
and you have already dialed
into the public comment telephone line,
please press star one,
to get into the public comment queue.
CPUC rules, do not allow for parties in proceedings
to speak about open proceedings.
The public can make comments addressing items on the consent
and regular agenda as well as items not on today's agenda.
Please note, that there will not be public comments
on all items on the closed session agenda.
You will have two minutes to speak.
You will hear a bell sound when your time is up.
Let me repeat that.
You will have two minutes to speak
and you will hear a bell sound when your time is up,
please, be mindful of other speakers in the queue
and keep to your allotted time.
With that guidance in mind, I welcome today's speakers.
I'll now turn to the operator
to open the public comment line.
Operator.
Operator: Thank you, Our first caller is Jim Stewart,
Dr. Jim Stewart you may go ahead.
Jim: Hi, I'm Dr. Jim Stewart, an Energy Consultant
and President Batjer
and Commissioners, the utilities have been spreading
lots of lies about a supposedly cost shift,
caused by rooftop solar
and some of your energy division staff
even seem to have bought into that lie.
We've shared studies with your staff,
such as the recent, Michigan Tech Study,
showing rooftop solar benefits the grid
and all customers.
So the real cost shift is away from us, who have taken
out huge personal loans to do the right thing,
to help save the climate.
You need to consider all the climates, social
and grid reliability benefits.
Do your utilities and staff really wanna
bankrupt all of us solar owners?
(clears throat)
The real cost shift is really caused by you.
You are allowing billions
in self approved transmission projects.
According to the Commission's own February, 2021 White Paper
on utility costs,
the utilities are building 5.3 billion projects of which,
approximately 60% we're self approved.
So, there's no federal or state review,
on neither the costs or needs
for these transmission projects.
And every one of those dollars,
cost rate payers about five times more
in the long lifetime of those projects,
including operations and maintenance as well as
those huge IOU return on investments to shareholders.
In addition, you need to get the smart meter data
to the CCA's now.
Staff Randolph was saying that there's some difficulties,
but there aren't, you can provide the day ahead data
to the CCA's, upon the smart meters (bell rings) now.
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Dr. Stewart, operator the next caller please.
Operator: Our next caller is Rob Howley,
you may go ahead.
Rob: Hi, I'm Rob Howley from the Solar Rights Alliance.
California has an ambitious goal for a 100% clean energy,
however, there's no consensus on how
to actually accomplish that goal.
After you throw out all the politically unacceptable
solutions, should come down to one, TV solar,
but your own staff says,
we're required tripling the current generation,
but where are you gonna put all those solar cells,
it's been estimated they require 1/6 of the available land
in California to accomplish that goal.
Filling the deserts with solar farms is not enough
and would get enough opposition to also be a non-starter.
Fortunately, tens of thousands of your voters are willing
to install solar on their roofs.
Thousands of jobs have been created to make that happen.
Tripling rooftop solar is simply keeping
the current growth rate.
In the evening, my system is either providing power
to my neighbors
or I'm off grid and not competing with them
for the long distance power lines
that the previous caller just talked about.
Reducing the load on the grid saves money for all customers,
but it means less income for the utilities
and that's the real cost for any M3.
There is a legitimate room to discuss
what any M should be (indistinct) is about
to reduce my any M by 40%,
simply by shifting the TOD.
At this point, PG&E will be making money
as my power goes to my neighbors,
radically cutting any M even more
and then adding special solar fees on top of that
as AB1139 proposed to do,
would kill the rate of new solar installations.
We need a middle ground that recognizes the contribution
of home solar, compensates it fairly
and removes the risk of rules shifting yet again.
If you plan to decide to make solar too expensive
to the middle-class,
then what is your plan for clean energy?
Thank you.
-: Thank you, Mr. Howley, next caller please.
Operator: Our next caller is Antonio Incerni,
you may go ahead.
Antonio: Thanks very much, hey, good morning all,
thanks for your attention today.
Hey, we know you have a lot on your plate,
we appreciate your deference to the public for this forum
and it sounds like you're definitely
gonna be getting an earful, so thanks very much.
Hey, I urge you to keep rooftop solar as well
and battery storage growing.
Please do not slow it down by getting that metering.
Please do whatever it takes to expand solar
and my argument pretty much is reliability.
Large single centralized power sources
(clears throat)
Excuse me, like hydro and nuclear
may serve industrial applications
through their scale and efficiency,
but are notoriously easy to attack.
We've all seen there's reports of eloquent cyber attacks
on major generators,
which experts have turned to brilliant.
These experts were also the court careful to point out
that while these occurred overseas,
there was nothing to prevent them
from happening here at home.
Okay, so rooftop and solar by contrast
is a distributed system
and it's as distributed as conceivably possible.
It is intrinsically difficult or impossible defeat
due to the sheer number of installations.
This makes this distribution resilient
to the wildfire outages that you referenced earlier
in your preamble.
It makes us resilient to the physical attacks
that we've seen on California substations.
