愛迪生國際 (EIX) 2017 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Edison International Third Quarter 2017 Financial Teleconference. My name is Markey, and I'll be your operator today. (Operator Instructions) Today's call is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Ramraj, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, and welcome, everyone. Our speakers today are President and Chief Executive Officer, Pedro Pizarro; and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Maria Rigatti. Also here are other members of the management team.

Materials supporting today's call are available at www.edisoninvestor.com. These include our Form 10-Q, prepared remarks from Pedro and Maria and the teleconference presentation. Tomorrow, we will distribute our regular business update presentation.

During this call, we will make forward-looking statements about the outlook for Edison International and its subsidiaries. Actual results could differ materially from current expectations. Important factors that could cause different results are set forth in our SEC filings. Please read these carefully.

The presentation includes certain outlook assumptions as well as reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the nearest GAAP measure. (Operator Instructions)

I will now turn the call over to Pedro.

Thank you, Sam, and good afternoon, everyone.

Before I discuss our quarterly results, I would like to express my deep sorrow for the lives lost and the significant damage during the recent wildfires in Northern California. SCE has provided support to PG&E during this catastrophe, including sending 16 crews to assist with restoration efforts. We will continue with further assistance as necessary.

Moments like this, we affirm the commitment that we have and that I know we share with other utilities and with the regulators in making the safety of our communities and our workers our #1 priority. I will talk more about SCE's management of wildfire risks later in my remarks.

Now on to the quarter. Edison International reported strong third quarter earnings of $1.44 per share, which were $0.15 per share above last year's third quarter earnings of $1.29 per share. Based on the continuing strong performance at SCE and tax benefits we have received throughout the year, we have increased our 2017 earnings per share guidance to a midpoint of $4.32 per share and tightened the range to plus or minus $0.05 per share. Maria will cover this in more detail in her remarks.

Please turn to Page 2 of our presentation. As I have discussed with you in the past, we believe we must be a key enabler of California's ambitious environmental policies. These are important not only to the state broadly, but specifically to our customers and stakeholders.

Edison International will strengthen and grow our business and lead the transformation of the industry by focusing on opportunities in clean energy, efficient electrification, a modernized and more reliable grid and enabling customers' technology choices.

At SCE, this means focusing on 4 key priorities: one, cleaning the power system with continued leadership and procurement of renewable power; two, helping customers make cleaner energy choices, including distributed renewable energy resources, electric transportation and energy efficiency programs; three, strengthening and modernizing the grid; and four, achieving operational and service excellence, and above all, doing so safely.

At the holding company, we will continue to identify new competitive business opportunities for growth and innovation in areas where we see customer demand.

Our strategy continues the long-term alignment of SCE with the state of California. Wherever possible, we have been working with others to find practical and cost-effective approaches to achieve the bold low-carbon energy supported by both California's government and its citizens. Significant infrastructure development and market transformations are needed to radically accelerate customers' adoption of new technologies and to ensure that all communities benefit.

Public policy can enable this plan through wise investments of cap and trade revenues, a comprehensive integrated resource planning process that includes decarbonizing end uses of energy, efficient electrification efforts in transportation, homes and businesses, and by ensuring that clean electricity remains affordable.

Tomorrow, SCE will release a white paper that outlines our blueprint for California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution by its ambitious 2030 goal. We build on existing state programs and policies to achieve these climate goals while ensuring that an economy-wide transformation happens in an efficient and affordable way.

Our white paper summarizes the results of detailed analysis comparing different options for greenhouse gas reduction and finds that an electric-led pathway will best allow California to meet its 2030 goals, and be better positioned for its 2050 goals, while minimizing costs to consumers and the economy.

As you will see in the white paper, the elements include further increases in carbon-free electricity supported by energy storage, higher levels of electric vehicles than what the state has imagined to date and further electrification of commercial and residential building space and water heating. All of these measures will require a robust modern electric grid, reinforcing our view in the long-term need for and value of our capital investments at SCE.

