one under that provision their pride sweeping authority them for the commission to both investigate and determine whether or not that utility services and its practices are just unreasonable or unjust unreasonable and if it finds that the that the reports by its auditor about these cost overruns about the lack of management oversight that it instituted this in missed this administrative investigation that is on review here it was in order and it said even in its title it is ordered for to address issues such as the cost of the scope busy and the schedule of that program and ordered people's gas to provide a long term plan supported by expert testimony and in that plan it gave an end date for its program between the years two thousand and thirty five to two thousand and plans is what it covers the costs associated with them and it has seven categories only one of those categories is actually replacing the maids and that's what i think you're there are others peoples gas has brought into its s m p program it gets a monthly surcharge to subject it like every other rider to reconciliation proceeding after the fact which is a one sort of one year of a retrospective accounting analysis to make sure the costs are accurate and that there prudent and  but they said the judge simply by providing a cap a limitation on what and what killed you can provide that somehow guarantees any charge surcharge underneath that cap but there's nothing in the language which would would be implie  average since the last general eight case section deed subsection d is what imposes the restrictions the commitments of the utility in order to recover the the rider surcharge and under g three that covers the rate the where they recover the rates and so all that does it incorporates the limitation of that ceiling on the amount and says that if it's under that limitation it is quote eligible for recovery i quote from looking at when i think of other cases like the st just explain township hyped school case that recognized that as well but it is true it doesn't specifically it doesn't explicitly refer to rates but that is part of what we that is implicit in the just in reasonable services is that if they w the commission or whatever here wants to read this one this one specially based on that and that language sorry on that cap they want to say that by providing the ceiling the general assembly and basically intended to for closed commission from looking at affordability at again the general simply has used that language in other provisions of the public utilities act where it's deemed certain sort busy of it's in one of three began it is deemed certain capital structures associated with the programs and that  demand was it was a cost effective when it was created in the execution of creating it it's not about whether or not you actually i think the way the commission put it was whether or not you would undertake the costs at all the project at all that's how it  cast presented in there limitation of subsection g in the section that's the so the commission was limited it couldn't simply just impose these upfront limits it's upfront limits on people's gas investment throughout the year january february march april through the year once they get done and they're recovering those investment costs as they're making but that's the that's the one section you want so the  statute itself authorizes that dollar for that particular year so by operational statute itself it deems it reasonable after the commission has looked at the prudence of those c authorization of the st clause of the st sentence and the cap so it's not simply just a cap it's an authorization and then is more efficient go into a neighborhood do all the work at once rank neighborhoods rolly three year plan each year it's reassessed through which neighborhoods riskiest have a list of a prince of those neighborhoods remove good afternoon james goldsmith for people's gaffes it's late in the session so i'll do my best to be brief tracking our brief brief which you go to sort of and everyone else's that's because we see the issue slightly differently than the other two parties that have argued so far but it's a shorter path to the same result as the one which i think mission the argument so far has focused on this question of statutory interpretation how does section nine dash to twenty dollars interact with the commission's broader authority under section one and vice versa the court can reach that issue if it wishes to interpret those just absolutes and reach a conclusion about their interaction with each other but our position is masterpiece of a decision the commission wost its way and lost sight of the authority that it has under the nd article eight of the act and abandoned that authority because of something in section nine s two hundred and twenty three  commission has answered in this portion of its opinion is does section nine dash two hundred and twenty three preclude the commission's authority to determine the scope design schedule cost and other issues related to an dollars of the decision the bottom of that page the commission says staff claims that the commission cannot legally limit people's agassiz maximum periodic recovery of s n p costs underwriter  levels below those authorized by the cap defined in section ninety s two hundred and twenty three of the public utilities act the commission agrees we can't change that cap however the commission does have the right to make determinations concerning the cost recovery in people's gas as annual q i p reconciliation proceeding that's the backstop and this is the critical piece the commission also retains its authority to approve or to modify infrastructure investment plans using its article eight