Public utilities: intervenor fees.

Existing law provides compensation for reasonable advocate's fees, reasonable expert witness fees, and other reasonable costs to public utility customers of participation or intervention in any proceeding of the Public Utilities Commission. Any award for that compensation shall be paid by the public utility that is the subject of the hearing, investigation, or proceeding. Existing law provides that an award shall be allowed by the commission as an expense for the purpose of establishing rates of the public utility. An existing decision of the commission establishes the intervenor compensation program fund for quasi-legislative or rulemaking proceedings funded through commission reimbursement fees collected on an annual basis from electrical, gas, telephone, and water corporations. This bill would require an award related to a telephone corporation that is not regulated under a rate-of-return regulatory framework to be paid from the commission's intervenor compensation program fund.