BEFORE THE PUBLIC
SERVICE COMMISSION
OF THE STATE OF
MISSOURI
In the Matter of
Ameren Missouri’s )
Application for
Authorization to ) File
No. ET-2014-0085
Suspend Payment of
Solar Rebates ) Tariff No. YE-2014-0173
ORDER ADOPTING PROCEDURAL SCHEDULE
Issue Date: October 18, 2013 Effective Date: October 18, 2013
On October 11, 2013, Union Electric Company d/b/a Ameren Missouri filed an Application for Authority to Suspend Payment of Solar Rebates. Because Section 393.1030, RSMo, as amended in 2013 by HB 142, requires the Commission to act on Ameren Missouri’s application within 60 days, Ameren Missouri included a proposed procedural schedule as part of its application. The Commission directed any party wishing to respond to the proposed procedural schedule to do so no later than October 17. Staff and Public Counsel filed timely responses. On October 18, Ameren Missouri filed a response accepting most of the suggestions offered by Staff and Public Counsel.
The Commission will adopt the procedural schedule proposed by Ameren Missouri and modified by Staff and Public Counsel, with two exceptions. First, in its response, Staff recommends the Commission allow the parties an opportunity to present live testimony at the hearing if that is necessary to incorporate responses to data requests received too late to allow for a response in prefiled testimony. Ameren Missouri does not object to allowing live testimony at the hearing if that is necessary, but contends the Commission should address that question only if some party later asserts an actual need for such testimony.
Ameren Missouri is correct. The Commission is willing to allow for live testimony at the hearing if some party establishes the need for such testimony. However, explicitly allowing for that possibility in the procedural schedule does not actually resolve the question of whether such testimony will be allowed. For that reason, such a statement is unnecessary and could create confusion.
Second, Public Counsel is concerned that the procedural schedule proposed by Ameren Missouri does not allow sufficient time after the hearing for the parties to file briefs. For that reason, Public Counsel proposes that the date for filing briefs be extended from Monday, November 18, to Friday, November 22. The Commission will not make that change.
By statute, the Commission must rule on Ameren Missouri’s application within 60 days of the day it was filed. The application was filed on October 11, so the Commission must rule by December 10. However, any Commission order ruling on the application must allow at least 10 days for the parties to request rehearing, as “any shortening of the date on which PSC orders will become effective to less than ten days is presumptively unreasonable”.[1] That means the Commission’s order must be issued no later than December 1, which is a Sunday during the Thanksgiving Day weekend. In order to comply with the 60-day requirement of the statute, while giving its order the required the 10-day effective date, the Commission will have to issue its report and order at its agenda meeting during the week of November 24. That agenda meeting will likely be held on Tuesday, November 26. Thus, Public Counsel’s proposed modification would allow the Commission only one business day to deliberate, write, and issue its report and order. Obviously, such modification is not reasonable and will not be adopted.
THE
COMMISSION ORDERS THAT:
1. The following procedural schedule is established:
Ameren Missouri Direct Testimony - October 11, 2013
Parties allowed 5 calendar days
to answer a data request and 3 calendar
days to object or advise of the need for
additional time to respond beginning - October 11, 2013
Rebuttal Testimony (non-Ameren
Missouri parties) - October 25, 2013
Surrebuttal
and Cross-Surrebuttal
Testimony
- November 1, 2013
Parties allowed 3 calendar days
to answer a data request and 3 calendar
days to object or advise of the need for
additional time to respond beginning - November 1, 2013
Settlement Conference - November 4, 2013
List
of Issues, Order of Witnesses,
Order
of Cross-Examination, Order of
Opening - November 5, 2013
Statements of Position - November 6, 2013
Hearing - November 8, 2013, beginning 8:30 a.m.
Briefs - November 18, 2013
2. The parties shall comply with the following procedural requirements:
(A) Testimony
shall be prefiled as defined in Commission Rule 4 CSR 240‑2.130. All parties must comply with this rule,
including the requirement that testimony be filed on line‑numbered
pages.
(B) The parties shall agree upon and Staff
shall file a list of the issues to be heard, the witnesses to appear on each
day of the hearing, the order in which they will be called, and the order of
cross‑examination for each witness.
The list of issues should be detailed enough to inform the Commission of
each issue that must be resolved. The
Commission will view any issue not contained in this list of issues as
uncontested and not requiring resolution by the Commission.
(C) Each party
shall file a simple and concise statement summarizing its position on each
disputed issue.
(D) All
pleadings, briefs, and amendments shall be filed in accordance with Commission
Rule 4 CSR 240‑2.080. Briefs shall
follow the same list of issues as filed in the case and must set forth and cite
the proper portions of the record concerning the remaining unresolved issues
that are to be decided by the Commission.
