Fessler, President of the Commission, Concurring:
I concur in the result. Having said this I insist that, from the vantage point of procedural regularity, this Commission vote should never have taken place. The distinction between an inadvertent error in the text of an order and a change of policy announced belatedly is clear and was never colorably implicated in the corrections Commissioner Conlon identified in his Assigned Commissioner's Ruling. The notion that two members of this body who did not assent to the terms of the order being corrected should vote on the state of mind of the majority is, on its face, preposterous. I am grateful that the oral remarks of Commissioner Neeper at our conference recognize this fundamental proposition.
If the issue should have gone no further than a ministerial ruling by the Executive Director or Commissioner Conlon who acted at my request to order the corrections, today's procedure does seem to have served a totally unrelated objective. Literature is replete with tributes to what the poet has called " the longing for the exquisite last word." Apparently our reports are not to be spared as a repository. So be it. Suffice it to say that the majority's views on the issues characterized by Commissioner Knight as grounds for his dissent upon a dissent are safely expressed in our opinion of December 20. A quick reference there will reveal that today, for the second time, the Commission decision has been misread and mischaracterized.
In the meantime the focus of interest has shifted. In the examination of our views in the California Legislature the emphasis has been on the Commission's capacity to deliver a sensible and universally available means for the average ratepayer to gain the benefits of enhanced competition in generation and efficiency in transmission. The majority opinion squarely passes that test. Under the reforms that we now are all pledged to implement, any ratepayer of any class will be able to gain direct access to the wholesale market by the simple expedient to electing to remain a full service customer of a distribution utility which will procure the electric energy in an open, competitive market, identify that cost on the customer's bill and pass it on without an iota of markup to that customer. Customers who desire to become more proactive in controlling their energy costs have multiple options beyond this fundamental position but they begin with the benefits of the reforms and efficiencies. They were owed no less by this Commission. In Commissioner Knight's very lengthy second statement it is disappointing to see no discussion as to how the average ratepayer would have gained these benefits had the views of the minority prevailed. It was precisely because I could not discern the protection of this fundamental objective in their views of market structure that I could not join their opinion.
San Francisco, California
January 10, 1996
/s/ Daniel Wm. Fessler
President of the Commission