And of course it makes it resilient
to future cyber attacks as I've just noted.
The idea that low income indigenous people are left
out of the solar expansion, is pretty much a false one,
as we saw in the Netflix documentation
as low income neighborhoods from Arizona
to rainy drizzly Washington DC, are sharing the rooftops
and the power they generate to help all of their neighbors.
And our home grown, Oakland, nationally recognized grid
alternative, has recently received national recognition
from Gina McCarthy, National Climate Advisor,
John Kerry, US Special President to Envoy for Climate
and President Biden himself.
Their mission... (bell rings)
Well, you get it, thanks.
-: Thank you, operator the next caller please.
Operator: The next caller is Laura Rosenberger Haider,
you may go ahead.
Laura: Hello? You hear me?
-: Yes we can, please go ahead.
Laura: Oh yes, well, I'm not gonna be able
to afford electricity with all these high transaction...
(indistinct)
High fees with the minimum monthly charges.
And I'm actually gonna boycott electricity
and I got my 12 volt solar battery charger
and I'm running my computer last night off of the battery
and shut the lights off
and you see, I don't know why the transmission cost
is so much, rooftop solar in California reduced
the 2017 transmission cost by $2 billion.
And I share in the discouraging rooftop solar
and discouraging energy conservation
and turning off electricity a lot.
So, someone should oversee the accelerating
transmission costs (indistinct)
All right, thanks.
-: Thank you, operator the next caller please.
Operator: And before we go to the next caller, again
if anyone wishes to speak during the public comment period,
please press star one, unmute your phone
and clearly record your name and organization when prompted.
Our next caller is David McCord, you may go ahead.
David: This is David McCord, and I'm a rate payer
in El Cerrito, and two things,
the net energy made metering successor needs
to fairly compensate people with rooftop solar,
can really incentivize an installation of rooftop solar
to help dominate the grid more resilient
and increase the amount of renewables on the grid.
Number two, in February of this year,
staff published a white paper utility costs
and affordability of the grid of the future
in the executive summary paragraph goes,
let's see, basically, let's see, Oh yeah, okay,
well, capital investments by IOU's will be necessary
to meet California's Energy
and Climate Policy goals, that can result in higher bills
for customers evaluating the reasonableness
of these investments in a tenure more efficient grid
and sustain them.
Affordable rates, raises affordability
and equity implications that merit further investment,
so the PUC needs to ride head on those...
what utilities they want to invest, thank you.
-: Thank you, Mr. McCord, operator, the next caller please.
Operator: Actually no callers at this time,
but again that is star one If you would like
to make a public comment.
-: Okay, operator no one else on the line?
Operator: There is no one else in queue at this time.
-: Okay, thank you, Holly.
With no more callers on the line
public comment period is now closed.
Right, moving on to our agenda.
These are the following changes to today's agenda.
Item two will be held
until the Commission meeting on May 20th, 2021.
Item three will be held into the meeting of 5/2021.
Item seven will be held
into the Commission meeting on 6/3/21.
Item 13 will be held into the meeting on 5/2021.
Item 21, will be held to the Commission meeting
on 5/2021.
Item 23 will be held into the Commission meeting
on 5/2021.
Item 21A has been withdrawn.
Item 29, will be held into the Commission meeting
on 5/2021.
Item 31, will be taken up with the Consent Agenda today.
Item 32 will be taken up with the Consent Agenda today
and item 33 will be taken up with the Consent Agenda today,
Item 34 has been withdrawn.
Anne: President Batjer, this is Anne Simon.
If I may? Item 28A has been withdrawn (clears throat)
Not item 21A.
-: Okay, I'm sorry for that mistake on my part,
28A has been withdrawn, I misspoke, thank you, Anne.
All right, we will now take up the consent items.
Is there a motion?
-: Still moved.
-: Second.
-: Okay, the motion has been made and seconded.
Will the agenda clerk please call the roll
on the consent item.
Clerk: Commissioner Houck.
-: Yes.
Clerk: Commissioner Shiroma.
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen
-: Yes.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Acedes.
-: Aye.
-: President Batjer.
-: Yes, thank you.
The consent items have been passed unanimously.
We will now take up regular agenda items.
Item 28, I will speak to,
and we do have the Judge Yacknin on as presses
and if there are any questions.
Item 28, resolves a motion for approval of settlement
of Citation Appeal K 19-10-009, which is the appeal
of Megan C. Murray, doing business as Rite Time Transport
from Citation F-5599 issued by the Consumer Protection
and Enforcement Branch of the CPUC,
on August 27th, 2019.
The citation fines, Rite Time, $20,000,
for four rights violations that occurred
between September 15th, 2018
and January 15th, 2019 related to operating
during suspension of its operating authority
for having an adequate insurance coverage.
