CPUC orders a do-over on PG&E–Crown Castle pole dispute decision

19 August 2019 by Steve Blum
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A California Public Utilities Commission decision giving Crown Castle the right to work on Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s utility poles without permission, including attaching cables if PG&E doesn’t respond to requests for permission within a set time limit, was reversed on Thursday. Commissioners voted unanimously to send it back to the administrative law judge (ALJ) that originally heard it.

That doesn’t mean the substance of the decision will change, though.

PG&E based its request for a do-over on procedural grounds, claiming the CPUC didn’t follow its own rules for posting a proposed decision and giving the public – including particularly PG&E – the right to offer comments before a vote. Commissioners agreed…

We find that we did not follow the public review and comment requirement on proposed decisions, set forth in [the California public utilities code] and our Rules of Practice and Procedure. We grant rehearing and refer the proceeding back to the [ALJ] in order to serve a new proposed decision on the parties and provide the required public review and comment period (or issue a ruling, if appropriate, reducing or waiving the comment period). PG&E may raise any relevant remaining legal issues in comments to the proposed decision.

The core of PG&E’s legal objections is that the ALJ’s arbitrated decision ignored decades of past commission decisions and ran contrary to established policy for fairly, and safely, regulating the relationship between electric companies that own utility poles and the telecoms companies that use them.

ALJ Patricia Miles isn’t obligated to make any changes to the decision itself, and there’s no reason to think she will. The likeliest next step is for her to repost it with any minor changes to dates and such that might be needed. Thirty days later, or when ever the next meeting after that is scheduled, commissioners can vote again. In between, PG&E will have a chance to ask for changes.