CPUC Workshop - 2021-02-04
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California Public Utilities Commission
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 1
Thank you so much, Mr. Schiroman, for outlining, you know, how we plan to focus today's conversation. I mentioned this yesterday morning, and we'll mention it again. You know, we are just scratching the surface on a lot of these issues. There's so much to talk about, and particularly in this day and age with all of the different impacts of feelings.
So we invite you all to submit, you know, feedback and comments on these topics and others that we may not be covering today. I also want to invite, I don't know if we have President Baxter on the line as well as Commissioner Rexhauf in, if you all have anything you'd like to say before we dive into the content.
Speaker 4
Monica, I'm good. Looking forward to the discussion and hearing from everyone. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Great. Alright. So, we will move ahead. So, before we get into the first session, for those of you that were with us yesterday, you have some sense of how to participate in the workshop, but we want to make sure that everyone is up to speed on all the different ways that you can participate and submit your comments and feedback. So I'm going to go through some of that again just to make sure we all have a good sense of that.
So if we could pull up the first slide just by way of a reminder of what we're going be covering today and the purpose of today. The purpose of this workshop, we have about three goals that we're trying to accomplish with the workshop. The first being that we really want to raise awareness and have this plan. This is a plan that has been adopted by the Commission. It has been in place for two years, since 2019, and it exists and it's available as a resource and to be cited in our policy and processes.
So a major goal of ours with this is to really make sure folks know about this plan. Our second goal is to apologies. Could we actually put the slide up on stage that will help me see it and make sure I'm following correctly? A second goal of ours is to really foster a substantive dialogue. Yeah, I would receive feedback regarding ways that we can deepen our work in environmental and social justice.
And the third goal is to collect concrete information and action items that we can actually write into an update to this plan. The plan calls for being updated every two years. We are at that now at 2021, so the feedback that we received today and via email and down the road will be will inform what these action items will be. Next slide. Alright.
So, in order to get as much conversation going as possible in a virtual format, most of the sessions today will be facilitated discussion. So this morning's session on data collection, will hear from some experts a little bit more sharing their perspective, but there will definitely still be time for Q and A and discussion, but your breakout sessions at one and the two p. M. Session will be facilitators framing issues and providing some background, and then asking the audience questions, and from there, we invite you to share your ideas and perspectives on that question. Again, like I mentioned, at one p.
M, we're going to have these breakout sessions. Those are actually not going to be right on this platform. They're going to be in separate Webex meetings. Those links are available on the agenda as well as on our webpage, We will also post them to the chat so folks can click on them and access them from there. We'll post them several times because as new folks join, we'll have to keep posting that, but we will make those available in the chat.
And then closed captioning is available both on our webcast on Admin Monitor, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. We are live streaming Facebook and Twitter. It's one of the first times we've been able to do that from a virtual workshop, so closed captioning is also available there. Next slide, please. Perfect.
Thank you. So just to make sure folks know where how to set up your Webex space, there's you want to have both your participants and chat boxes open, and you can see there's two little buttons that you can click to have those come up. If you would like to make a comment at some point during the workshop when, you know, when the facilitators say they're open to comments and questions, If you hover near your name, a little hand appears. Just click that hand, and that will show us that you would like to make a comment. You'll be put into a queue to make a comment, and we just ask if you've made your comment and you're done, please click that hand again, and that will lower the hand, and that will help us manage the queue of people.
We also have, in addition to the verbal comment, the chat box available. We have made that chat open, to everybody so that we can just have feed going of ideas and feedback. You can choose how you send chats. You can either send them to all the panelists. That's us presenting at the bottom on the bottom strip here of people.
You can also send to all attendees. All attendees, as you know, will be everybody on this WebEx. So if you're not wanting to make a verbal comment and would prefer to put something in the chat, please feel free to put that in there and send it to all attendees. All feedback, whether it's a verbal comment or a chat comment, will be considered just the same. So please feel free to use either one.
Next slide, please. Alright. So just to reiterate the ways to participate, there's a verbal comment, raise your hand. So what will happen is, you will your name will be called, and you will be unmuted, and you will be able to give your comment, in the in the Webex. Please keep in mind, we may not be able to get to everyone, but we will absolutely do our best to get as many comments and questions into the discussion as possible.
The second way, like we discussed in the previous slide, is to send your comment or question in the chat box to all attendees. We have designated people that are going be trying to leave things from the chat box into the discussion. Again, we may not be able and are likely not able to incorporate everything from the chat in the discussion, but it is all being recorded and considered just the same as verbal comments. A third way in the event that, you know, chat's too much, verbal comment is too much, is to submit comments via email. We are absolutely submitting comments via email.
We have a dedicated inbox for this purpose at esjactionplancpuc. Ca dot gov. Please feel free to email comments at any point, and we will accept them again just the same. If you're watching perhaps on the livestream, on social media or on Admin Monitor and, you know, having a hard time with the WebEx, we can absolutely take your comments via email. So please make use of that as well.
So those are the ways that we're going to be trying to get your feedback today. Next slide. And then a few final notes and reminders. This workshop is being recorded, both sessions that are happening in this WebEx space as well as the breakouts. All of those sessions will be available after the workshop.
We'll be able to post them hopefully by next week, and we will have closed captioning on those recordings so folks will be able to access those, and we will email you once those are available and posted. We will, and again, to reiterate, all comments in the chat will be recorded and considered as well. As far as respecting, you know, everybody in the space and trying to make as much time as possible for people, We'd ask that if you're giving a verbal comment to try to keep your comment to about two minutes, so we can include as many people as possible, and please be mindful that a facilitator may prompt you to wrap up your comment just so we can keep the conversation going. We will have a public comment section at 11:30, and then we can go probably about three minutes, but please just be mindful of we have, you know, 200 people in the room, and, you know, we will try to get as many people in as possible. And then the last thing to keep in mind, no decisions are being made today.
No action is being taken today, and we are not discussing a specific proceeding at any point today. Today is just a public open venue to talk about generally how we can do better on environmental and social justice issues. And so all feedback is, you know, it will not be ex parte communication or anything like that. Next slide. Yep.
Okay. And I think that about covers it. I'm looking in the chat to see if we have any questions, and I'm gonna see if anybody if anybody has any questions about participation. I'm not seeing any hands. Okay.
So with that, and we will keep reminding you how to be able to participate. With that oh, okay. No, I think we're good. With that, I'm going to go ahead and transition over to our first session. So I'm glad to welcome Kathleen Yip back to the virtual stage.
She focuses on equity issues in the energy division here at the PUC, and she'll help us lead a discussion about data collection. So let me turn it over to her, and we'll get started.
Speaker 5
Awesome. Thanks very much, Monica. And everyone, welcome back. Welcome to the data section. As Monica mentioned, I'm Kathleen.
I am going to be the moderator for the session. And with me, we've got Jamario Jackson, the Senior Community Planner with Transform. It's a local nonprofit based out of Oakland. We've also got Ian Fisher, the Supervisor of the Safety Analytics section from the Public Advocates Office. And today we'll be talking about data.
We know that there is importance in both the qualitative and the quantitative data, but today we're just gonna be focusing mainly on the quantitative data. How to collect data, how to be more transparent with data and how to track and evaluate our impact in environmental and social justice ESJ communities with data. The goal of the session is to raise the issues we have around data broadly and have a discussion to develop some potential new action items to put into the ESJ action plan. As Monica mentioned, this morning's session is going to be a little bit different than the others. We're going to spend the first chunk of time sharing some background about the data issues that we see and having that discussion be primarily among the panelists.
But we will leave about fifteen minutes at the end of the session for questions and comments from folks on the line. But please do type your questions and comments into the chat as they come to mind. Julia Schmidt from Commissioner Rexhafton's office will be helping us to monitor the chat and we'll be raising as many as we can at the end of the session. So, as Monica mentioned, we will also be leaving the chat and recording your feedback. So, please do leave us your comments in there.
All right, with that, I'm going to hand it over to Gianmario to tee things up for us.
Speaker 6
Good morning everyone. Good morning commissioners. Thank you CPEC for putting this together and thank you Kathleen for the invitation. My name is Jim Mario Jackson. I work at a non profit called Transform.
As Kathleen mentioned, we are based in Oakland, primarily working on issues regarding environmental justice and transportation, mobility justice as well. What I wanted to talk to you about today was to sort of get the conversation started in regards to data collection and sort of what that means for the CTEHC. So one of the points that I wanted to cover with you all today is recognizing governance. And so for me, what that really boils down to in this particular conversation is understanding that CPUC is the overseer and enforcer across these different industries to ensure that the law is being followed and ethical services being provided. And so, we know that's like the overarching thing that CPUC is responsible for.
And so, along the way, the state legislature has been offering bills to direct and guide the CPUC in that governance. And the CPUC has been passing rules and coming up with different strategies to improve that governance as well. And so that leads us to many different parts of the conversation today where we're trying to recognize the harms and injustices caused to many of the communities served. And so for us, one of the things that I ask myself is like, okay, well, what are the indicators that are able to show those harms so that we can start making a path and a plan forward to rectify and improve some historical wrongdoing and just improve different efficiencies and processes. Government has played a role in some of those harms and so has industry.
And so there's an interesting dynamic here at play where we're trying to solve problems that some were intentionally created and some were unintentionally created. The question is challenging, but I think able to be addressed. Part of what makes it challenging is recognizing that CPUC governs a lot of different entities across variety of sectors. As I prepare for this panel, some of the areas that I saw that the CPUC governs is in regards to energy, telecommunications, water, railroads and even transportation. And so when we think about what could be standardized indicators or baseline indicators, it's kind of different across industries, but I think today we'll be able to come up with some strategies to tackle that.
As I looked for what data sort of already kind of looks like in terms of how the IOUs report to PUC, the investor owned utilities is that there's a lot of data in regards to programs. There's data in regards to services and I think that's really helpful. One of the areas that I'm noticing for improvement is going beyond the what of the data and what that shows us and to also see how is the data collected, how was the service administered, things of that nature. And we'll impact them in the larger conversation today, but I just wanted to mention that. The other thing that I wanted to highlight is that there are also areas that we don't examine data.
