Opinion ID: 1978818
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Commission's Treatment of OPC's January 17, 2007 Filing as a Request for a Declaratory Order

Text: OPC contends that the Commission erred in recasting OPC's January 19, 2007 filing as a request for a declaratory order. It argues that the Commission should have treated the filing as a PIDR under 15 DCMR § 150.5, with the result that each of the utilities should have been required to file an initial brief stating in detail the basis of its proprietary claim and to bear [t]he burden of ultimately persuading the Commission that the subject information is proprietary. 15 DCMR § 150.5(d) and (e). We are not persuaded by OPC's argument. The Commission's decision not to treat OPC's January 19, 2007 filing as a PIDR was consistent with the Commission's interpretation that 15 DCMR § 150, the Commission regulation that sets forth the procedures for challenging the appropriateness of a claim that information is proprietary or confidential, 15 DCMR § 150.3(e), permits challenges to a proprietary claim only in an ongoing matter. Order 14392 at 5. We owe deference to that interpretation, because it is consistent with the regulatory language (which describes procedures by which a party may challenge a proprietary claim) and also reasonable in light of the circumstances in which utilities submit information to the Commission. See Dankman, 443 A.2d at 514 (When the [Commission] attempts to apply its own regulations, we cannot substitute our judgment if the [Commission's] is reasonable). It is not unreasonable for the Commission to adhere to a policy under which-where a utility has submitted revenue information to enable the Commission to assess a reimbursement fee and the Commission has proposed, finalized and collected the reimbursement fee without objection during the comment period-utility revenue data are no longer subject to the PIDR process once the limited purpose for which the Commission required the information has been achieved. [6] OPC asserts that 15 DCMR § 150.5 provides that a party may at any time challenge a claim of confidentiality through a PIDR, but we think the regulatory language does not compel that reading. The relevant languagethat the prescribed procedures shall apply [i]f at any time a party challenges a claim of the party who asserts that its information is proprietary, 15 DCMR § 150.5is reasonably read, as the Commission reads it, to mean if at any time during a proceeding. OPC also argues that because the Commission maintains Formal Case No. 712 as an ongoing umbrella proceeding in which a myriad of matters [including the ones in issue here] are filed by various parties and addressed by the Commission, OPC's January 2007 PIDR was in fact filed in an ongoing matter in which OPC was a party. [7] Butnotwithstanding the Commission's case management and numbering system, the logic of which escapes uswe think OPC's argument ignores the reality that the Commission's process of setting reimbursement fees for the fiscal year 2006 Commission and OPC budgets had been completed for several months by the time OPC filed its purported PIDR. Nor did the Commission act unreasonably in treating OPC's January 19, 2007 filing as a request for a declaratory order. [8] Although labeled as a PIDR, OPC's request contained language from which the Commission could reasonably conclude that OPC sought both a broad ruling as to what treatment could be afforded to utilities' jurisdictional revenue information in the future (rather than a ruling with respect to information that the utilities submitted as the basis for the July and August 2006 NOPRs) and an opinion about whether the Commission was required to publish such revenue information. OPC specified, in boldface type, that it sought a ruling as to whether the revenue data filings that [the utilities] file with the Commission in response to the Commission's request for each companies' [sic] gross jurisdictional revenues for a specified year, for purposes of determining the reimbursement fee to be paid by each company pursuant to D.C.Code Section 34-912(b)(3), are confidential or proprietary; and whether such revenue data filings should be available for review by District of Columbia ratepayers and set forth in Notices of Proposed Reimbursement for Public Utilities published by the Commission  (italics supplied). Thus, OPC's filing went well beyond a request to obtain particular proprietary information, which is what the procedures set out in 15 DCMR § 150.5 address. See 15 DCMR § 150.4 (If a party ... desires to obtain proprietary information from a party that has the information..., the requesting party shall... [f]ile with the Commission for a Proprietary Information Determination under § 150.5). We think the Commission reasonably read OPC's filing to request what 15 DCMR § 144.1 authorizes the Commission to issue, i.e., a declaratory order regarding the applicability of any rule, regulation, or statute enforceable by it, to terminate a controversy (other than a contested case) or to remove uncertainty. [9]