(E) All parties
shall bring an adequate number of copies of exhibits they intend to offer into
evidence at the hearing. If an exhibit
has not been prefiled, the party offering it must bring, in addition to the
copy for the court reporter, a copy for each Commissioner, the Presiding Judge,
and all counsel.
(F) All parties
shall provide copies of testimony (including schedules), exhibits, and
pleadings to other counsel by electronic means and in electronic form,
essentially contemporaneously with the filing of such testimony, exhibits, or
pleadings where the information is available in electronic format (.PDF, .DOC,
.WPD, or .XLS). Parties are not
required to put information that does not exist in electronic format into
electronic format for purposes of exchanging it.
(G) If a data
request has been responded to, a copy of such response shall be provided to
another requesting party, unless the responding party objects to providing the
response to such requesting party. All
parties shall submit their responses to Staff data requests in the Commission’s
Electronic Filing Information System. If
a data request has been responded to by Ameren Missouri through Ameren
Missouri’s Caseworks system, Ameren Missouri will provide another requesting
party access to Caseworks for their review.
If a data request has not yet been responded to, a copy of such response
shall be provided to a requesting party within the response time set for such
underlying data request, unless the responding party objects to providing the
response to such requesting party. If a
data request has not yet been responded to by Ameren Missouri, Ameren Missouri
will provide another requesting party access to Caseworks for their review when
the response is provided to the party that issued the underlying data request.
(H) The parties
shall make an effort to not include highly confidential or proprietary
information in data request questions.
If highly confidential or proprietary information must be included in
data request questions, the highly confidential or proprietary information
shall be appropriately designated as such pursuant to Commission Rule 4 CSR
240-2.135.
(I) Each party
serving a data request on another party shall provide an electronic copy of the
text of the “description” of that data request to counsel for all other parties
contemporaneously with service of the data request. Regarding Staff-issued data requests, if the
description contains highly confidential or proprietary information, or is
voluminous, a hyperlink to the EFIS record of that data request shall be
considered a sufficient copy. Data
requests served after 5:00 p.m. shall be considered served on the next calendar
day. If a party desires the response to
a data request that has been served on another party, the party desiring a copy
of the response shall request a copy of the response from the party answering
the data request. Thus, if a party
desires a copy of a response by Ameren Missouri to a Staff-issued data request,
the party must ask Ameren Missouri, not Staff, for a copy of the data request
response unless there are appropriate reasons to direct the discovery to the
party originally requesting the material.
Data requests, objections to data requests, and notifications respecting
the need for additional time to respond to data requests shall be sent by
e-mail to counsel for all parties. Counsel
may designate other personnel to be added to the service list for data requests,
but shall assume responsibility for compliance with any restrictions on
confidentiality. Data request responses
shall be served on counsel for the requesting party and on the requesting
party’s employee or representative who submitted the data request and shall be
served electronically, if feasible and not voluminous as defined by Commission
rule.
(J) Until surrebuttal
testimony is filed on November 1, 2013, the response time for all data requests
shall be five calendar days, with three calendar days to object or notify the
requesting party that more than five calendar days will be needed to provide
the requested information. After November
1, 2013, the response time for data requests shall be three calendar days to
provide the requested information and three calendar days to object or notify
the requesting party that more than three calendar days will be needed to
provide the requested information.
(K) Workpapers
that were prepared in the course of developing a witness’ direct rebuttal,
surrebuttal, or cross-surrebuttal testimony shall not be filed with the Commission,
but, without request, shall be submitted to each party on the same day the
particular testimony is filed.
Workpapers, or a complete set of workpapers, need not be submitted to a
party that has indicated it does not want to receive workpapers, or a complete
set of workpapers. Workpapers containing
highly confidential or proprietary information shall be appropriately
marked. If there are no workpapers
associated with testimony, the party’s attorney shall so notify the other
parties within the time allowed for providing those workpapers.
(L) Where
workpapers or data request responses include models or spreadsheets or similar
information originally in a commonly available format where inputs or
parameters may be changed to observe changes in inputs, if available in that
original format, the party providing the workpaper or response shall provide
this type of information in that original format with formulas intact.
3. The
transcripts of the evidentiary hearing shall be expedited.
4. The hearing shall be held at the
Commission’s office at the
5. This order shall become effective upon issuance.
BY THE COMMISSION
Morris
L. Woodruff
Secretary
Morris L. Woodruff, Chief Regulatory
Law Judge, by delegation of authority
pursuant to Section 386.240, RSMo 2000.
Dated at Jefferson City, Missouri,
on this 18th day of October, 2013.