Also, they're the three violations related to failure
to enroll drivers in Employer Poll Notice
and Controlled Substance
and Alcohol Testing Certification programs
and to obtain their proper endorsement
in medical certifications
and four violations related
to reporting updated equipment status to the CPUC
displaying the C, excuse me, the TCP number
on the advertisements and vehicles
and including pertinent information on waybills.
-: On February 21, 2020, and by two subsequent motions,
the parties moved for approval of the settlement
of the citation appeal whereby Rite Time commits to comply
with all applicable regulations
and CPED withdraws the fault.
Administrative Law Judge issued this draft resolution,
ALJ-385, approving the settlement,
noting among other things, the Commission precedent
for waving a fine, where a utility has acted in good faith
to come into compliance on September 28th
and as amended on October 22nd, 2020,
the parties filed a motion to clarify, the record
to address the concerns Commissioners had expressed
during a September Commission meeting.
I will now turn to my fellow Commissioners to see
if there are any comments, before we take a vote.
Commissioner Rechtschaffen, yes.
-: Thank you, President Batjer,
I just wanna give a little background I had prepared,
an alternate resolution in this case
after we had discussed this at a prior public meeting,
I've since withdrawn that resolution
and I just wanna give a little background about my thinking.
The settlement as you know, waives in its entirety,
the $20,000 fine that was issued for the numerous violations
that you laid out, that the defendant admits occurred
and cites various mitigating factors.
The thing I was focused on in the reason I prepared
an alternate, originally was that in my view,
the decision did not provide sufficient information
or analysis to support waiving the fine, based
on the company's inability to pay any amount of penalties.
So the ultimate I proposed, significantly reduced the fine
to a level that I think is more in line
with our longstanding guidelines for assessing penalties
and our precedent
and that includes penalty guidelines for how,
we analyze factors such as, in alleged inability to pay
by a defendant.
CPED however, they're the group that prosecuted this matter,
they did not accept the modifications
to the settlement proposed in the alternate.
So, we're then left with the options
of either adopting the proceeding
and adopting the settlement and closing this,
or if we didn't and we approved the alternate
we'd have to refer this case back to Judge Yacknin
for further review and proceedings.
So, given that CPED does not wanna
further pursue the citation, I don't think it makes sense
to continue to expend more resources on this case.
So, for that reason, I've withdrawn my alternate
for consideration, I think there is a lesson here
that we should take from this, going forward
for us to engage in consistent
and most effective enforcement.
I think our enforcement activities, including settlements,
should follow our well-established penalty factors,
including an assessment of an entities ability to pay.
And those factors are outlined in our enforcement policy
and reflect as I said, longstanding guidelines
and precedent.
So, I will be supporting this,
I will be filing a concurrence to explain my thinking,
which I will reiterate when we vote on this.
-: Okay, thank you Commissioner Rechtschaffen,
are there any other comments
or questions from the Commissioners?
Okay, seeing none,
will the agenda clerk please call the roll on item 28.
Clerk: Commissioner Houck.
-: Yes.
Clerk: Commissioner Shiroma.
(indistinct)
Clerk: Commissioner Shiroma.
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
-: Yes,
and I reserve the right to file a concurrence
in this matter.
-: Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Aye.
-: President Batjer.
-: Aye, thank you,
the item item 28 has been passed unanimously.
I will be introducing item number 30.
This is a financing order that authorizes Pacific Gas
and Electric Company issue up to 7.5 billion,
(coughs)
excuse me, of recovery bonds to fund costs
and expenses related to 2017, North Bay fires.
The foundation for today's financing order is built
off of the Commission's determination
at the April 22nd Commission meeting,
that PG&E had satisfied the stress test methodology created
by the Commission pursuant to SB 901
(clears throat)
and therefore 7.5 billion of PG&E's 2017,
catastrophic fire costs are eligible
under the stress test for a rate payer back securitization
to be financed through the issuance
of recovery bonds pursuant to SB 901 and AB 1054.
(clears throat)
Excuse me, I have a tickle, today's order is the next step
in the process to actually effectuate that determination
and formally authorized PG&E to issue the recovery bonds.
Under the financing order PG&E will be allowed
to issue bonds in up to three series by December 31, 2022
and to ensure the sale of the recovery bonds,
are issued pursuant to this financing order.
The financing team will be established,
which will include the Commission's general counsel,
the director of the Energy Division
and staff to oversee the bond issuance process.
As a result of the transaction, PG&E will retire 6 billion
of the temporary utility debt to help PG&E recognize
and emerge from bankruptcy and facilitate
and accelerate cash payments to the fire victims trust.
I would like to thank the Administrative Law Judge
Robert Haga for his excellent work on this decision
as well as the Legal and Energy Division staff.
(coughs)
Excuse me (indistinct) Geoff Dryvynsyde
and Michael (indistinct)
And I would also very much like to thank my superb
Chief of Staff, Shannon O'Rourke,
with that I request my fellow Commissioners support.
Are there any questions
or comments on item number 30?
Okay, seeing none,
will the agenda clerk please call the roll.
Clerk: Commissioner Houck.
