Subject: CALIFORNIA UPDATE-9/20/2001
From: [email-masked]
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Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], legal <[email-masked]>, [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], james.
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 11:22:24 -0700 (PDT)

For questions or comments regarding this report please contact G. Britt Whitman at ex:5-4014 or Kristin Walsh at ex:3-9510.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
?	CPUC Direct Access Vote

CPUC
LINK TO ? LIVE WEBCAST of CPUC MEETING 10:00 am -@:pm Sept. 20th <http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/static/announcements/010920_audioaccess.htm>

The sun may be setting on Californians' right to customer choice as the CPUC debates the fate of direct access today.  We estimate that at this time, the CPUC commissioners will NOT be taking up the DA issue and will instead delay the vote until after the legislature has convened the third special session, called by Gov. Davis last week.  Currently, both Commissioners Brown and Wood appear unwilling to support DA; with President Lynch being a swing vote.    

Concerning the retroactive suspension of direct access agreements of customers who have already elected alternate service providers, the current CPUC position appears to be that direct access contracts signed by September 20th, 2001 will NOT be nullified.  There is rumor that the CPUC may be reviewing several of the contracts signed within the past three to nine months.  Many commercial consumers now operating under DA are highly pessimistic about the CPUC supporting DA agreements that have been signed within the past three months.  The business community is very conscience that the CPUC now bears the difficult task of weighing California businesses' political and economic interests against the economic interests of California's residential power consumers.   

REPORTS TO FOLLOW:
SoCal Bankruptcy Developments
PG&E Emergence from Bankruptcy
Probability of Third Special Session for SoCal Bailout