And some of these areas require a lot of data stewardship and ethical responsibility among the staff persons, both at CPUC as well as externally. So there's a large responsibility that we play as individuals within this as well. And so I think there could be opportunities to explore what data may look like when we think about the customer service experience, when we think about employee retention at some of these companies and agencies and departments. And so those are areas where we want to learn more about what's happening so that
Speaker 6
ensure services provided to the best ability as possible. And then the other piece that I'll touch on, Kathleen, and turn it back to you is the ideas around transparency. And I think the biggest one of all is just ensuring that the data is not just accessible, but it's easily discoverable, right? So navigating the CPU website to find that data is like step number one for a lot of people. I know for me as I prepared for this, data lived in a bunch of different places on the CPU website.
And so that's like an example of low hanging fruit where we can easily improve where to even grab the data from and what it looks like. But I'm very encouraged by what I saw so far as well as seeing that there's narrative associated to a lot of the numbers that CPEC has already collected. So excited for the conversation, very, very excited and look forward to the discussion.
Speaker 5
Awesome. Thanks very much, Shimaro. And thanks for the framing and kind of pointing out some of things as a party that's not super involved in the PUC. It's helpful to get a little bit of a different perspective when we're so entrenched in our work already. Now I'm going to hand it over to Ian to talk
Speaker 5
how the data collection happens at the PUC and where some of the challenges lie.
Speaker 2
Hi there. Thank you, Kathleen. Yeah, good morning everybody. Good morning commissioners. My name is Ian Fisher.
I'm with the Public Advocates Office in the Safety Section as supervisor for the Safety Analysis Section. For the last fifteen months, just for context, I've been really focused on developing metrics associated with public safety power shut offs and getting down to really fine grained data of understanding who is being shut off, where and what those people are, who those people are and the issues around. With that all that said, for context, I've been in and around the Commission for the last since 2008 either as an analyst, supervisor or as a consultant. Before that I worked for the UK government in the equivalent of social security and EDD developing data and data analytics for public programs. So that's just my background, my context for this.
Now today, just reflecting on what Jamayo has been saying, I just want to talk about very briefly set context for where we are, where we would hope to want to be with our data collection, where we are with our data collection, with the internal issues and things we need to deal with and challenges we need to deal with in the commission, however, the challenges that the utilities have to deal with when we start thinking about data and the use of data at large. Now it might sound a little trivial, but it kind of important. An equity approach to data is a person centered approach to data. I say that because generally speaking in my experience these utilities have a system centered approach to their data. They will tell you everything about their circuits.
They will tell you everything about their pipelines and how much they cost. Getting to the actual interaction that they actually have with the communities that they serve can be more difficult. And so we have to recognize that in some instances the utilities we need to switch the perspective of utilities to effectively achieve any change. We have to switch the perspective of utilities from a system centered approach to a person centered approach. That's kind of the ethos that I'm operating under here.
I just wanted to set that out to start with. With that said, the utilities we have to also appreciate that the commission governs a vast range of utilities from the likes of Lyft who are entirely data centered, entirely denizens of the Internet to your mom and pop water suppliers and water utilities that are very small. Different utilities are going to have be mature in data in different ways. And so we have to deal with them differently. They are they've been around for a different amount of time, some of them for one hundred years, some of them for ten years.
This means their practices, procedures, and approaches are in different states of development. They've got different histories they have to deal with. And so getting data out of them is very much focused on well, what are they collecting? How are they collecting it? And what how does that need to change or how can that change?
So that's the challenges with the utilities. The challenges internally with the commission and this is having been on both in Energy Division and as an advocate are kind of much the same. Do we have issues with as Jomaran said, we have issues with data being all over the place. Generally speaking, it is collected for a specific purpose, for a specific proceeding to answer a specific question and so it gets buried. That's where we're starting.
We have good examples where we're collecting data more broadly to try and effect change. Communications division have got good examples of this with a broadband. Wildfire safety division are developing good examples of this with the data collection approaches they have. They are looking to collect data that answers many questions and to build data for the future. All the divisions, we need to play catch up.
We are very much siloed between each other. And if we are to achieve a good equity in our ESG action plan, we need to be cross cutting. It needs to be cross cutting across divisions, whether they are advisory divisions, people like Energy Division, Communications Division or Advocacy divisions like my own division. So with that all said, those are kind of issues I see and the challenges we have. And then maybe we can unpack the details that we face further down in the conversation.
I'll back up to you Kathleen.
Speaker 5
Great. Thank you, Ian. It's great to have Ian that's been very, very entrenched in the PUC, very involved in data request, data collection efforts, and Jamari who's not as involved in the PUC. So it's great to have the two different perspectives. I did just want to just zoom out just a little bit before we start the conversation to talk about a little bit of the tie, you know, kind of create a line between what Ian and Jamari are saying and the importance of the data.
So, in an ESJ perspective, one of the we need data and part of that is because we cannot fix what we cannot measure, right? So we got to show people, we have to hold ourselves accountable, show evaluation, show people that we've done the thing that we said that we were going to do through the proceedings, the ESJ action plan. And so when we were thinking about prepping for this panel and talking with some folks ahead of time, some of the primary issues that we see related to the data collection is that there is a lack of standardization. So, we can't cross compare among programs. The quality of the data that we're getting varies from proceeding to proceeding, it varies between divisions.
The utilities are submitting things to us in formats that are a little bit cumbersome to work with or being submitted in PDF format, is you have to reverse engineer a little bit. And some utilities are submitting some information by service territory, some people are sending it by zip code. So the formats are a little bit challenging to work with internally and externally. So one of the things that we have identified as a potential issue is that just the overall quality of the data, what the utilities are providing to us and how do we make it public? And how do we, what are the steps that we can take to make it better?
Because it helps us meet our mission to understand the impacts of policies and that policies and programs have in our communities if we can look at the way that proceedings are affecting things. The second thing that comes out of that is data publication. How can we make data public and more transparent? I think Ian mentioned this, it's important to consider the confidentiality and privacy issues here, but how can we navigate those? What are the steps that we can take to navigate those and figure out a system to share data publicly?
And then another point that we wanted to raise was that in the data, if we're trying to create some kind of standard baseline template for the data that we are asking for, what are the indicators that we are missing from an environmental and social justice perspective? What should we be collecting? What other analysis can we be doing? And what data should we be collecting that can apply across proceeding, across commission that is transferable between divisions? So, I will start with that question regarding the quality of the data.
I don't know if Ian, if you want to address that as it relates to some of the work that you have done.
Speaker 2
Sure, if I can. So, as I said before, I've been working on public safety PowerShell data, very high profile at the moment. Over the past fifteen months, really it's been understanding what the utilities are doing to actually understand. Initially for example, they provided us circuit level information. We de energize this circuit or we're proposing to de energize this circuit.
This tells you nothing about the actual people that are impacted. This just tells you about their system. We've worked with utilities to ask develop point locations for individuals, so that we can understand exactly where their people are being energized and their relationships between each other. That's required a fairly demanding process back and forth between us and utilities to understand the business process of the utilities operating. So my general touch points on these is to improve the quality, you need to understand the business process and what points in the business process you need to measure for anything.
And that goes regardless of whether it is public safety power shutoff data or the communications data, whether we're actually dealing with capital and expenditure for broadband. It's about putting where they're actually knowing where they're affecting. So sure, do you want to add anything to that, Jamario?
Speaker 6
Sure. One of the things that I want to mention is that, that's a big question. And so it's like the scale of that becomes important both from the CPE perspective and the ILU perspective where the quality of data can be determined by the questions someone is asking or surveying. It can be determined by someone's comfort level to respond. And sometimes it might not be determined by that customer.
It might just be captured based on their enrollment qualifications into certain programs and services and then the regulator does what they do with it to report back. So there's different areas of responsibility to determine the data collection. I think what helps make it strengthen is that if the scope or the focus of that data collection is narrowed to not just center the person but to also center the objective, Why are we collecting this data and what are we gonna do with it once we have it, right? And that will help guide the folks that have access to that data to take action and to know what action they should be taking. So I think that's the focal point.
So then that way you get to a place where you understand it, you're understanding more of who's impacted, what benefits they're receiving by their participation or engagement in a service or program or an infected region? And then what are the outcomes that we want to reach? And do the data help get us to those outcomes or does the data help further our analysis? But we can find the thread there when we understand who, the benefits and then the outcomes that we want to start to tackle from the data.
Speaker 5
So I guess one of the questions kind of following up on that is for example with this PSPS example. So we're getting from the utilities where the shutoffs are happening. We're getting information about that. We're getting information about what utilities shut those shut that power off. I'm wondering, Jamarios, from a perspective that you have from being outside of the PUC, working with a lot of other entities, what are the indicators that you have seen that other folks are collecting that has been useful and helpful in their analysis of understanding the impact in environmental and social justice communities.
Because the reason
Speaker 5
is because we have, as Ian has mentioned, we're getting data on those connections. We get data on the utility shutoffs. We got information about folks that are involved in or enrolled in low income energy assistance programs. We're getting all these kind of we have all those data points, but I'm wondering if we're trying to aim towards this idea of creating a small set of questions that we ask for everybody, every proceeding, for all utilities, what are the indicators or what are the data points that you think are really important for understanding the impacts?
Speaker 6
Some of the data points I believe come from the environmental justice action plan that you guys have. I was reading through it and one of the, it was either a goal or a principle and I'm looking at my notes. Yeah, it said something along the lines of like ensuring the protections and the benefits for ESJ communities. Great, what does that look like? How do you measure that?
What are the indicators for that? So like that's the starting point, right? So if we know that's like a goal or a characteristic of the plan itself, Now we need to unpack that and determine what that looks like at least in phases for the CPUC to start breaking it into smaller chunks to digest what that is and then how to create a regulatory, either formal or informal response to that. In my work, I have a background in transportation planning and working for elected officials. And so oftentimes when making legislation, even though you might have all the funding necessary for your bill or that your bill is gonna save lives, sometimes it pass.