-: Yes.
Clerk: Commissioner Shiroma.
-: Aye.
Clerk: Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
-: Yes.
Clerk: Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Aye.
Clerk: President Batjer.
-: Aye, the vote is unanimous for item 30, I thank you all.
We will now move to the next agenda item,
which are the management reports.
There is no report for item 35, which is a manager report
and discussion on recent consumer protection
and safety activity.
For item 36, manager report
and discussion on administrative activities,
our Executive Director, Rachel Peterson will present
the employee recognition awards, Rachel.
Rachel: Good morning, President Batjer.
Good morning Commissioners.
I am very glad to be here with you this morning
to present to you our Employee Recognition Awards
for the first quarter of 2021.
This is particularly well-timed because we are
in the middle of Public Service Recognition Week.
This week has been celebrated in the first week of May
since 1985, to honor the people who serve the United States
as federal, state, county, local
and tribal government employees.
And so, well-timed today, we are recognizing eight
of our high achieving employees.
First slide please, thank you.
All right, first award and recognition goes
to Love Asiedu Akrofi for Building Morale.
She is with the building de-carbonization team
within Energy Division.
Love is consistently supportive in helping to build morale
by persistently asking if her coworkers need help
and whether she can help with anything
that might remove some of their work burden.
Love can be found very frequently cheering on her coworkers
when they need a morale boost, congratulations Love.
Next, for Collaboration.
Michaela Pangilinan from Communications Division.
Michaela leads two large proceedings,
the Wireline Resilience Strategies Proceeding
and the Frontier Transfer Proceeding.
Both of these have resulted in decisions
that were unanimously adopted by you, the Commissioners.
Along the way, Michaela demonstrated her ability
to run each proceeding
in a meticulously well-organized manner.
She took the time to look into every detail,
developed a task list and worked with team members
to set the correct expectations.
She has raised the bar in demonstrating her pride
and loyalty to the Commission,
as well as her commitment and work ethic.
All of which are so essential to collaboration.
Next slide please.
The recognition for supporting the Commission's core values,
goes to Nicole Cropper, who has been in Executive Division,
both in the office of Commissioner Rechtschaffen
and now permanently in the office of the Commission.
Nicole is receiving this award for demonstrating three
of our core values, excellence, integrity
and accountability.
She has been instrumental in tackling important issues
at the CPUC.
First, her hard work and leadership in designing
and putting together cultural
and historical events for 1,300 employees,
such as for Women's History Month
and for Black History Month, demonstrates excellence
and integrity.
Nicole thinks deeply about what kind of event
and which speaker will be meaningful
and interesting to our employees.
And as a result, we have had the opportunity to participate
in a series of events that have been
by turns, honest, impactful and fun.
Nicole is the leadership work
on other important initiatives within the CPUC
like the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Taskforce
and our core team that's operationalizing the Environmental
and Social Justice Action Plan,
demonstrates her strong commitment
to holding ourselves accountable to the public
and ensuring that justice is at the forefront of our work.
Nicole is a real asset to the CPUC.
For Customer Service, we have two awards going today.
First, Juralynne, Lynn, as I know her,
Mosley in the Energy Division, Lynn has provided
and continues to provide excellent customer service
to her Energy Division colleagues.
Lynn is the sole person in Energy Division,
responsible for the entire divisions IT needs.
She assists with the onboarding process
for new employees and interns by ensuring
that they have the appropriate equipment
and accounts set up before their first day.
I know this for a fact
because Lynn assisted me, when I was a brand new analyst
in Energy Division 10 years ago.
And, just to give you a sense of the numbers that she works
with, just during the COVID-19 pandemic alone,
Lynn has provided IT set up for 42 new employees
and 10 interns in Energy Division
along with shipping out laptops and headsets
for the 180 employees who began working from home,
literally overnight when public health orders required.
Lynn performs this customer service with a smile
and a very high level of responsiveness,
congratulations Lynn.
Darryl Thompson in Executive Branch
within the Consumer Affairs Branch,
Daryl's job classifications
and duties make him essential at the office.
He has continued to report in-person
to our Los Angeles Office since March, 2020.
Darryl is responsible for a variety
of critical support services in the office,
like ensuring that correspondence from consumers
to our Consumer Affairs Branch arrives.
He scans each piece of mail
into our database timely each day.
He contacts staff of numerous divisions about correspondence
that have been delivered to their attention
and, very importantly, he mails all
of our correspondence back
to the people who prefer to hear back from us via US Mail.
Darryl support has meant that consumers who have issues
with their utility service, whether it's electricity,
gas, communications, water
or transportation, are getting the timely attention
that they deserve.
And for our employees, Darryl receives
and handles valuable equipment,
for the staff of all divisions whose home base
is the Los Angeles Office.
This has saved innumerable trips to the office
for our approximately 160 Los Angeles employees
who are working from home.
Darrell's efforts and professionalism for this past year
are commendable and appreciated
by the many colleagues he serves, congratulations Darrell.
