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Direct Access ("DA")
R. 19-03-009
June 22, 2021
ALJ issued Revised PD on Direct Access Expansion
To fulfill the Commission’s primary responsibility in ensuring grid reliability, implementing the state’s ambitious GHG and air quality goals, and encouraging the construction of long-term renewable generation resources, the Commission recommends that the Legislature not expand Direct Access at this time. The revised Proposed Decision ("PD") maintains that the high level of uncertainty in California's energy market prevents a Commission finding on all four requirements in Public Utilities Code Section 365.1. Thus, the Commission cannot recommend a schedule to expand Direct Access. In sum, this decision has been modified as necessary to respond to parties legal arguments supporting a recommendation to expand Direct Access.
Decision Fulfills the Requirements of SB 237
- These parties mis-read the statute. SB 237 requires that the Commission “shall provide recommendations to the Legislature on implementing a further direct transactions reopening schedule” and, in this decision, the Commission is providing a recommendation on further direct transactions reopening: do not do so.
- Parties have confused the second ‘shall’ to be a requirement to recommend a phase-in period for expanded Direct Access without considering that the recommendation could be, and is, not to have a phase-in period.
- The Joint DACC Parties, however, fail to mention the remainder of the statute [(Pub. Util. Code Sec. 365.1(f)(2)] requiring the Commission’s recommendation regarding expansion of Direct Access be based on requisite “find[ings].”
Dormant Commerce Clause
- The Joint DACC Parties do not cite to any case law to support a finding that the present case would violate the dormant Commerce Clause.
- A violation of the dormant Commerce Clause requires that at least one of these frameworks be implicated. However, in their comments, the Joint DACC Parties do not identify this analytical framework nor do they indicate which of the three frameworks they believe the Proposed Decision violates.
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Proposed DecisionProposed Decision (Redline)
