Edison wants to keep San Onofre judge
Citizens group asked for Darling to be removed from shutdown matters
Lawyers for Southern California Edison are challenging a motion from a citizens’ group calling on state utility regulators to remove the judge overseeing the San Onofre shutdown proceeding.
Edison said in a 14-page filing Wednesday that an argument from the Coalition to Decommission San Onofre lacked merit, contains errors and misrepresentations and should be rejected.
“CDSO’s reconsideration motion is based on inaccurate representations regarding the law and the record of this proceeding,” the filing states.
The consumer group headed by activist Ray Lutz asked the California Public Utilities Commission to remove Administrative Law Judge Melanie Darling from the San Onofre case because of backchannel communication she had with an Edison executive.
The commission’s chief judge dismissed the motion early this month, ruling it unwarranted.
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The coalition re-filed the request days later in response to report in The San Diego Union-Tribune that state investigators were seeking emails and other documents from the judge as part of an ongoing criminal investigation of the commission’s dealings with utility companies.
Edison said the news report had no bearing on the case.
“This development does not support the reconsideration motion,” utility lawyers wrote. “The remaining grounds for the reconsideration motion are not new.”
Darling has come under scrutiny for private emails she traded with Edison executive Russell Worden days after the commission opened an investigation into what caused the San Onofre nuclear power plant’s failure in January 2012.
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The judge’s name appears on a search warrant executed in June at the commission’s San Francisco headquarters, seeking her emails among others.
Darling is charged with determining whether a settlement agreement that bills ratepayers $3.3 billion for the failed plant should stand, and whether Edison should be sanctioned for engaging in secret meetings with regulators.
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