"It cannot foist these costs on our consumers as 'just and reasonable' while arguing fervently at FERC that they are not."
It's a strong rhetorical point that captures the absurdities of the situation. Financiers were already leery of the first-ever state power bond issue, issuing mediocre ratings and demanding a huge reserve fund, and the PG&E suit casts a new cloud over its viability.
The author sums it up nicely.
Actually, he could have really piled on. The tranmsission line contraint that is suppose to go through Riverside hit a snag at the Cal PUC, if I remember correctly. The California witnesses have testified in the FERC refund hearings that more money is owed to generators than is expected to be refunded to the State in the settlement hearings. I quoted a recent Clearing UP Article on a Cal ISO report that said the ISO was very dependent even in the winter on PNW imports and that PNW hydro could be in doubt.
There are some indications that we may be in an El Nino event this winter. Just as an aside, in most El Nino years the jet stream moves south and the massive amounts of rain that put snow in east of the Cascades Mountain range-to west side of the Rockey Mountains (especially in Canada) gets put into other parts of the US. This causes dramatically reduced hydro in the PNW Columbia & Snake River Basins, but increases in California hydro and in Colorado River water. It could be about to happen again. If it does happen, there won't be much power for California next summer from the PNW.
Did you read their justification for the denial? The 500KV line was not "needed" in 2004, the expected completion date. They went on to say that it would be needed in 2006.
Only in California...