Should the Commission Exclude Specific Bundled Customers or Electricity Consumption from the Bond Charge?
A central issue to the development of a surcharge to recover bond-related costs is determining who should pay these costs. As noted above, R.02-01-011 is determining whether and how DA and departing load (DL) customers should bear responsibility for bond-related costs. This proceeding, in contrast, will set the methodology for calculating a bond charge that those responsible for bond-related costs should pay. As a consequence, legal and policy arguments concerning whether DA or DL customers should pay bond-related surcharges fall outside the scope of this proceeding. We do address whether certain bundled customers should pay for bond-related costs. In particular, we must determine the responsibility of CARE-eligible customers, residential customer usage below 130% of baseline, and medical baseline customers for the payment of bond charges. Currently, these customers (and associated usage) are exempt from the 3 cents/kWh surcharge the Commission adopted for PG&E and SCE customers21 and