And so CPUC is in a fortunate position where you can implement certain strategies and rules and guidelines. And so coming from the transportation space and even the advocate in me, what we do, and you might not be able to do this exactly, but like what we do is we ask community directly what are the indicators, right? So if quality of health is an issue, if safety is an issue, we sit with them, we talk with them, and we ask them what that looks like, what that sounds like, what that feels like, and we come up with a plan to understand what the indicator should be, and then we measure that and circle back with community on that. That might look different for CPEC but an area of opportunity, what I found so far and some of my preparation for the conversation today is that some of the IOUs actually contract with CBOs to do enrollment into some of their programs and do engagement. Well, what does that look like at a granular level, right?
What do those contracts look like in terms of the engagement and the relationship building between those CBOs and the ILU? Could there be an opportunity to explore more data gathering insights in partnership with CBOs and then we can raise those issues at the CPUC level? Are there opportunities to have more conversations to collect narrative to ground through some of the data? Those are opportunities as well.
Speaker 5
Thanks, Jamar. One more follow-up question, guess. Can you give any examples? So I hear that talking with the community, asking them what indicators are important to them is very important. But can you give us any examples of any of the regional agencies that you've worked with?
Are there data points that they're collecting that you find that you're like, oh, that's something that the PUC should be collecting as well?
Speaker 6
Yeah, and for me Kathleen, I don't know if that's the best example. I'm gravitating towards a lot of these examples in regards to like PG and E care, low income assistance programs. And oftentimes there's different barriers to entry. And so Transform has been helpful in not necessarily eliminating those barriers but being like a liaison to ensure that enrollment happens or the education and training at the customer level happens. I can't think of any examples off the top of my head at the regional level but I know locally and some of the programs that I'm responsible for, we look at trip data and so there's a lot of things that I'm trying to find out based on the trip data that we've collected so far.
So like we do surveys to folks that we wanna give subsidized or free rides to. And then we also and so when we book those rides, we have different ways to capture that information. And so, we can actually see demographic data about who's taking those trips. We can see information about their trip experience. We can see information about the cost of their trip that we're either taking on or they might have to fill the gap on.
And so, the data points, there's many, but it just depends on your objective. I know I talk to you about that a lot, but it depends on what the objective and the scope is. We can collect data on a lot of different things, probably too many things. And so we've got to figure out what is it that we want to solve for, and if it is, ensuring the protection and the well-being of environmental justice committees, that's a lot. And so that needs to be scaled back and narrowed in to figure out, well, maybe it's that we just wanna ensure that the maximum number of people that qualify for certain programs are actually enrolled in those programs.
And then from that standpoint, you can say, okay, well we know the metrics is obviously gonna be enrollment as a strong indicator, but maybe the quality of enrollment or where people enroll becomes more important as well. And so you can use other things to describe what your indicators and metrics could be.
Speaker 2
Yes, sure. So I mean, I think it's great that we put the kind of protection of the SJ communities at the center of this. That's a good way to frame it. But I think there's also I think we've got to take a step back. There's also a debate to be had about what the utilities should collect, what they have a right to collect versus the data you need to ensure that you're marketing these things effectively and the data you need to get feedback and understand how the communities are receiving these receiving a particular program.
And I don't know where that line lies. I think that is what's open for debate. So, we can understand the business processes. We can understand how the utilities are rolling programs out or how they're actually impacting their communities or how they're actually impacting their own staff. And that will come from the utilities directly and they kind of have a vested interest in that data.
But how you ground truth that with the community, that has to be out from my perspective that has to be outside of the utility otherwise you're not going to get the cross validation that you need to understand whether it's effective or not. And so, I'm just going to be attention there. And I said that's quality debate. I don't know where that sits.
Speaker 5
Totally. That's a very good point. I heard that there's some good questions in the chat. Don't know if, Yuli, if I can prompt you to bring up a few.
Speaker 4
We had one question from Will Abrams. He asked, How will the data collected from the public be leveraged as a counterbalance to those views expressed by the utilities, their investors, and other special interest stakeholders that have greater resources to affect the outcome of proceedings. All of the data collected by the CPC address the economic disparity between the resources applied by privately funded interests and those from the public to ensure public interests have a greater voice through commission decisions.
Speaker 2
Sure. Okay. Back to honestly, to the basics. First, we have to identify what the utilities are doing and know what the utilities are doing and measure it. So the data to understand it for small groups of customers like medically sensitive customers, you have to know where they are.
You have the utility has to identify that to you and then you can provide that to the commissioners for them to make their decision and to undertake that leverage as necessary. My argument would be, we need the granular fine grained data. We need to know the what, the where and the when. We're not there yet at a sufficiently fine detail to be able to work with groups like the medically sensitive customers. Not only that, there are biases in the data that we are aware of that we need to fill in and patch.
So it's about building this framework before we can work out how we're going to leverage it. And that's going to be about how we get data analytics at appropriate level of detail to be able to demonstrate where their impacts are. Again, that would have to be cross validated with information coming in from other advocates for specific groups.
Speaker 5
I would also add to that one of the things that we're trying to do through this exercise is trying to figure out how we can, as Ian mentioned earlier, and as Jamarro had mentioned, is that how do we put data that protects privacy of individuals? That does all the confidentiality things. How do we put that data in some kind of a very accessible portal on our website so that advocates like Jamario, stakeholders broadly are able to access that and then do some kind of analysis because we have a lot of access to data, we're able to ask for a lot of data, and then the stakeholders are able to do a lot of the analytical piece of it as well. So, I think that there's not one standard way that we're just going to bring in data from the outside, public and private entities. But if we can provide a venue to just be more transparent and open with that data, so folks can take it and say, okay, we're going use it to create our own version of CalEnvirus free and do all the things that advocates are great at doing.
That's another goal of this exercise. Jamari, did you have a comment or a response to that as well?
Speaker 6
Yeah, because it's kind of related to a project that I was working on. Data is very fascinating and I'm learning a lot about it as I go. But one of the opportunities in regards to what you just mentioned, Kathleen, is that if the data is collected in a way where you could import it into something else, even if you're just like importing it into Excel or you're importing it into GIS, that also creates opportunities to explore the different implications of data and predict potentially outcomes to see patterns. It would be really interesting to look at some of the power shutoffs on top of like an analysis or a layer of red lining and see if there's a correlation there. And so maybe those are opportunities for advocates to step in and experiment with the data.
Maybe the CPUC make us more aware of accessing the data or create opportunities for us to leverage the data in our own work. Oftentimes, and I said this in my earlier remarks, even when we have the data as advocates, sometimes we're not heard. Even when we have the data as advocates, our issues are not number one to certain lawmakers or decision makers. And so it's important for us as advocates to recognize like data is extremely important to us, but we also find the strength in marrying that with the ground truth relationship with community and with certain entities and individuals. Because even when our issues are the most pressing and they're gonna save lives, sometimes we don't get the policy outcomes that we want.
Sometimes we don't get the outcomes in general that we want. And so for us as advocates, it's like, okay, we need the data to help tell the story even if it's just like facts and figures and percentages. That is just like a baseline thing that we need and that we use as common practice. But it's important to have the data and to have the storytelling behind it as well. So I'll stop there.
Speaker 5
Thanks, Giorgio. Maybe we can open, Joe, if we can open some of the call in lines if possible.
Speaker 2
Kathleen, can I just answer one of the questions that's come up in the chat specifically to do with from Pat Piris? So I think this is quite important. None of us have actually mentioned confidentiality and privacy yet of either utility data or private data, of customer data, of citizens data. And I think it's just important to mention that we recognize that and part of the reason that the Commission has been historically careful in treading into very fine grained data is because of privacy issues. The commission has and certainly in my career experience, we've generally avoided collecting data other than at aggregate levels so that we don't get into the situation where we are potentially revealing something that should not be revealed about a person.
What we would need to do, what is to kind of address this is have a commission wide framework on how we deal with privacy and put that in place across the commission so that we can actually start looking at fine grained data. We need to be aware of that because it's where we are is we've always shied away from it. We can go towards it, but we need to do it very carefully and very consciously. I just wanted to answer that question because I think it's extremely important.
Speaker 5
That's a very good point. Thank you for raising that, Ian. I did just want to raise one point that came up in the chat. If you are on the Spanish line, please press 1 if you want to make a comment and we will get you on the line. Then for WebEx people, you can raise your hand or you can press 3 if you are not on the WebEx portal and only on the phone.
All right, so maybe let's switch over to one of the Colin, I think we got Will Abrams, your hand is up. Can we unmute Will's line?
Speaker 9
Great, thank you very much. I just wanted to sort of clarify question I put in the chat. I think there have been a lot of great conversations and I want to pick up on something that Gimario stated, which is really we the commission has the ability to collect data in lots of different ways. And I think it's very important that we're defining our goals and objectives to why we're collecting the data. And certainly, an objective or a goal that says we're going to collect data for social environmental and environmental justice is too broad.
But getting down to what are going to be the actionable goals and objectives. And so part of the reason why I stated my question as I did in terms of the economic disparity is, if we have that as sort of front and center in our minds that we are addressing inequality in terms of those economic resources, then we may define the data collection very differently. So as an example, we all know that part of the dynamics within every proceeding is that we have lots of private interests with lots of resources and lots of legal might affecting change. And then we also have public interest groups that have far less resources and individuals who have even far less resources trying to engage. So if through this initiative, we can try to say that that inequality in terms of access, that inequality in terms of voice and to affect change within a proceeding is sort of front and center in how we're collecting data, so that we're measuring the right things at different points in time that the public engage so that ALJ or a commissioner has that information to be able to weigh things more equitably, that might be sort of a strong measurable goal in how the commission moves forward.
And I just sort of wanted to get a sense of sort of that level of sort of goal and objective, and how you might proceed? Thank you.