-: Recognition for Innovation, Aloke Gupta
in Energy Division.
Aloke led the development
of the new Emergency Load Reduction Program Pilot,
which you voted on recently in a voting meeting.
The program is designed to meet what we are all planning
for, which is to keep the lights on
during what we anticipate to be hot summer months.
The program will allow the utilities
and our grid operators
to California Independent System Operator
to access additional reductions in electric demand
during times of high grid stress in the summer.
When there may be limited generation to meet that demand,
this program will be a critical component
of the broader CPUC effort to ensure electric system
reliability this summer, following the August,
2020 rolling blackouts.
Really well done, Aloke and congratulations.
-: All right, next slide please.
-: Our recognition for leadership goes to Charles Mason
in our local government liaison team
within Executive Division.
Charles has taken a leadership role
in the CPUCs Capital Coalition on Race and Equity Team
and has coauthored a plan for the CPUC's first ever office
of diversity and inclusion.
In his day-to-day work,
as one of our local government liaison,
Charles has taken a leadership role
with regards to community-based organizations.
You as Commissioners have said that engagement
of community-based organizations is a priority for us,
whether in person or virtually
because they work directly on issues
and work directly with people who are impacted
by our regulation of utilities.
Charles has worked to operationalize that priority
by developing an internal training program
for CPUC employees about our engagement
and best practices with community-based organizations.
He's also developing an overall framework
for that engagement.
Congratulations Charles, on your leadership
and thank you for your efforts on these fronts.
All right, outstanding achievement, Marvin Kennix,
in the Rail Safety Division.
During the last 20 years, Marvin Kennix Utilities Engineer
has regulated the safety of rail crossings
across California,
that job means that he has made sure
that rail crossings are safely designed
and configured to protect the Railroad employees
and the public.
Marvin has been the main contact between the Commission
and California High Speed Rail Project in the Fresno area,
communicating with the California High-Speed Rail Authority,
our Administrative Law Judges
and Rail Safety Division Management to make sure
that the rail crossing applications are evaluated
and approved in a timely way by the Commission.
Marvin regularly earns praise from the authority
and local agencies that he works with
and last but absolutely not the least,
Quality Improvement, Annalissa Herbert
within our Administrative Law Judge Division.
Annalissa has diligently worked
to support our Administrative Law Judges
and our Proceedings Analyst Unit
in developing a remote hearing process
during the COVID-19 pandemic.
She works closely with the judges, with IT,
with our daily calendar and hearing calendar teams
and all of the proceeding analysts
to educate people about updates
and sustain a seamless process
that is supporting our management
of proceedings in which dozens, possibly hundreds of parties
and stakeholders are now participating.
Annalissa's integrity and exceptional performance is admired
and appreciated by everyone who comes in contact with her.
She's a joy to spend time with
and the CPUC has benefited greatly by having her
as a part of our team.
Thank you Commissioners,
even reading these tributes makes me
remember the breadth and depth of the work
that our employees do across California.
It's just never endingly impressive to me.
Thank you for the opportunity
to present this recognition today.
-: Rachel, thank you so much
and let's give a big round of applause (applauds)
to all these incredible employees, I'm so proud
of them, working so hard
and demonstrating all of our values, this is terrific,
It's one of my favorite things that we do.
So thank you so much, Executive Director Peterson
and thank you to all of the recipients
of these achievement awards
and especially, during this wonderful week
of Public Service Recognition,
that is a nationwide a week of recognition
as I mentioned earlier.
So, thank you again.
All right, Commissioners, we're now moving on
to the Commissioner reports, section
or part of our agenda, who would like to go first today?
Okay, Commissioner Shiroma please.
-: Thank you, President Batjer, I have several reports.
As you shared earlier,
this month is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
and there is a large Asian Pacific American population
in California and here at the staffing of a CPUC
as the Commission works to serve all Californians,
it is important to celebrate
and honor the cultural diversity of our States.
So, here at the CPUC, we are celebrating with a series
of events for our staff, ranging from Tuesday's cook-off
to some upcoming panel discussions,
Commissioner Rechtschaffen
and I kicked off the series
on Tuesday with traditional Filipino Folk Dance performances
and four staff members sharing recipes
for Vietnamese Cha ta, Filipino Lutea,
Japanese baked Mochi and Burmese Coconut Curry Noodle Soup.
Thank you to the (indistinct) dance company
and their Executive Director, Richard Tom Gazal
of San Francisco, our employees, (indistinct)
Reagan Roxford, Amy Yip-Kikugawa,
and (indistinct) our chefs extraordinaire,
a fun time was had by all.
So I want to encourage all of us in the CPUC staff
to attend the next three virtual events as well.
Next one is on Monday
and features a panel discussion on the experience
of hate crimes against Asian Pacific Americans,
we've invited four external guests to participate
as panel members to discuss the rise
in hate crimes against the community,
what lawmakers are doing to address it?
And tips on how bystanders can help.
