wishes consistency between self-identified potential violations and other violations. We are not persuaded to impose a statute of limitations on issuing a citation based on a self-identified potential violation when we do not impose a statute of limitations on issuing a citation under the gas and electric safety citation program in general. As stated above, the Phase I Decision at 19-20 declined to impose a statute of limitations on the gas and electric safety citation program. D.15-05-054, the order modifying the Phase I Decision for purpose of clarification and denying rehearing, also addressed this general issue. In D.15-05-054 at 4-6, the Commission stated that PG&E appeared to be arguing that the Commission should have spelled out a specific time period for Staff to provide the utility with notice of a violation after discovering it. The Commission rejected this argument. The Commission recognized that § 1702.5(a)(2) requires that the Commission’s electric safety citation program include procedures ensuring that the Commission provides notice of a violation or violations within a reasonable period of time after discovery. However, the Commission also stated that there is “no express or implied language in § 1702.5 establishing the Legislature’s intent to create any type of time bar to the authorized citation,” and the fact that the Legislature did not define a “reasonable amount of time” in § 1702.5(a)(2) shows the Legislature intended for the Commission to make that determination. (Id. at 4-5.) For clarity, the Commission amended the procedural rules for the electric safety citation program to state that service of the citation shall be made within a reasonable period of time after the discovery of the violation. (Id. at 14.) We find this
FERC has stated that it “will maintain our practice of awarding penalty credit for parties that promptly self-report violations, assuming such conduct is not negated by a poor compliance culture.” A study by NERC found that in 2012 approximately ninety percent of the violations of its regulations for critical infrastructure were self-identified and reported to NERC through its voluntary reporting procedures. The FAA has described the reasoning behind its voluntary disclosure reporting program as follows: Civil penalties, under the FAA’s enforcement program, have always been considered a means to promote compliance with the FAA’s regulations, not an end in themselves. In addition to the deterrence achieved by the appropriate use of civil penalties, the public interest is also served by positive incentives to promote and achieve compliance. Indeed, the FAA believes that aviation safety is well served by incentives for certificate holders… to identify and correct their own instances of noncompliance and to invest more resources in efforts to preclude their recurrence. The FAA’s policy of forgoing civil penalty actions when one of these entities detects violations, promptly discloses the violations to the FAA, and takes prompt corrective action to ensure that the same or similar violations do not recur is designed to encourage compliance with the FAA’s regulations, foster safe operating practices, and promote the development of Internal Evaluation Programs (IEPs). By its language, SB 291 arguably has the intent that the reporting of self-identified potential violations should be voluntary. The Commission appears to have expressed this view of SB 291 in the Order instituting R.14-05-013 and in D.14-12-001. SB 291 directs that voluntary utility reporting of potential violations will be taken into account in considering citations and penalties. However, if reporting of potential violations is mandatory, such reports might not properly be considered a mitigating factor. Finally, it appears from opening comments that Pacificorp and PG&E, at least, assume the self-reporting will be voluntary.
Reporting Procedures for Self-identified Potential Violations Reporting Process GSRB’s current process, gas corporations submit reports of self-identified violations to a shared email inbox at the Commission. In the report, the gas corporation explains the violation, when it occurred (if known), and when and how the gas corporation identified the violation; it also describes any planned or completed corrective actions. In the future SED may develop a methodology or other refinements to the process for reporting of gas and electric self-identified potential violations. However, at this time the current GSRB methodology and practice is adequate for ESRB. We do not believe that Commission guidance is needed in this respect. Correction of Self-identified Potential Violations SED recommends that reports of self-identified potential violations be required to include information about whether the potential violation has been corrected. If a potential violation has not been corrected before the report is submitted, the report should include a plan and schedule for correction. Reporting self-identified potential violations does not relieve the utility of its obligation to correct violations with any immediate safety hazard as soon as feasible. Reporting Period PG&E supports a 30-day self-reporting period for both electric and gas utilities, on the basis that the longer period would allow the utilities time to consult with SED and to develop a thoughtful and thorough solution to the problem. SoCalGas/SDG&E state that the current 10-day self-reporting period for gas is insufficient time for the utility to gather all the underlying facts and information necessary to analyze carefully the underlying violation and potential remedies, pointing out that a ten-calendar-day requirement might only be six business days, depending on when a violation was first identified. They add
The Joint Parties recommend that the provision in the gas safety citation program requiring notification of local officials is unnecessary, given the above publication requirement, and that this notification provision should be eliminated. Alternatively, the Joint Parties recommend that if the Commission maintains this notification provision for gas, the provision should not apply to the electric safety citation program. Similarly, the Joint Parties recommend that the provision requiring the gas utilities to report the citations to other state or federal authorities is unnecessary because the gas and electric utilities are subject to existing regulations, including federal reporting requirements. The Joint Parties recommend that this provision be eliminated from the gas safety citation program and not be extended to the electric safety citation program. The Joint Parties recommend that the gas safety citation program be modified so that the response time to a citation is 30 days (instead of the current 10 days), similar to the electric safety citation program. The Joint Parties further recommend that the burden of proof under the gas safety citation program be modified to reflect the burden of proof articulated in the electric safety citation program. Generally, if not specifically mentioned, the Joint Parties recommend that if the Commission chooses to harmonize both programs, the Commission should use the electric safety citation program as a model since that program was established through the rulemaking process, rather than by resolution. The Joint Parties believe that audits of the utilities every three years to monitor whether penalties are in fact paid by shareholders (as recommended by ORA) are unnecessary as these audits occur in the general rate cases. The Joint Parties recommends that the Commission conduct an independent review of the success of the citation programs during the initial years of implementation and improve the programs on the basis of such review and stakeholder input. The Joint Parties reiterate their request for workshops on many of the above issues and attach proposed workshop guidelines to their comments. In their reply comments the Joint Parties state they agree with the comments of the other utilities, specifically PG&E, SoCalGas/SDG&E, and CUE. The Joint Parties state that EPUC’s comments to include reliability issues are beyond the