Speaker 9
Sorry. The question is really is that, is how are you framing the goal and objective? So again, agree with your point Arthur that it matters in terms of how the data is collected and diving into the data. But before we get there, right, so part of the way you described it was sort of a person centered approach versus sort of a system centered approach. And part of just even that in and of itself, right, creates this dynamic where a systems approach has a lot more resources that are tied to it, right?
And so if we're trying to counter if we're trying to have a person centered approach from the public side and then a systems level approach on a utility side, just even that direction may create additional imbalance. And so how are we defining I guess the simple question is, is the commission defining as a goal of this initiative to address economic disparity amongst the folks who are affecting commission decisions? Is objective part of what you're trying to address?
Speaker 5
Maybe I'll start. I would say yes, it is. I mean, I think that part of what we are trying to get from this workshop and trying to some of the feedback that we're trying to get actually in this plan is trying to understand what we should, cause we have a set of data that we are already collecting and what are the things that actually we should be broadening out our net to capture. So, it sounds from you, Will, as well as Jumeirio and Vereen that we should be extending that to look at the economic impacts, look at the disparities and factor that into our data collection. And then as a result, have that effect, have that factor in and play a role in our proceedings.
Speaker 6
I think you raise a good point, sir. The economic impact is an interesting one because it's like part of what some of these IOUs are offering is in response to that a little bit by creating like a low income option, but not ever addressing the economic disparity of that or the root cause of those disparities. And so it creates this interesting dynamic where like we're perpetuating certain systems of poverty and everyone's qualifications into these programs look slightly different. But I hear what you're saying and I hear what you're saying in terms of how it could be framed. I agree with a majority of what you've said and I wonder if the goal really is economic disparity.
I think that's a lot to bite off and chew. I think some of the different approaches that CPUC is already doing are right. In terms of censoring people, my takeaway from Ian's remarks is that at the end of the day CPUC is essentially governed by the people. Like they govern these IOUs, but it's also governed by the people. And so they have the public's interests at heart.
And so that's their utmost responsibility that they're trying to pay attention to. And so in a lot of the work that I do, we also try to infuse a people centered approach to understand who these changes are for, what impacts are gonna be happening towards a certain population. So it's important to recognize who's impacted, who's benefited, what the trade offs people might be making to even participate or make ends meet. And so centering people and their needs is particularly important in a lot of the work that I do. And I see that being necessary in these conversations and I see it being reflected in these conversations.
And so the inequality of access, some of these things that you brought up are within the responsibility of CPUC and then some of it isn't entirely within the control of CPUC. And so it may take legislation to then enact or reach certain objectives. It might take certain rulemaking to enact or reach certain objectives, but there might be a lot of low hanging fruit that the CPUC can help ensure happen so that the public's needs are met and their benefits are guaranteed and the protections are made.
Speaker 2
I've got a somewhat simpler thought as far as when talking about system versus person centered approaches. I am literally talking about whether you collect data on people or collect data on circuits, not the policy objectives per se. The policy objectives, whatever you are, whatever group you represent, are going to be very different. And your questions and the way you frame it and your observations and the scope is going to be very different regardless of what group you are and who you represent. What we've got to recognize is a couple of things.
All data is retrospective. It's what the utilities have done. It's not what they're doing. It's not what we want them to do. So we need to recognize that you're building a history of what understanding what they have done and how that interacts with people.
And so it's about from my perspective, it's how do you do that and what framework do you put in place to do that so that you can inform the policy and change the regulations and change the law to actually achieve equity? So it's a step it's almost a step back and recognise from what you would want to see and what you want to put on the utilities. So just like hey let's just understand what utilities are actually doing and actually done and then you can get to the point that we can see where the gaps are and you can fill those gaps. And obviously all the people representing different groups and different stakeholder groups here have recognized their gaps already and their concerns already. But that's a vast array of gaps and concerns.
What we need to do is reflect what utilities are doing and how we want to change. And so the data is going to inform that and then you get on to what the metrics are going to be and what you need to measure after that. We're not really at the point where we're understanding how the utilities are affecting individuals from the data footprint. You may recognize it qualitatively through social interaction with your groups, but you don't recognize it from the information necessarily you get from utilities. And a lot of data is in aggregate and so you don't get down to that level of fine grained need to understand really understand how this works, how this is the users interacting with people.
Okay.
Speaker 5
Great. I'm going to just pivot a little bit and read one of the comments from the chat from Steve Campbell. He says, Hi, Jamario. You just identified a critically important time and resource saving opportunity. Example, is it possible for the three IOU datasets to be standardized down to the column row?
The Disconnections data is a good example of this. Each IOU reports the same data, but the organization of the data across multiple tabs is very different in some different cells. This creates a huge time investment to clean and synthesize into usable information. I just want to raise that because I think that that is part of the thing that we're trying to uplift a little bit in this session is that the next steps that we are trying to take for evaluating the impacts of ESJ communities, evaluate our impact on equity broadly, is by creating some kind of standardized template that definitely is, you know, it's not going to suit every purpose, but how can we standardize data that comes into us so that it's easier for CPUC staff, stakeholders, external parties to analyze. So this example that Steve Campbell brought up and that Jamario had also mentioned, if we can get those connections data, if we can say, okay, send it to us by service territory, please send it to us by census tract, please include these five things in it so that it's easier to process, then with time perhaps, we can upload it into some kind of public portal once it's been made sure that
Speaker 5
doesn't have any customer confidentiality issues or anything. Then part of the idea is that we're saving some time and then we're providing more of a resource to folks. But Jamari, I'm sorry, was directed towards you.
Speaker 6
No, this is good. But can somebody tell me what the three IU datasets are?
Speaker 6
Okay. I'll try to respond. Yeah. Great question, Steve. Thanks for asking.
I don't know. I'm not going to pretend to know. But in terms of standardizing, you mentioned the rows and the columns and you gave the example of the disconnection data. I believe that's the shutoff information Kathleen. Okay.
That's relevant. One strategy to start up because you might want to do like a pilot to figure out if you've collected the right standardized datasets. And so one one approach could be that you can look at historically marginalized areas. For example, I live in in one of those areas. I live in East Oakland.
And so you might wanna do like a pilot to determine, okay, do shutoffs look like in this area? What does service look like in this area? What's the economic impact in this area? What are pathways for upward mobility for people living in this area? And you might be able to come up with like a unique data set standards for the neighborhood of East Oakland.
And then that might be served as a model for you to scale that out for all same city of Oakland and then scale that out even further and eventually reach a statewide standardization. And so that could be an approach. I know in a lot of different historically marginalized areas like East Oakland, our quality of service for a variety of different things are in constant repair and always need upgrades and fixes. And so whether that is our power and gas or it's our sewage or our water quality, those are common things that we need in low income and historically marginalized areas. So that approach to maybe pilot certain things in a smaller geographic area could lead towards what a standardized statewide data set collection could look like for the three IOUs.
In some of my observations as I prepared for this presentation, the energy IOUs are slightly different. As Ian mentioned, they haven't all been around for the same amount of years. They operate a little bit differently. They have similar programs and services, but it looks different. And so there could be some lessons learned in having conversations directly with the IOUs just to understand what they go through to collect data and then report that back.
And so putting all that together, you can have those conversations and pilot something to reach a standardized data set, a strategy.
Speaker 2
Oh, yes, please. So Steve, this is already happening. A good example of getting a standardized template to the utility to the three major use in fact to seven energy utilities, all seven electrical energy utilities is actually what Wildfire Safety Division has done. They've set out standard GIS data templates, so geographic information system data templates, down to the rows and the data type and everything. And that's gone out universally to every electrical utility for them to fill in the data that they need.
And that is at the level literally at the level of utility assets, a level of the utility pole, utility line, the substation, the transformer, but it's also at the level of the delivery points where they deliver the data to the individual or where the other utility assets like the utility, your meter, your electrical meter is. And so you actually have those pin locations that people like the WSD are collecting at the moment. So that's coming in and being ingested by WSD, by Wildlife Safety Division, and they're developing products that can go out to the public and to stakeholders. They're in progress, that's in progress at the moment. The big issues they face obviously are the quality of data, the quality of the data that's coming in and that's the big fight.
And also then we get into the privacy issues about what you can actually because we can receive data, we can receive everything from utility. Whatever we ask for we have the right to as the commission. But actually disseminating it we have to be very careful because of privacy issues. So we have to have established standards by which we're publishing and whether it's to the census block level or to the zip code level or to the county level, whatever it is, we would be very reticent about putting it back at individual locations. We wouldn't do that simply because that's how you identify people and people's privacy is sacrosanct.
So we are already doing that in places. What I would like to see and I've done that with public safety power should update. What I would like to see is more of that across all divisions and a standardized approach across all divisions. So that's recording what utilities have done and who they've done it to and when they've done it. So you have where, you have when, you have what.
At the level of individual events, so when they shut the power off, you know they've shut the power off, you have a date, time stamp, you have the location that was shut off And then you can use that to aggregate up to assess different groups and different communities and the effect on those different groups in different communities. And that's already been done with respect to safety by the Wabash Safety Division. Okay.
Speaker 5
Great. Thanks, Ian. I did just want to clarify one aspect of this. We were talking a lot about creating some kind of template, some kind of framework for collecting data, for receiving data, but we are not saying that it is replacing community engagement, community input. This point that Jamar is making about having some kind of pilot to test whether or not these questions work is just testing out whether or not we can standardize a smaller subset of questions to put into the data gathering, into the data request, basically.
And so, know, that's just a starting point, but we're definitely not saying that it's replacing the individual components, individual aspects of every community that we're in. So, I just wanted to clarify that, that we're not saying, okay, these are the five questions that we're asking for everything. We're definitely saying that this is just like, this is just a starting point. These are some questions that we can be asking, that we should be asking, so we can cross compare programs. And then, second part of that, that's a little bit parallel, is asking for data, standardizing the format in which we receive data.
So, asking the IOUs for example, for the PSPS, for the public safety PowerShot off data, for that to come in by census track level, for that to come in by household. Standardize that so that it's easier to work with in an internal staff level as well as an external stakeholder level. So, I just wanted to make that very clear because I we're definitely not I just want to reiterate, we're not saying that this is replacing community engagement, getting community input on what indicators are important.