The panelists are Angela Chan,
from the Asian Law Caucus, Courtney Mangus
from the council on American Islamic Relations,
Reverend Norman fall recently retired as Executive Director
of the San Francisco Chinatown Community Development Center
and California State Senator, David Mint,
who represents Orange County in California.
Our third event on May 21st,
will bring together legal history
and sociology scholars for discussion on AAPI immigration,
focusing on the diversity
and contributions of the AAPI Diaspora Laws
and patterns driving immigration
and challenges that AAPI immigrants face.
We plan to have four panels speakers
and has confirmed Professor Bill Hong hing
from the University of San Francisco Law School.
So stay tuned for a flyer on that panel.
Lastly, on May 24th, we will have a panel discussion
with AAPI leaders in the energy industry
and hear about their paths to leadership.
And so far, we have confirmed California Energy Commissioner
(indistinct)
and CEO and General Manager of SMUD Paul Lau.
So, thank you to our planning committee members,
Liu (indistinct)
Rihanna Grant, Craig Castleton, (indistinct)
Justin Fong point Lawley Pristina 10 Gomez
Catherine McDonald's linen cow, Selena shack
Nicole Copper and Karen Shia.
So, look for those flyers coming up
for these really good panels.
Now, next week we have a TNC related
accessibility workshops, It's on Tuesday,
it starts at 10 in the morning,
It's gonna go all day,
It leads back to the Original Law Senate bill, 1376
that was signed in 2018,
It's called the Transportation Network Companies Access
for All Act, we're to establish a program
for wheelchair accessibility
and accessibility of funding system.
And through the 2019, 2020, we voted out various decisions
in this proceeding to put together the framework
and the funding it's 10 cents per ride,(indistinct)
And to also look at how other CPUC regulated transmission
providers can qualify for the funding
and the type of metrics they need to collect at meet.
This workshop will focus on additional metrics,
maybe how much time does it take to respond
and also looking at whether we would open up the program
to non CPUC regulated transportation providers.
This will take place on WebEx.
Folks can check our daily calendar for more information
on how to participate.
I'll be attending the workshop
and hope we have a good attendance joining us next Tuesday.
And then finally, I wanna share that on May 19th,
the business opportunity outreach team headed up
by Stephanie Green is hosting an event from 10
in the morning till noon on how the public
and community based organizations, CBOs, to learn
about how to participate in CPUC proceedings, as parties
and to make their voices heard, to really look
at how we can benefit from the CBO experience.
We work on many critical issues, which is outlined today.
It includes (indistinct)
into qualified water programs
and many more so increasingly engagement
from community based organizations with us is important.
And the outreach team will introduce our Industry Division.
The way the CPUC is working for environmental
and social justice communities.
There'll be some breakout sessions where CBO there on
and other event participants, discuss their experience
and advice and knowledge questions that are Industry
Division Experts.
So there again, information's on our daily calendar
and give us the instructions on how to participate
and I will be attending that workshop as well.
All right, thank you, back to you President Batjer.
-: Commissioner Shiroma, thank you so much
for that very thorough report
and I really want to thank you personally
as well as the AAPI planning committee for all
of the hard work that they're doing for all of us
to celebrate the American Asian Heritage Month.
So, thank you again very much, a lot of work,
but such an important celebration and recognition.
Who would like to go next?
Martha, Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Thank you, President Batjer.
One of the workshops I wanted
to make sure everyone was aware of is one related
to the San Joaquin Valley proceeding,
whereas you may recall there's been a lot of focus
on the communities who currently depend not
for primarily for their heating needs, on wood and propane
and the majority of the pilots have been focused
on providing electric heat options for these communities.
And of course the COVID challenges have been
tremendous there,
but on May 10th from four to 6:00 PM,
Opinion Dynamics will be presenting some
of their preliminary findings
and seeking input from everyone
on their data gathering plan,
that was a part of this proceeding
on the San Joaquin Valley disadvantaged communities.
And really it's an opportunity for all of us
and I invite you all to join to learn about,
the dynamics of their energy needs
and the challenges that they face,
particularly because of those
and all of the challenges that have happened this far
with the trends with Mrs. Pilot.
I hope that they have been tremendous challenges,
but really It's the challenge we have
for the just transition
and making sure that we're intentional
about these subpopulations so that they're not left behind
as we transitioned to cleaner economy.
So, there will be a PowerPoint for this sent out on May 7th,
if you cannot join,
but the actual workshop is May 10th from four to six.
Also, I wanted to just report back on the event we held,
which you all participated in, which was a Driving Diversity
Equity and Inclusion and our California Energy
STEM initiative, which the chair of the UC Regents
former speaker of the assembly, John Fez, quickly
challenged us to extend that initiative to be
a theme initiative
and adding the aid to the STEM field,
which was a part of the discussion there.
Anyhow, the forum really was about how we can enhance
the pathways of greater diversity, particularly black
indigenous and Latinos in the energy field.
