Each electrical corporation shall propose a cost recovery plan to the commission for the recovery of the uneconomic costs of an electrical corporationâs generation-related assets and obligations identified in Section 367. The commission shall authorize the electrical corporation to recover the costs pursuant to the plan if the plan meets the following criteria: (a) The cost recovery plan shall set rates for each customer class, rate schedule, contract, or tariff option, at levels equal to the level as shown on electric rate schedules as of June 10, 1996, provided that rates for residential and small commercial customers shall be reduced so that these customers shall receive rate reductions of no less than 10 percent for 1998 continuing through 2002. These rate levels for each customer class, rate schedule, contract, or tariff option shall remain in effect until the earlier of March 31, 2002, or the date on which the commission-authorized costs for utility generation-related assets and obligations have been fully recovered. The electrical corporation shall be at risk for those costs not recovered during that time period. Each utility shall amortize its total uneconomic costs, to the extent possible, such that for each year during the transition period its recorded rate of return on the remaining uneconomic assets does not exceed its authorized rate of return for those assets. For purposes of determining the extent to which the costs have been recovered, any over-collections recorded in Energy Costs Adjustment Clause and Electric Revenue Adjustment Mechanism balancing accounts, as of December 31, 1996, shall be credited to the recovery of the costs. (b) The cost recovery plan shall provide for identification and separation of individual rate components such as charges for energy, transmission, distribution, public benefit programs, and recovery of uneconomic costs. The separation of rate components required by this subdivision shall be used to ensure that customers of the electrical corporation who become eligible to purchase electricity from suppliers other than the electrical corporation pay the same unbundled component charges, other than energy, that a bundled service customer pays. No cost shifting among customer classes, rate schedules, contract, or tariff options shall result from the separation required by this subdivision. Nothing in this provision is intended to affect the rates, terms, and conditions or to limit the use of any Federal Energy Regulatory Commission-approved contract entered into by the electrical corporation prior to the effective date of this provision. (c) In consideration of the risk that the uneconomic costs identified in Section 367 may not be recoverable within the period identified in subdivision (a) of Section 367, an electrical corporation that, as of December 20, 1995, served more than four million customers, and was also a gas corporation that served less than four thousand customers, shall have the flexibility to employ risk management tools, such as forward hedges, to manage the market price volatility associated with unexpected fluctuations in natural gas prices, and the out-of-pocket costs of acquiring the risk management tools shall be considered reasonable and collectible within the transition freeze period. This subdivision applies only to the transaction costs associated with the risk management tools and shall not include any losses from changes in market prices. (d) In order to ensure implementation of the cost recovery plan, the limitation on the maximum amount of cost recovery for nuclear facilities that may be collected in any year adopted by the commission in Decision 96-01-011 and Decision 96-04-059 shall be eliminated to allow the maximum opportunity to collect the nuclear costs within the transition cap period. (e) As to an electrical corporation that is also a gas corporation serving more than four million California customers, so long as any cost recovery plan adopted in
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