We look forward to speaking with you further on these subjects once we release the white paper tomorrow.

Let me now connect these long-term vision comments to our near-term activities. The 4 key strategic priorities at SCE are woven into CPUC proceedings that are ongoing with one of the most significant being the SCE 2018 General Rate Case.

The General Rate Case is continuing per the procedural schedule. We completed evidentiary hearings on August 2. The main topics litigated during the hearings were consistent with the key themes of our case, including safety and reliability, grid modernization, continued infrastructure replacement and affordability. Additionally in September, SCE, ORA and all intervenors filed briefs and reply briefs, which generally summarized and clarified their respective positions.

From a procedural perspective, we have some additional public participation hearings in mid-November. And then in early December, we will provide an update filing that reflects items such as updated escalation rates and changes to laws and regulations that have occurred since we initiated our rate case. After that, we will await a proposed decision by the ALJs and the assigned commissioner.

At this point, we believe it is very unlikely that a commission decision on this application will be issued in 2017, given the remaining items on calendar and the timing of the issuance of proposed decisions in recent rate cases.

In addition to our General Rate Case, there are ongoing proceedings at the CPUC related to transportation electrification and energy storage, which could add up to an additional $1 billion in capital spending to our forecast and which further underscore the alignment of our strategy with California's environmental goals.

A first step will be decisions on the $20 million of priority review projects in the transportation electrification application, which we filed last January. A proposed decision was expected from the CPUC in October, and we remain optimistic that we will receive guidance in 2017. SCE is undergoing evidentiary hearings for the standard longer-term review project also included in our January application totaling $550 million, with a decision in that expected in May 2018.

Also, as a reminder, SCE continues to procure energy storage under SCE's 580-megawatt share of the current 1,325-megawatt statewide target set by the storage rulemaking issued by the CPUC in 2014. Up to 1/2 of this can be utility owned.

SCE has entered close to 500 megawatts of commitments through both utility-owned projects and third-party contracts, of which approximately 418 megawatts are eligible to count against our targets. The IOUs are also required to add another 500 megawatts combined of distributed energy storage systems into their March 2018 energy storage procurement and investment plans. The SCE portion of this will be 166 megawatts. These additional megawatts were mandated through Assembly Bill 2868 and, again, are above and beyond the 1,325-megawatt target.

The 2017 legislative session adjourned on September 15. The most significant bill that was passed this year and signed by the Governor was AB 398, which extends the cap-and-trade program, with some modifications, to 2030. Several bills that we had discussed previously were not passed by the legislature this year but will likely remain active in some form in the 2018 session. These bills include SB 100, which would accelerate the renewables portfolio standard to 50% by 2026, establish a target of 60% renewable resources by 2030 and require all electricity sold at retail to be from 0-carbon resources by 2045.

Other bills are AB 813 and 726, which would have authorized CAISO regionalization and require the CPUC to direct IOUs to procure additional tax-advantaged renewable resources over and above those resources necessary to meet the 2020 RPS requirements.

We continue to be supportive of California's leadership in addressing greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful pollutants through ambitious clean energy and environmental programs, and we will work constructively during next year's session with lawmakers to ensure that clean energy grows in a manner that is also safe, reliable and, importantly, affordable for all our customers.

I started this call on the topic of wildfires, so let me return to that now. Wildfires are all too common in California, and situations like this remind us to stay vigilant in our risk management and to be safe in our day-to-day operations. While no major wildfires are currently impacting SCE's service territory, wildfires have been a recent topic of discussion at the CPUC, both in terms of the Northern California fires and also with respect to other ongoing proceedings around cost recovery. We are engaging with regulators on this topic and on the practices and orders that we have implemented to date. These include managing the electric system with a focus on public and worker safety as well as on reliability of the system. In addition to operating practices designed to reduce the risk of wildfires, SCE also invests significant amounts of capital to reduce wildfire risk. Examples include our pole replacement and vegetation management programs. These are all part of our mandate to provide safe, reliable and ubiquitous electric service, even as we and our peer utilities have seen increased siting of new homes and businesses in areas with higher fire risk across the state over the past decades.