Speaker 6
If I make that thing, I would agree with you and say that the data should be standardized and maybe regardless of format, whether it's like PDF or Excel, like the standardization should happen. But the other point that I just wanted to like level set a little bit is with privacy. So like we've been talking a lot about implications honestly in like the gas and electric area. But like in thinking about the other areas that CPEC governs, privacy becomes an extraordinarily hard challenge to manage. And so the example that I wanted to share was in regards to transportation.
It's been a sensitive topic for quite some time now where when you want to improve service or understand travel behavior or ridership changes, oftentimes you end up having to get down to the details of where people are being picked up from and where they're getting dropped off at. And that alone is sometimes, oftentimes too much information or it's invasive and it can assume or suggest a person's movement patterns and the liability that's associated with that. So I think in some regard, privacy can definitely have like its protections and you can ensure the public is protected. In other areas, we honestly, as consumers, we release our information to a lot of these companies knowingly and unknowingly when we accept terms and conditions. But for the purposes of this conversation, when thinking about these other fields, we might need to know that data.
But maybe everybody shouldn't see that data at CPUC. Maybe only a certain set of people should see it. Maybe it should only be sent to CPUC once a year or every five years. I don't know, but there's different practices that could be considered in regards to privacy. I think it's larger conversation than today, but I just wanted to level set that there that there's there has to be some form of not just equity within the privacy talk but just the integrity of what's actually considered private and going to be fully held confidential.
Speaker 2
Can I just relate something Beth? So in my previous existence working in The UK, we dealt with a lot of private data, lot of very personal data because I was working with social security. We actually had an ethics committee, an ethics board that would assess data collection. And they would that would be advocates, privacy advocates specifically, that would be assessing whether we should be collecting the data or not. Now it's slightly different because that is social security, social security programs.
Those are government programs run by government entities. This is effectively programs run by private entities. I don't know what the balance is there, but that sort of thing is as you say is much wider than just PUC staff or even I would say the commission themselves. That's because it's an ethical consideration. And I would want to go as diverse as possible in getting some sort of understanding of where different people draw the line, different people draw the line as far as privacy is concerned.
And I don't think that I'm just coming in as a Brit to be honest, I don't think that The U. S. Pays enough attention to that to be honest. And so I would encourage some thoughts about how you involve more people in making those determinations of privacy.
Speaker 5
Great. Thanks, Ian. I know we just have a few minutes left. Just wanted to turn to Claudia. Are there any comments or questions from the Spanish line?
Maybe while we're checking, maybe we can bring in one more question from Martha. She has your hand you have your hand raised.
Speaker 7
Yes. Thank you. Hello. A lot of good points have been made today, but, you know, it comes if we're really talking about inclusivity and we're looking at environmental justice through our lens, some of the some of the things that you're you're stating are not in line with with with what we're looking for as far as equity. You know?
I mean, we're you have to understand, and I know that that there's, like, how do I say there's like a a dissonance between those that are gathering the information and those that are actually living that disparity. And for us to not take in account their anonymity, most people do not want this information to be given out, whether it's something that's already happening or not. We if we're going to step up and say that we're going to we'll look at something different with an with the ESJ approach, then we have to say how and ask really mindfully, how are we going to do this? How are we gonna gather the information? And and use that equity.
Don't don't fall back on the on the premise that everybody else is doing it. So it's not something that we're we're doing alone or we all have to if you're gonna step up,
Speaker 7
punches and the punches come across the board. So what if everyone else is doing things, and they're doing it differently, and it's already being used. The practice is already happening. Where when you say we wanna take something and do take a different approach, then you have to follow that. That is anonymity.
And also, some of the things that the information that you're going to gather has to be relevant to the people that are living these disparities. And there has to be an exchange. There has to be some type of I value you as a consultant because they are consultants. These are people that are living these disparities. Therefore, they should be compensated.
There should be something in the line of, hey, this is important information. We need it. We're gathering it from you. It's not always take. I feel like we take and take and take from people, and we don't give back.
And and and, yes, we get the numbers, we have qualitative or quantitative data, and we're able to make all these influences, understandings. But for a lay person that's living it, come on, you guys. They're they're dealing with the reality of what we're trying to gather, and we have to be cognizant and mindful of their hurts, not by injuring them again, but asking them more information. And then what are you going to do with this information? We have people that are undocumented, that are afraid to even say where they're at, let alone give you information of how they live.
So these are all considerations that we have to take. And an asset map would be a very great way of being able to have this more in a uniform manner that, you know, I have an asset map in Modesto that we created with our community. At any given time, if I hit a dot, you can go ahead and go into it, and it'll pull up information, and it'll give you basic general information that anyone could use. Anyone could use. That's the kind of materials and resources that we're looking for because yes, if I want to look at the CalEnvira screen, why shouldn't I be able to look at CalEnvira screen about socioeconomic issues that are happening in in my my state?
I should be able to see that there are along with a pollution, there are there there were a 100 and something families that didn't have electricity for approximately forty five minutes that affected these following areas. There were people that were handicapped that weren't able to have their breeding machines on. There were people that had children in school that didn't have a connection with X resources. There was water shut off, and families didn't have drinking water, potable water. Those are viable information that we need, that everyone needs.
But I don't see why we have to make break make so much out of something so simple. And if we're looking at it with equity, let's do that. Use that equity, that lens. Thank you.
Speaker 6
Sure. Thank you, Martha. I appreciate that. Thank you for sharing and being honest like that. I 100% agree.
I have family members, even myself, I've lived the disparity. I actively lived the disparity. So I hear you loud and clear. You mentioned that the data isn't just about a lot of the numbers that we've sort of been discussing so far, it's also about the experience and what the person is going through. Know in a lot of my work we encounter in giving out surveys, we encounter folks that don't wanna talk to us.
We encounter folks that don't wanna share certain things with us. Oftentimes we have benefits and information we wanna give to them and we sometimes just have to give it to them in the most free and very direct way instead of always attaching an extractionary thing to it. It's a common practice of different government offices to have to sign you up for something and you have to give your name and your address and all this stuff about yourself, and then you get the gift card and then you get the enrollment or the resource. And so there's different practices that I know are just baseline and standard for me, but I thank you for raising that for everyone listening in. It might be new information to them.
So I appreciate you making that very clear. I know in the opening remarks that I gave, I'd mentioned, I don't know if you heard, but I'd mentioned how state legislation and CPUC regulations have finally reached a point where they're trying to pay more attention to injustices and harm costs to communities. And I think what you raised is in line with that, specifically when you mentioned the part about understanding who was impacted and then what we're gonna do once we know that information, right? Too often communities of color and immigrant communities don't have trusting relationships with government or with folks that want things from them. And so we have to understand that there's a power dynamic at play.
There are politics at play. And so we need to honor who people are and not just extract from them, but give them far more than what we could ever try to take from them to ensure and going back to my opening remarks that the services provided and that the constituents and their benefits are protected and made whole, that they're the main focal point of all of this and that the effort is done to improve their lives, but to also actually do it, right? And we need data to measure that but to make sure that we actually do it and keep our word because historically government and even private industry sometimes have not kept their word and it's been to the historical harm that we're still enduring today that's caused by that.
Speaker 5
Thanks, Jomaro. All right, Ian, thirty second response. Otherwise, let's move to Yuuya for some.
Speaker 2
I really don't have a response to that. I agree 100%. I just echo back to what I said. I think it's a much larger problem than just the commission or the utilities as you've stated to deal with people's privacy. It's an ethical issue, fundamentally an ethical issue.
And how you get to that ethics the ethics of it and who should be responsible for the ethics and determining how the data is used, I have no opinion. That's part of what we should be here to kind of discuss and structure.
Speaker 5
Thanks very much, Ian. All right. We got to cut it off now. Yuliya, you want give us a little summary?
Speaker 4
Absolutely. Thanks again, everyone, for very active participation today. I just wanted to highlight a couple of themes that came up, not to repeat everything that's been said, but I think Kathleen started us up really well on something we can really agree, which is that we cannot fix what we cannot measure. And I heard a lot of not just agreement, but strong points about how that data is gathered because it is understood how important it is to address the needs of the ESJ communities. So one major thing we discussed today was the accessibility of the data to the public CBOs and advocates, and that has a lot of elements.
The first being the standardization data that we had a lot of chat comments and verbal comments about. Public and organizations need data that they can download or take in that's understandable and organized so they can be used for the purposes of advocacy. As Kathleen pointed out, ideally, any stakeholder could build their own CalEnviral screen based on the factors that are important to their advocacy. This, of course, though, also relates to another thing that we discussed at length, and that is privacy. So how we can ensure that customer data are not revealed inappropriately, but are still gathered at the granularity that is needed.
And we had a few ideas, including potentially developing a mission wide framework on privacy and how we treat confidential data or customer level data. That leads us into the other major thing we discussed, which
Speaker 4
that the levels or organizational patterns with which the utilities currently collect data may actually be entirely inappropriate to the purposes of the ESG action plan. Circuit level data or systems level data are absolutely useful in other contexts, but here, as Ian pointed out, we need person or communities level data. And we heard a lot of supporting comments about that in the chat, especially with collecting and then ground trucing data with the communities themselves. So one interesting idea, for example, proposed by Jamario was to look at marginalized communities and gather all the relevant data that pertains to ESG issues within that community context. So if you look at a place like East Oakland, collect disconnections, disrepair, and other data to understand the sort of lived experience of the people in that community and how it relates to utility service.
Oh, well, and I think that's actually all I have. I think those are some really big important themes that we can think about. And thanks again everyone for participating. We'll keep a record of the chat because it does not do justice to all the many good comments that have come in.
Speaker 5
Awesome. Thanks very much, Julia. And I just want to give extra thanks to Jamario and Ian for joining today. That was a great conversation, and I'll hand it back to Monica. We're two minutes early.