authority functional the facts of otherwise the commission determinations may reduce the amount properly recovered through q ip surcharges but such effects do not violate and twenty three that is the commission's saying we recognize our broader authority we can control the scope and pace of the proceeding we exercise that authority here and doing it doesn't violate section i to twenty three that means the commission did not make the conclusion that the a g says that and if they didn't make that conclusion then the court does not need to reach the question of how those two sections interact because the a g t and the commission agreed about the powers that they  it wouldn't make sense for the commission to review the scope and pace of the program up front rather than in a reconciliation cd the answer is yes and that's what the commission dead that's what this decision is this two hundred and eleven  decision is the commission painstakingly reviewing each party's proposal about the scope of the program the pace of the work selecting from all of them up from among alternatives based on policy reasons articulated based on facts in the record and the easy doesn't challenge any of that so it would be impossible to read this decision and conclude that the commission somehow believed it lacked authority to do what it spent two hundred and eleven dollars pages doing the only thing the commission concluded it lacked authority to do was change the cap set by the legislature on the spending for the program if you look at the a g s briefs you'll see this common formulation that the commission concluded that it lacked authority to modify the scope pace or any will spending of the s and p that he lives two decisions that the commission made it concluded it couldn't touch the an no basis for reversal the only other point that i would like to mention and it's another one product by question from justice cobbs is do we have a theory about why section two  three sunsets why did the legislature do that i would submit it's for the same reason that department stores announce limited time sales they want people to get in there and spend some money they saw a problem here and they decided that the paramount reliability and public safety concerns that led the legislature to adopt this writer hugh i p t and by the way led the commission to reject the agency's lower slower plan are controlling facts and the fact is those are also facts that won't change i'm dreaming all of the policy decisions and all of the facts on the ground about the need for this program and the alternative presented by the e g will all be the same if this gets votes sent back to  and so if the air alleges really about the commission to somehow confused it's forty i think we've demonstrated that they weren't but we know the decision they reached on scope and pace regardless of what they did and i don't think anyone really disputes that that that the commission can set a different cap than the one that the legislature set in fact if we look at page so there's two different things going on the cap and the scope and pace of the program the commission correctly concluded that it can't touch the former but it did not conclude that it can't have slatter and in fact that's and that's what its entire decision is an exercise in discretion doing for those reasons we would ask the court to affirm the decision of the commission and that's all i have unless you have any questions   how those whether or not that they did not address how affordability affected them and whether or not based on the found impact on affordability when balanced against the public safety needs whether or not in that place year through the surcharge however below that cap what we're asking the what we ask below the commission do was specifically to exercise its authority under five a one to look at those factors to consider those fact look at public safety look at affordability balance those factors based on their factual susman of the risks the safety risks being raised by the public side by people's gases names how they could be addressed by their by their utility in order to recover so what does it say it says you mount of qualifying infrastructure investment eligible for recovery under the tariff is limited to and then it gives the limits that's that general authorization that is not a mandate that it and a mandate that it must minimum the minimum limitation d three is not that it's not a minimum amount of qualifying cost it's not saying you have to make a certain number of qualifying costs as a minimum number of total plant additions and what that is about is it's not about trying to get them to spend as seems to be relying on it they say that no they're not relying on it nor to in order to somehow divest or or limit the commission's authority but they're saying that's exactly they're saying is they want to limit they want to use the reconciliation limit the commission's  with regard to qualifying projects that is that they're saying that you can't because you have this one year retrospective accounting exercise which is provided for every single rider but somehow that means that the commission cannick can exercise its normal seek before the commission not here is just that under five hundred and one the limitation on those services that is the limitation service is just a limitation of the pace of the spending it's not a rate cap it well the reason we're asking for it one of them is has to do with the impact on rates and impact on the affordability of services but it is not tantamount to recovery cap it's a commission doing exactly what it does all the time but it is expert in doing ready what we all rely on them to do in order to commission in order to exercise authority t