Weekly Report of 1/25/02

California:

CP02-41-000 PG&E Section 7 FERC Proceeding. On Monday, Jan 28, 2002, Transwestern will file an intervention in the PG&E FERC filing to convert their current intrastate backbone system into an interstate open access pipeline.

A01-09-024 SoCalGas BCAP. A Meet and Confer meeting was held on Tuesday to discuss a revised procedural schedule. Given the ALJ's directive that SoCal must submit a revised BCAP application to reflect the unbundling decision and to include both the LRMC cost methodology and the embedded cost methodology on March 4th, two procedural schedules were submitted to the ALJ for consideration. SoCal presented a schedule which retains the original Hearing dates to begin on May 21, 2002 and with a final decision by the end of 2002 to allow for implementation of revised rates on Jan. 1, 2003. The Office of Ratepayer Advocates (ORA) submitted a schedule pushing the hearings back to late August and seeking a Commission decision by the end of March 2003. The parties were unable to reach a consensus, however more parties objected to the SoCal schedule than the ORA schedule. An ALJ decision should be forthcoming.

Arizona:

AZ Legislature. Due to revenue shortfalls in the current fiscal year, Gov. Hull has announced that an emergency session beginning Jan. 29, 2002, will need to be called to deal with an estimated $200 million deficit. On the table for possible cuts are surpluses in special funds such as the tobacco education fund, the Heritage Fund for parks and game preserves and a special lake fund. Others feel its time to use the remaining "rainy day" fund of $160 Million. However with a $850 Million deficit expected in 2003, the Gov. wants to keep this fund intact.