Speaker 1
Thank you so much, and thank you for that rich discussion. Yes, to Kathleen, Ian, Jamario. And yes, excellent ideas coming up in the chat. One thing I just am reflecting on from the session is something Kathleen and I talk about lot in some of the work that we've done together is how do we marry quantitative data and the need to really have objective analysis with ground truth and qualitative narrative lived experience. I think that is the key for us in furthering some of our environmental and social justice principles.
How do we marry the two and how do we ensure that it reflects people's lived experiences? So that's just a reflection I'm carrying with me from that session. Okay, so we are right at 11:30, and we are moving into a session now of general open public comments. We wanted to leave some time for comments that come up just generally about the environmental and social justice action plan. Books are free to kind of address a variety of things that they would like, and I'm going to turn it over to our public advisor, Allison Brown, who will help host us for this session.
Thank you, Allison.
Speaker 10
Sure, thanks. Happy to be here. So as Monica said, this is really an opportunity for people to make comments in general that wasn't specific to one of the other sessions. So, we would like to please ask you to keep your comments to under three minutes so we can have an opportunity for everyone to be heard. And as has been said also, there are many ways to participate if you're not prepared to make a comment right now, you can put it in the chat and we'll be able to get to it later.
And you can send it to the ESJ email that I believe we'll put in the chat again. So, you if would like to make a comment, please raise your hand and I will try to get to all of you. We do have to stop at 12:00. So we'll get through as many as we can. And if you're on the Spanish line, and you would like to make a comment, I was going to try to do this in Spanish, but nobody wants to hear that.
Please press 1 and you will be able to make a comment there. So thank you very much. Our first comment is from Richard Scaff. Joe, can you, unmute his line? Okay, I'm not sure.
You I think we heard you for a second, Richard. Heard something for a second. Maybe try one more time to make sure you're unmuted on your end. Mr. Scaff.
Okay. Can we confirm with our IT folks that Mr. Scapp is unmuted?
Speaker 10
Okay, perfect. And this is one more check to make sure, see if you can unmute on your hand, on your side. Okay. I see you put something in chat saying the same problem yesterday. We'll give it a minute and see.
Speaker 10
Yes, also if anyone wants to type in a question to chat or a comment, I can read those aloud. Everyone will be able to hear them. And we do only have the one hand up for now. If anyone else would like to comment. We do have a comment from Martha Artis Kelly.
We can go ahead with her comment while we're seeing if we can How about Richard? Thanks.
Speaker 7
Well, I just really have enjoyed thoroughly enjoyed these last two days. It's been very eye opening in so many different ways. I love you all for your efforts because it takes a lot to step out here and be so vulnerable. You know? I know that we sometimes tend to you know, we want help, but then when we get it, we're we don't know how to receive it or how to approach it as well.
Know? And and I and I say that lightly, but I I think that in understanding all the things that that have that have been
Speaker 7
I would be remiss if not for this, you don't consider contacting the people that were that participated in in this session and create a table or group that could help with the process as you go further. Don't let this be something that, you know, you invite us and then it goes and it gets piled away nicely and neatly. I I would love to see some further expansion on on the notion of including environmental justice issues and not and not just at a onetime approach. But, I mean, really, really having rich, meaningful connections with some of these folks here. A lot of the people that we're on, I know some of us don't step up.
I'm very vocal, but I kinda like to wanna speak for those that don't. And I think that if there was a opportunity to maybe engage on a regular basis or quarterly basis just so that we can see that some type of development from some of these things that we pointed out, that would be a great opportunity for us to to have those discussions with more meaning. And and and that would show the community as well that there is some true intention to make some of these goals come to fruition. So that's my Great,
Speaker 10
thank you. We do have a few more hands raised, but Mr. Scapsible will type a comment and so I will read that now. You stated, I filed the Public Records Act request some time ago, which was finally responded to, but didn't answer my questions. I asked for the specific number of vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities have received SJIP funds for residential batteries.
I received an Excel spreadsheet with two pie charts that didn't have the requested details. And the follow-up to that, it looks like I'm not presently required, but the CPUC now require that the electric utilities they oversee must all have a medical baseline program. Okay. And, we also have a hand up from Sarah Salem.
Speaker 7
Yeah. Hi, thank you. I have a question for the CPUC. One of the things that I'm most interested in understanding as someone who helps administer one of the CPUC programs, the SOMA program, we often come up against the idea of a complicated program that has a lot of barriers to entry. And some of those barriers are made out of the need to make sure the program is equitable, and some of them are based out of the need to respond to stakeholder needs and wants.
And one of the disparities I see is that stakeholders with a lot of political and financial incapacity are able to be the ones that drive things faster than perhaps, other groups that don't have the same capacity. And I wonder, if we were to make a program such as SOMA have less barriers, inevitably we would also reduce the ability to make sure it's equitable. And I think that's something that comes up all the time when we're thinking about these programs is sometimes it takes that regulation and enforcement and oversight to ensure that programs are equitable, but what it ends up doing is for other stakeholders, it makes them feel less inclined to want to engage. So how does the CPUC consider that in, this rollout and overall for all programs that
Speaker 1
Hi, this is Monica. I'm just going to chime in here really quick, and I apologize. We should have been more clear in public comment section. So this section is meant to be just general comments and perspectives. Unfortunately, we're not able to answer questions at this time, but we're wanting to, you know, general public comments.
As questions are coming up, please know that we are noting them, and we can follow-up offline, but this session is meant for open comments, perspectives, and things that we should be looking at for the plan. So my apologies. We should have been more clear about that at the onset, but we are recording everything, so it will also be noted. Thank you.
Speaker 10
Thank you, Monica. Yes, I should have stated that before. We also have Catherine Woodford has your hand up.
Speaker 3
Great. I work for the Center for Accessible Technology and we participate in a lot of proceedings at the commission. And I love this forum and I really like the things that people are talking about today. And I want to really kind of emphasize the need for street level question and asking for lack of a technical term or the qualitative because we can find out, you know, how long their power was out of their water or did they have Internet or these things. But in in my experience working for the C4AT, the amazing stories of what really those dysfunctions caused people.
And I think that we don't they're hard to collect, to be honest. I mean, Jamario hit it right in the head. People don't trust. But even the few responses you do get are very impactful. So I want to make sure that that sort of stays in people's purview.
Thanks.
Speaker 10
Thank you. We also have a comment from Vanna Bodine. May still be muted. Can we on our side, looks like.
Speaker 10
Oh, wait. We just Oh, I think we were just able to hear her for a second. She may be able to go ahead.
Speaker 13
Oh, thank you so much. Yes, I'm from actually originated in Stockton where larger home for the foundation populations. And I feel that this is very important that we receive small grants to kind of do this initiative framework in the Asian community. I think it's important that we get into the communities that are very less known about and we left about the programs of environmental determinants nature. And we are in a community of shy and shame people.
And we don't ask for the thing that you need us and we don't ask for the thing that we need to know. So we went unrecognized and underserved for years. And I think this program, it would be great to be able to continue this kind of framework into this community where you can raise education and put awareness in the community. I think this work is important. And I would like to see this continue a lot of things and reaching out to the underserved communities.
Speaker 14
Oh, wonderful. Thank you. Anna Filario Chalk, Community Housing Opportunities Corporation, part of the Energy Efficiency Council. I just want to bring up something that the idea about who's doing the data collecting and who's doing the analysis. So many you know, the IOUs have a bless our hearts, have a business to run and have a perspective and an institutional culture.
The CPC also, to their credit, issues many studies that go out to consultants to look at issues that are pressing to them. So my comment is about my experience over the last twelve years on some of these studies related to low income and energy. They go through they consistently go through maybe five or six consultants, even though it's an open bid. They tend to be out of state. They tend to be very small.
They tend to be not tied to the communities they're studying, low end communities. And I just want to bring up that issue to be thoughtful about what that means and what the opportunities for the future are. I mean, I think there's more work to be done on behalf of the CDC to look at who they are spending their consultant dollars are, who are they looking at to do studies. I think there should be a really direct tie to the low and good communities in California. Just an example, when you have someone from New Jersey doing a study in California that doesn't understand the housing or the cost or some of their history or that we went through a seven year drought, when they do an analysis of where to go, they have very little historical perspective and very little connection to some of the community based organizations or organizations on the ground doing work to work.
So I think it's just something thoughtful to think about going forward about who actually does the studies, who is engaged in the communities, because I think there's a direct line on the kind of results and analysis that you come up with. And I think it better serves our communities when you have that active connection and relationship. Thank you.
Speaker 10
And thank you for your comment. Our next hand up is from Sennat Forthal. I apologize if I'm mispronouncing that.
Speaker 15
Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Great. Thank you. This has been a wonderful program and thank you for having this open discussion with the public and I guess agencies and other interest groups.
I was attending on and off for the last couple of days and learned a lot. I am the founder and executive director of Osigo Solar. We're a community based organization in Orange County, California. I would like to make a couple of points based on that we know that California has an ambitious goal for clean energy and to have a clean grid and all that stuff. There are some wonderful programs managed out there like the access programs for solar.
But we're working on the ground, and we're just finding a whole lot of problems about community outreach and education. We feel like the community is not involved in this transition. The state it seems like the information is coming from the top down, even though we believe it should be going from the bottom up. I think we need some grassroots efforts in educating not only the EJ community, but just the whole community in general about technology and how it's going to help us accelerate this transition and achieving the climate goal that we have. Like, for example, with this program, with DAXAS program that we will be involved with community members and explain all those things, but then these people who qualify to get free solar panels end up about 7080% of them that qualified for income and pollution issues disqualify because they have a roof that's not in good shape.
It's just such a huge major policy gap, and we're finding that these roof repairs cost only about, on average, like $2,000 and then the solar is worth about $12,000 And the state is funding the program, but there is no other funding to deal. If we are funding and trying to help the customers have a safe and efficient building, there's a weatherization program that's doing windows and doors, and then it ends up but it doesn't cover roof. Like you have a leaky roof, but you want a sealed window, and then you have free solar that comes in. So So, it just seems like it's just all over the place. It just seems like at some current guidance and program and fill in the gap between in the policy itself.