Particularly as we see the disproportionate representation
in our sector.
And obviously, I firmly believe in order for us to get
to a cleaner economy in a more equitable way,
we'll need to have that representation.
So we had much great participation from, as I mentioned
the chair of the regions that the president
of the UCS was in Drake.
We had presidency and CEO of Edison
Federal Sicario STG needs,
Chief Executive Officer Caroline Wins
PG&E's CEO, Adam Right.
We have the chancellor of the CSU Chancellor Castro,
Chancellor Martice Oakley of the Community Colleges
and Christian Suarez
from the Independent California Colleges and Universities.
And I wanna mostly think all
of the community-based organizations
and national NGOs that helped us get this forum together
and really looking to start this initiative.
Most notably Hispanics and Energy who really spurred
the interest in doing this event.
Also the Association of Blacks in Energy,
the Parent Institute for Quality Education known as CICE,
the Advanced Chicanos Hispanics and Native Americans
in science known as SOCNAS
and MESSA that most of you are familiar with
in the (indistinct) California Chapter.
So much recognition of the need
and interest in being a part of it, of all levels,
as you said, from kindergarten to the C-suite and beyond.
And the goal really was how do we start to set goals
for growth that are continuous
and most notably for this first, next traunch?
So, I invite you all to continue to help me to figure
out what our role will be.
And I would just note there was so much staff help,
but most notably Stephanie Green
and Ken Holbrook really helped on our end
as well as all the IT team,
but really looking to see in our initiatives,
particularly our geo 156, how we play our role
in holding (indistinct) use accountable
for meeting some of these diversity metrics
within their workforce and their board and beyond.
Okay and then finally
I did wanna update on two public participation hearings.
I know I was able to share with some of you already
on the incarcerated people calling,
but just to share with everyone, we did, you know,
we have a rule making to look
at these needs for regulating the rates
and charges for communication service
for people who are incarcerated in California.
And over the two days,
about 600 people watched the hearings via our admin monitor.
Another 230 called in.
This is something that we could not have imagined pre COVID.
So, one of the silver linings, we talked about is
the ability to have this sort of public engagement,
particularly with such a disenfranchised population.
Needless to say, there was very concerning comments
from the public on the need to act here.
And we have issued a staff approval
and taking comment on that.
Comments were due at the end last month
and reply comments next week,
so I think more than anything
I just wanted to share that it was a great interest
from the public for us to act urgently, act ambitiously
on regulating these rates.
And I really look forward to doing so as quickly
as possible, thank you.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Guzman Aceves
for that rich report, appreciate it greatly.
-: And who would like to speak next?
Yes, Commissioner Houck.
-: Thank you, President Batjer, just pretty pleased,
I did want to express my appreciation
to everyone that worked to prepare this month events,
celebrating Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage.
It was earlier described by Commissioner Shiroma,
particularly Commissioner Shiroma for all
of her work in leading this effort.
I really look forward to the remaining three events
that were described
and can't wait for us to get back in person
to have a bake sale after the event from earlier this week.
Later this month, Commissioner Guzman Aceves
and I will be participating
in the energy Commission's annual Tribal Energy Conference.
The focus this year is on resiliency efforts
in California Indian country.
So, I look forward to hearing from tribal leaders,
including tribes that recently received grants
for energy planning capacity building
from the Energy Commission
and exploring different opportunities for results
in improving resiliency in Indian country.
And we'll report back after that conference occurs.
I also wanted to note
that there will be public participation hearings
held in the Golden State Water Company general rate case
during the week of May 24th,
this proceeding will determine the water service rates
for 2022 through 2024 for several counties,
including Los Angeles.
We're planning to hold one hearing
during the afternoon of May 25th
and two hearings on May 26th and 27th,
one in the late afternoon
and one in the evening, I encourage customers
within the Golden State Water Company Service
territory to provide us with their comments
and additional information on the PPHs, can be found
on the Commission's website
and the daily calendar.
And I also wanna know that I do plan to
attend the San Joaquin Valley workshop mentioned
by Commissioner Guzman Aceves next week
and look forward to hearing the updates
and additional information on the progress of the issues
in that proceeding with that concludes my report.
-: Thank you, Commissioner Houck.
Commissioner Rechtschaffen, please.
-: Thank you President Batjer, Commissioner Houck,
I know you're looking forward to the bake sale,
but I have some bad news because I've already
pre-ordered all the Mochi at Amy Yepchi
the guy was gonna be selling there, so,
if you're looking for Mochi, it's already been taken,
just saying, boy, was that food
with those recipes mouthwatering.
I wanna talk about our affordability proceeding
and the report that STEM
from that proceeding that we issued last week,
just to give some sense of the importance of what we've done
and it's context.
As I said before, we are the first PUC
in the country to develop a metric
and a set of metrics for gaging, the affordability
of combined utility services, energy, water, phone
and internet.
Other utilities have done it for individual services,
we're the first to do it for combined services.
