Edison Awaits PUC Action
The California Public Utilities Commission appears ready to take action at its June 14 meeting on at least two of several regulatory changes that are needed to implement a rescue plan for Southern California Edison that was brokered by Gov. Gray Davis.
Southern California Edison executives said Friday that they were alarmed that the PUC had not placed any of the regulatory actions on its agenda for Thursday, indicating that the utility regulators would miss a deadline contained in the Edison “memorandum of understanding” that requires them to act by June 8.
Since then, Edison executives have met with representatives of Davis and the PUC, and two items have appeared on the June 14 agenda with the assurance of more to come.
The company is somewhat reassured that the process is moving forward, albeit at a slower rate than agreed to in the memorandum, said Ted Craver, chief financial officer of Edison International, parent of the Rosemead-based utility.
“We are still hopeful we will get some action on the [PUC] decisions, which we believe are critical and called for in the MOU,” Craver said Tuesday during a conference call with debt holders. “It remains still a very large concern on our part.”
The deal with Davis calls for Edison to sell its transmission lines to the state for $2.76 billion and to float ratepayer-secured bonds to pay off $3.5 billion in electricity debt.
But implementing the transaction would require the PUC to change some rules involving electricity rate setting, nuclear power sales and energy procurement, among other issues. The PUC is expected to issue proposed decisions on these matters in the next several days, staffers said.
To become effective, the deal also would require legislative approval by early August. But lawmakers remain deeply divided over the proposal and are developing other plans, including one that would require large customers to procure their own electricity on the open market, reserving electricity generated by Edison for residential and small-business customers at regulated rates, said Edison Senior Vice President Bob Foster.
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