And the second thing is, as I said, education is missing, and education is not only missing in these communities and homeowners, but also the community based organizations that are trusted partners in the community that are working have very little understanding of technology. And so they cannot teach their community members if they don't have education. So I think somehow we need to have resources to educate CBOs and community members. That means having funding for community outreach and education. With that, I'll finish my comment.
Thank you.
Speaker 16
Great. This is Pete Wyre. Can you hear me now? Hello? Can you hear me now?
Yes. Okay. Great. Thank you, Allison. Thank you for holding this space.
My name is Pete Pliavity. I'm with the Reclaim Our Power Utility Justice campaign. A couple of quick comments here. One, appreciative of the space and intention, and we found out about this late, just earlier this week, and scrambled to get participation of our that we're a coalition that represents the largest environmental justice groups across the state as well as some labor groups and energy advocates and working with fire survivors, people with disabilities, folks in low income communities and communities of color, undocumented communities. And so the mechanism by which this came about and getting our folks plugged in, would love to be added to that and have the list of who all is involved.
We've seen that in the chat a couple of times, just touching on that. And as I think Martha said, eloquently, is a great community. And I think the CPUC would benefit from our collective integration of this space being a regular space that is relied upon. To that end, again, grateful for a lot of the sentiments expressed by CBUC staff and the experts here from what I've seen. But also want to lift up something that seems to be in environmental justice landscape wanting not just sort of acknowledgement of harm, but what real accountability is.
And so through to that end, I'd love to hear we've heard from the commissioners about this process. We work around PG and E largely and the transformation over the course of the past couple of years is the bankruptcy, what have you, moving from a, we know these folks are terrible at this, we know these folks have impacts that are racist, that land more predominantly on people of color, on people of course and what have you, to actually tangibly changing the sentiment, but we need to protect the utility at all costs to how could we actually do this different and put the power into the hands of the communities that we're talking about representing. So the ways that shows up are making the tangible connections from, oh, these data failures that we've heard about this morning or these wildfire failures that we've heard about, the implications of the fire, there was just a court case yesterday where PG was called criminally negligent. Like how do we make those tangible and put in the hands of the folks most impacted the solutions, happens from here. So that means making public and evident the process by which we are moving to hold PG and E accountable and revoke their business license and move to something different.
That means in the microgrids proceeding, not setting up a sort of false narrative of commercializing microgrids, but actually taking it out of the hands of PG and E and creating the funding systems and the public education venues to advance for low income communities, people of color, people with disabilities to step into those spaces and create our own systems that can protect us because it's been proven time and time and again that PG and E is not going to do it. So that's we're relying on this space. We're relying on the CPC to do that. That's what the intention is. So grateful for the sentiment, the tangible the tangibility of the language that's been expressed.
Speaker 10
Thank you for your comments. I believe our next comment is from Abigail Feliz.
Speaker 7
I'm Abigail Feliz with South Health Enterprises San Joaquin Valley. Hopefully you can hear me. Earlier this year, in the governor's proposed budget for 2021 and 2022, the governor highlighted his climate action and environmental justice plan. A few of us were invited to, be on the call that reviewed those plans, and it was pretty obvious that the funds that were set aside for those plans were mainly for a hundred percent zero emission vehicles. When several people on that call asked about energy equity projects, the response from the administration was actually, oh, that's the CPUC's job.
They're doing lots of work in that area. So that led me to this question or something for the CPUC to think about. What type of coordination is the CPUC doing with the governor's administration as well as the CEC? And I ask this because I have long said that the state of California needs some sort of revolving fund where EJ communities can tap into this fund to apply for whatever project makes sense for their community. And this fund or these projects need to include a CBO.
They need to include the actual communities. They need to be able to provide technical assistance. And I don't know that we can do that with any one entity, the CPUC alone or the CDC alone. I think it has to take some coordination. But I just wanted to mention this to ensure that, the CPUC was aware that the the state of California seems to be relying on you all, to be doing this.
So I hope that we can all work together to put some sort of fund revolving fund together that makes money available on a regular basis because we all know that in order to reach our climate goals, those both vulnerable communities are going to be able to tap into these resources on a regular basis to help them transition to clean energy. Thank you.
Speaker 10
Thank you. And we do have some comments that are in chat that I will read right now. And then after that, we do have a few more minutes if anyone else would like to raise their hand. So we have another comment from Richard Scaff, states, if it's not presently required that all electric utilities that overseas provide the number of vulnerable senior or disabled rate payers they serve and how many of those rate payers they serve have received SGIP funds for residential batteries, how will the commission now require that debt? And I should note, if anyone has a specific question, you can send an email to the ESJ email inbox with your contact information and we will try to follow-up on that.
Another comment from Richard Scaff states, when will new funds be added to the SGF residential battery program and how much can we expect to be added to the program? There's a comment from Julia Prochnick that says, please check out the website justinequitable.org for transition examples from other states. Thank you again. Let's see. Sorry, took me a minute to scroll down.
One more comment from Richard Scaff. What is the CPUC presently doing to assure that during CPUC approved electric utility de energization events, cell service utilities like AT and T and Verizon have backup power sources in all of their cell towers affected by electric utility de energization events. One more comment, again from Richard Scaff. So the comments we regularly receive from those affected by the electric utility de energization events continue to indicate that the electric utilities continue to fail to meet the present requirements set by the commission for de energization events. The latest letter from AT and T to the commission about the December in December 2020 once again describes that continuing failure.
And we see those failures with each of the electric utilities overseen by the commission. We are now about to go into the third year of wildfire season with the CPUC approved electric utility de energization program in place. What actions does the CPUC plan to put into place to assure that the electric utilities meet all of the CPUC de energization requirements?
Speaker 10
And one more comment from Mr. Scapp. Apparently the present ADA coordinator has taken a new position with the CPUC. This is a separate question about ADA that we will answer offline. And let me see, do we have any more in the comments.
I saw Walter Park had his hand raised and then removed it. I just wanted to make sure I'm not accidentally skipping over someone. I think I caught I'm just scrolling through to make sure I didn't miss any comments. Alexander McGee said on electricity related engagements, I encourage people to check out the power of power, democratizing California's energy economy to align with environmental justice principles, through community choice aggregation, which lays out how CCAs are natural allies to EJSJ communities. And I do see Walter Park has his hand raised again.
You should be ready to go, Mr. Park.
Speaker 11
Great. I did raise my hand a couple of times and not quite sure what happened there. I am shocked that you have virtually no comment from the disability community today. Just personally, I've gotten a dozen communications from people in the last week as they've heard about this series of meetings. And I think it's indicative of a lack of trust.
I think that there really needs to be you need to take the initiative to create trust between the CPUC and the disability community. I'd like you to think about who is the disability community. First of all, it's very large, but it's also very varied. A person who uses a wheelchair, a person who is blind, a person who has some sort of fatigue syndrome are going to have different needs, except they're all going to need power, they're all going to need telecommunications, and they're all going to need transit. So they all need you in different ways.
Disability is not heritable. It's often not visible. It is not, unfortunately, clumped together in zip codes the way racial or ethnic groups sometimes are or even the way political groups sometimes are. And therefore, it's difficult to find it as a political group. It is not a single political group, even though it has so many common needs.
It correlates very highly with age, of course. People in their 70s are fifty percent disabled, children are 5% disabled, we have a curve in between. It does also correlate with being non white, which tends to group it into certain neighborhoods. And it certainly correlates with poverty. And the fact that disability correlates with poverty shows that disability is very much a result of the way the society treats people, not their inherent characteristics.
Otherwise, there wouldn't be any correlation to poverty. People without good medical care and so on, people in more dangerous jobs, have more disabilities. Particularly right now with COVID, as you know, we have a whole newly respected group of essential workers who are suffering greatly, especially in Southern California. So it's going to be difficult for you to make this connection. That's what I'm trying to say about this community.
But you must do it. The fact that people are not even talking to you today or trying to, except for the irrepressible Richard Scaff, is not representative. And he would be the first to say that. He's just ridiculously persistent. Most people are not.
One characteristic of an awful lot of people with disabilities is lack of mobility. So when you say bring your 60 pound battery to be recharged down to a center, and they have no car and no way of getting around, that doesn't work. But it also means that they're not willing to go through anything that's fatiguing like a meeting like this. I want to say something very briefly, and I know we're just after twelve, but then this is a short session, about our problems. I think the main problem is trust.
The second problem is communication, which is closely related to that. I saw the chart, in fact, I have it on my computer right now that Richard Scaff referred to as a response to public information requests on who has actually received the equity resiliency grants. It's only six lines and it's only two columns. Now you guys have a truckload of data on zip codes, on vendors, on what kind of equipment is installed, and it wasn't made available. This chart was produced by Nora Hawkins on November 25.
And that's not much after asking for months and months for data. You have to be more forthcoming with data. I enjoyed the discussion about data earlier this morning, and I heard the word privacy used a lot. But please be aware, don't use privacy as an excuse to hide data. Sure, I don't want you to know my name, address, all the personal details of my case, But I don't mind you knowing my zip code and my income category, if we break it into say fifths of the population.
Things like that are extremely useful in trying to solve problems. And you have to make that kind of information, first of all, available to yourselves, and then secondly, available to all these advocates who are so earnestly trying to work with you today and yesterday. On the PSPSs, we're not getting warnings. Power has been shut off with no notice, as you know, repeatedly during high winds, during times when there aren't even any fire actually happening. It's just the threat of damage.
There are very slim prepared resources in advance. The resource centers pop up afterwards. They're not open full time. They're too far away. There aren't enough of them.
The battery backups, would be the best preparation to assure continuous power, that whole program has been sort of tacked on to the SGIP program. SGIP was never designed to provide backup battery power. And you said, well, let's just take some of that money because it's sitting there and it's available, and let's use it for backup power so that people can keep their CPAPs going and keep other essential equipment going during a power cutoff. But that program has not worked. And as I said, when we tried to get details about who has received grants and where they are and so on, what their medical conditions may be, we don't have that data.