And the report that we issued last week takes those metrics
and shows how affordable services are to average Californian
and low-income Californians in various parts of the state,
because we know the burdens are very different depending
on where you live.
So the report looks at both Californians
at the 50th percentile, the average Californian,
but primarily focuses on lower income households,
those are the 20th income percentile.
And it reports that it concludes unsurprisingly,
that the affordability of utilities
for low income customers varies widely
by geographic region in the state
and while in a substantial portion of the state,
people do not spend a very significant percentage
of their income on utilities.
There are parts of the state where
that is not the case where customers spend more than 15%
or even greater amounts of their income,
after housing costs on utilities,
for example, in Chico, Los Angeles, parts
of San Francisco Bay, San Joaquin Valley, they spend more
than 15% of their income just on electricity alone.
The report highlights the burdens faced by water customers,
high essential service charges
and higher than average water costs in rural areas.
It underscores what we've learned so profoundly here
during COVID, that there's a stark digital divide
in the availability of affordable California
and broadband services
and other interesting findings.
I think going forward,
what we take from this is important lessons,
we need to continue to measure these types of costs
and the impact on affordability in our proceedings
going forward, we need to think
about how we design our programs,
especially our subsidy programs,
so that they're most beneficial
to the communities that are most in need.
We're gonna continue to issue this report annually
to track trends in affordability over time.
We hope to take on some very phony methodological questions,
such as, how you do a forecast of affordability,
which we didn't do this year, we talked about it,
but we identified the need, but it's difficult,
we'll do that going forward, hopefully.
And hopefully, the report will continue
to improve every year.
I just have a bittersweet note to wrap up after being
with the proceeding since mid 2018, when it started
and working closely with Commissioner Guzman Aceves,
I'm passing the baton to Commissioner Houck,
I know that she has a lot of expertise in these areas
and very strong interests.
So, I'll leave you in extremely capable hands.
I wanna thank the people who worked on this,
It's really superb
and talented group that stands a variety
of Industry Divisions.
They had the hard job of being trailblazers,
like is often the case
for the work we do here at the Commission.
We developed the first in the nation metrics,
It was a very intensive stakeholder process
and a very rich and complex data-driven process.
And this team really worked innovatively
outside of our traditional bureaucratic comfort zone
and considered a lot of different ideas.
If you don't do anything else, look at our website
which is CPUC there's an affordability website
and you'll see, not just the report,
but these interactive maps that we developed that
allow you to have nuanced understanding granular depictions
of affordability by region.
And you'll get some sense of how complex the
underlying data that this team has been working with.
So, with a great deal of appreciation,
I'd like to thank this very dynamic staff
in the Energy Division on key, John, Bridgid Syrian Smith,
Paul Phillips, Jefferson Hancock
and Jeremy Hall from the water division, Wayland Lee
and Eric van.
Wamback from communications,
Our Judge Patrick Doherty, Jack Mulligan
from the Legal Division
and my advisors Julia Smith and Sean Simon.
Thank you.
-: Thank you very much, Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
Okay, I have two items to report out.
First, I would like to recognize again,
that this week is Public Service Recognition Week,
each year the federal government designates
the first full week of May,
as Public Service Recognition Week
in honor of federal state and local government employees.
I am very pleased to celebrate public service
and the important work we carry out
in the service to all Californians.
It is the mission of the CPUC to empower California
through the excess of safe, clean
and affordable utility services and infrastructure,
On a daily basis, I witnessed the drive
and the commitment from our staff
and my fellow Commissioners to meet this goal.
This past year, I have also witnessed the dedication
of the CPUC staff
and fellow state employees across California,
volunteered as contact tracers
to help the state address COVID-19 pandemic.
We also have a number of colleagues who have taken time
off from their regular duties to support this effort
and other colleagues who have taken
on increased responsibilities
at the CPUC to bridge those gaps.
I'm honored to serve as a public servant
and to be part of a workforce that aims to make a positive
and meaningful difference for all Californians.
I think there's no more nobler a job in one's life
than public service.
I would also like to report this past Tuesday
the CEC, CPUC and CAL ISO hosted a joint workshop
to present on the actions,
all three agencies have taken since last summer's
releasing outages to ensure electric system reliability
for the summer of 2021, the volume
and pace of the actions taken by each of the agencies'
staff, has been so impressive.
And while no one can predict weather
and resource conditions on a given date
with a 100% certainty, we know we are in a stronger position
this year than last August,
when the state faced unacceptable rolling outages.
We have recently voted on numerous actions that
this Commission has taken to ensure the events
of last summer are not repeated.
So I won't enumerate them here,
but I do again want to reiterate my appreciation
and gratitude to the hardworking staff and judge.
There is still much to do across all
of our agencies to implement the policy
and program changes for this summer,
but we are mobilized and we are working hard.
That finishes out the Commissioner's reports
and this public meeting is now adjourned.
Thank you everyone for participating today.
Thank you all very much.
-: Thank you.