California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) regulators met last Tuesday for what they hoped would be their last meeting of this tumultuous year, hammering out a new investigation of Enron affiliates operating in the state and taking a few other actions, but leaving much of its big issues for consideration in the first meetings in the New Year.

Utilities, Enron affiliates and other market participants were asked to submit answers to eight questions from the CPUC by Tuesday (Dec. 18), prior to a prehearing conference Dec. 20 and the start of evidentiary hearings Jan. 7.

Most items were held or only partially dealt with, including the ultimate timing for applying the direct access suspension, operating changes in major natural gas underground storage facilities and electric transmission interconnects, utility agreements to re-do qualifying facility (QF) power generator contracts, and rate orders for the state’s power-buying agency. Unlike other Decembers when the regulators often schedule several extra meetings right up until the last day of the year, CPUC commissioners appeared to accept that they had run out time for the calendar year to deal with pressing issues that were more time-sensitive earlier in the year when energy markets were more volatile.

Among its actions, the CPUC ordered an investigation of the effects of Enron’s Dec. 2 bankruptcy filing on California consumers as customers of different Enron affiliates doing business in the state as energy service providers.

“The commission is initiating this investigation in response to Enron’s sudden financial collapse, in order to be prepared to act or recommend action to ensure that California ratepayers are protected from any potential negative impacts,” the CPUC said in a news release following its business meeting. It noted that it wants to guard against price increases or impacts on the investor-owned utilities, state transmission grid operator, Cal-ISO, or the state power buyer, the Department of Water Resources.

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