So we can't have an intelligent discussion with you about it. The program is underfunded. As Richard and others who you have communicated we have communicated with you in the last year have said, we're now going into the third year and we still are not ready. Right now, if you produce a perfect report in June, that doesn't help us with the power shutoffs that are going to happen in July. So we need work this winter and this spring to make the power shutoffs to provide backup during the power shutoffs.
It hasn't been organized in other ways that are important. We've had people with disabilities call and talk and email and even have personal visits with contractors, the vendors who actually install battery backup and solar systems, and they all have different stories. And the stories change from week to week and month to month. They have not been trained. You have not provided a consistent interface to the contractors, and they haven't had a consistent story to tell people with disabilities.
At first, they wanted a certain amount of money upfront, and then you said, oh, no, we're not going to require that.
Speaker 11
Was never done consistently. We've got to do better this year because we're not done with our fires.
Speaker 10
Mr. Parks, we're over time and we have one more commenter. So could you please wrap it up? Sorry, if finish your comments, please. Thank you.
Speaker 11
Related to this is the loss of, cell service. Obviously, being able to use your cell phone in an emergency is absolutely vital. And I saw the letters from the telecoms who told you, we have battery backup, we're all set two years ago. It wasn't true. It's still not true.
You have to make that work. And finally, the TNCs, just to cover everything that you're involved in that really concerns us, just don't provide service to people with physical disabilities. We do not have a good system for that. And this whole paratransit system that is now perhaps going to be expanded in some ways is not going to provide equivalent service to an accessible taxi cab. So you've got to work on that too.
We have a lot to do and I look forward to doing it, but time is short and particularly time is short for the next wildfire, which will happen any minute. Thank you very much.
Speaker 10
Thank you. And I believe we have a comment from Pauline DeLille. Are we able to unmute her?
Speaker 8
But you can't see me? Correct. Why not? Why are you shutting us out? Why?
Speaker 10
In this section, the way it's set up only the panelists have their screens up during the breakout sessions. It's a different setup, so everyone who attends has their screens up.
Speaker 8
Yeah, I don't understand. I've attended a lot of Zoom meetings and GoToMeeting meetings and didn't have to work them fine. I've never experienced this one before, and it's impossible. Like, there is no hand. I don't have a hand icon so I can raise my hand.
I have no way. I think it's because I finally said in the chat I'd like to say something that maybe you finally caught it. But this is the worst program you could possibly find. What's wrong with using something that's tried and true like Zoom or GoToMeeting or a program that works well and isn't so esoteric and impossible? I have been working, you know, for like thirty eight minutes now desperately trying to get through, and I am upset.
I'm very upset because this is the way you treat people with disabilities. I know for a fact that there are many people with disabilities who want to get on right now and tell you how badly you're treating us by ignoring our needs and catering to the needs of the stockholders of the private utility companies instead of us who you're supposed to be protecting. It's your job to protect the ratepayers against the interests of the utilities, and you're not doing that. And this is just another demonstration. Have you shut us out?
Now you need I want you you absolutely must call another session for people with disabilities and use a program that's not so impossible. Everybody's familiar with Zoom. Go with Zoom. Have another meeting so we can talk to you. If you don't do this, it's just going be further proof that once again, you do not want to hear our concerns.
And our concerns are about life and death. Life and death because you do not consider us and the many times we've gone before you, when we went before you asking you not to fire Alice Stebbins because you're the only executive director you've ever had that recognized our existence. And you still have not replaced anyone in the position of ADA coordinator. How long? How many months has that gone vacant?
And you didn't even do it until Alice came along, and it's been federal and state law for decades. So your record, proven record shows that you are neglecting to do your job when it comes to representing the rights and interests and lives of people with disabilities. And you know, I'm gonna say it again, but I know you know that when you allow these utilities to shut off our power, you're killing people. I know someone who died about 20 miles from me because they shut off PG and E shut off the power and his ventilator wouldn't work. He managed to struggle for breath for five hours and then he died.
And that's on you. That's on you. All that suffering, all that torture is on you because we've gone before you before to tell you that you cannot just take away the power for people with disabilities since you're penned upon electricity and power to live, to survive. And there are solutions for it. And we told you about those, about battery backup systems, and that hasn't happened.
There was some kind of about some batteries that were available, and then suddenly they were all gone within two weeks. And they did not go to people with disabilities. I tried to get one of those backup systems and was told that I didn't live in a fire hazard area because I don't live in Tier 2. However, in 2018, I had to evacuate. At 03:00 in the morning, I'm driving to my friend's house in Sonoma.
This is the only place I could find to go because 180,000 people were evacuating from here. And I spent all afternoon trying to find a hotel that was accessible where I could stay. I couldn't find one. I went to my friend's house and she let me pee in a bucket because I couldn't get into her bathroom. I slept on her window seat.
The next day, she and her daughter spent all afternoon trying to find a hotel for me where I could stay, and I ended up in South San Francisco. It's the only place I could find a state that is accessible because all the hotels were booked. Now that I don't have to have a ventilator, so I survived that. But that is not the way people with disabilities should be treated when there are easy solutions. Now you can make sure that battery backup systems are available to us.
To us, not to people who own wells and want to keep their water going. I understand that. That's a big need, and they their needs should be addressed, but not before our lives our lives. So thank you for letting me speak. I don't know what miracle made it happen, but I do appreciate it.
And I hope that you will begin to realize that you are putting people in peril because you're putting the interest of the utility companies ahead of us, the people you're supposed to be protecting. And there are solutions. You know how to do this. You know how to make battery backup systems available to everybody. You can do this.
It's not rocket science. If you made all those battery backup systems available to people with water wells, you can do it for us. Thank you. I really hope to hear from you very soon in which we will have a group put together of representatives of the disability community and we will make sure that you start doing your job for us. Thank you.
Speaker 10
And thank you for your comment. We do appreciate it. We do have one more. I know we're over time, but we have one more person who was having a little bit of technical difficulties. So we've one more comment from Connie Arnold.
Then we will go to lunch. Thank you. Miss Arnold, you Thank you.
Speaker 12
Hope we agree with what Hollin delivered about the difficulties we have had not only using this Cisco Webex program. It's a major problem. I tried yesterday and it took me over thirty minutes to get connected and then I was unable to speak. I heard, them ask for comments from Richard Scaff and then nothing. They didn't even wait thirty seconds or try to see if they could help fix whatever difficulty he was having in connecting, but that was the problem.
But not only that, but since the firing of Alice Devins, things have even gotten worse. And the fact that the SIG program, the SGIP program, residential battery program was supposed to make money available for low income persons and people with disabilities to have residential backup battery systems. That was all flawed and the money went to, well owners instead and it was gone so quick. And then they said, oops, oops, well, we made a mistake and now we've tried to close the door on that. So actually I'm wondering whether any millions more dollars reissued and actually the residential backup battery power systems were available to those in the wildfire districts and who should have been able to receive it without having to pay upfront by the contractors for installation of the units so that they wouldn't suffer these deaths or lose their groceries or lose their, insulin medicines or anything like that.
I have a problem with the fact that I was in the hearing in December and I just saw that commissioners approved a rate increase starting in March 2021 for PG and E. They also, when Dallas Evans had found that 200,000,000 owed by the utility companies, California said, that's okay PG and E and electric utility private companies. You can just keep that money, we waive it. That's appalling. Look at the mess we're in in California.
Speaker 12
the mess that's been created with the EDD, unemployment insurance, 11,400,000,000.0 fraud and it's going up. It could go up as much as $20,000,000 and the potential recall of Governor Newsom based on the inadequacies of responding to the community. This group here is about equity and participation of communities and diverse communities. But when you use these systems that are not, universally used like Zoom and we're supposed to be able to participate, that makes it difficult. We cannot, you know be included.
I know yesterday I had, somebody I know Karen Duncanwood who wanted to testify about her experience. Her house burned down in the fire and the contract that PG and E gave $5,000,000 to CFILC, California Foundation of Independent Living Centers was a complete joke for what was needed and the batteries being given out to people. And for instance I have a friend I know from Sonoma County. He needed a backup battery system. He was out of power for like two weeks, I think twice.
And he has a CCAP device and he's a senior citizen. He's eight like you know 80 years old and they were telling him, Oh well sorry you, you can't, we can't give that to you because we don't you know because PG and E says you didn't use an electric wheelchair. So they make up these denials to deny people and I told him we'll ask for a proof that they did. Well it was just something that the ILC had made up because they couldn't provide the proof that PG and E had said that. And just the same with Karen Dunklewood, she asked for a hotel, voucher and she has severe arthritis and can't handle cold and when the weather was cold and the power was shut off she struggled as a senior citizen and they denied her that hotel access And she was talking about currently being involved with somebody that was burned out of their home in paradise that has cancer that's homeless.
And they're attacking all the homeless community and telling them to move their tents and what are they supposed to do with cold weather? This is just not the way to treat people. And I'm not expecting anything different to come out of this. But I do hope that PUC changes and starts meeting the interest of those with disabilities and other, diverse populations and allowing us to participate. And I'm not holding my breath because I don't see CPUC doing anything to the benefit of the rate payers and the consumers that are not only affected by electric utility rates but also by incidents of wildfires that have been caused directly by PG and E.
Thank you very much. And my name is Connie Arnold. I live in Elk Grove and I've been a disability rights advocate for thirty plus years and I'm very so telling out in your cell phone Thank you.
Speaker 10
Thank you very much, Ms. Arnold. All right, so I know we went a little long, but it was very important to be able to hear everyone's voices. So thank you everyone for sticking around. And again, if you have any comments that you're thinking of afterwards or anytime in the next several months, please send an email to that ESJ email box for our team.
So I will let I don't if Monica has anything before we go to lunch. Ms.
Speaker 1
Smith will be back at one p. M. In our breakout sessions. I will post links in the chat box now for those Webex meetings, and hope to see you there. Thank you.
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