Moving onto the status of the SONGS regulatory proceeding. Since our last earnings call, SCE and other parties filed status reports on August 15 following the conclusion of the meet-and-confer and mediation sessions. Unfortunately, SCE and other parties were unable to reach an agreement on possible changes to the settlement.

In our status report, we urge the commission to reaffirm the existing settlement on the basis that it remains fair and reasonable and in the public interest. Intervenors also filed status reports with a wide range of comments on possible adjustments to the settlement and on the process to be followed going forward.

On October 10, the assigned commissioner and assigned administrative law judge issued a joint ruling. This ACR acknowledged that there is sufficient information in the record to assess whether the settlement continues to be in the public interest, but noted that if the settlement were found not to be in the public interest, then additional information will be required to address the appropriate cost allocation between customers and shareholders.

Consistent with the direction provided in the ACR, today we are filing an issue statement, which comments on the preliminary list of issues suggested in the ACR to be addressed in this continued proceeding as well as any other issues that should be added.

The next step in the process is a November 7 status conference. While the ACR included a preliminary schedule where hearings would conclude in March 2018, the ACR did not state specifically when the process will come to a final conclusion.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Maria for her update on the quarter.

Thank you, Pedro, and good afternoon, everyone.

My comments today will cover third quarter and year-to-date results, our updated capital expenditure and rate base forecast, our updated earnings guidance and our updated cost of capital. Let's begin by looking at the key SCE earnings drivers for the quarter shown to the right on Slide 3.

For the third quarter 2017, Edison reported earnings of $1.44 per share, an increase of $0.15 from the same period last year. Included in this, SCE had a positive $0.09 variance for the quarter. SCE's revenues increased $0.18 per share in the third quarter versus the prior year. This was mainly attributable to $0.11 per share of increased revenue related to the attrition mechanism in SCE's 2015 General Rate Case. The remaining $0.07 per share were related to various CPUC items outside of the General Rate Case, including balancing account activity, which is nonearnings related.

SCE's operation and maintenance costs were not an earnings driver quarter-over-quarter, with $0.03 per share savings from the ongoing implementation of various operational and service excellence initiatives, offset by increased transmission and distribution line clearance and maintenance and higher software license costs.

Net financing costs increased $0.01 per share over last year and was mainly due to $0.03 of higher interest expense, partially offset by increased AFUDC earnings over the prior year.

Lower income tax benefits versus last year accounted for a negative $0.06 per share. Of this variance, $0.03 resulted from a true-up of 2016 income tax expense. The remaining $0.03 variance relates largely to a lower property-related deductions in the quarter that are offset in revenue.

For the quarter, EIX Parent and Other had a positive $0.06 per share earnings variance, including $0.02 per share benefit at the holding company related to net operating loss carrybacks that resulted from the filing of our 2016 tax return and $0.01 from lower operating expenses. Edison Energy Group contributed an additional $0.03 per share to the positive variance. This was also related to net operating loss carryback as well as tax benefits related to stock option exercises.

Please turn to Page 4. I won't go into the detail on the year-to-date results since the earnings drivers are similar to the quarter. One item of note in the year-to-date results is the $0.08 per share of lower operation and maintenance costs over prior year attributable to our continued operational excellence program.

While we had significant tax benefits during 2017, the underlying fundamentals of the business continue to produce strong results.

Please turn to Page 5. As we wait for a proposed decision on SCE's 2018 General Rate Case, we continued to present our 2018 through 2020 capital forecast at our current request level, which has remained unchanged this quarter.

However, for 2017, we adjusted capital expenditures to $3.7 billion to reflect our latest outlook for the year. The reduction was driven by small adjustments across a number of distribution programs and projects.

As Pedro mentioned earlier, it is unlikely that SCE will receive a 2018 General Rate Case decision in 2017. It is also uncertain whether SCE will receive firm guidance on grid modernization spending as part of the DRP proceeding during 2017. Therefore, we are currently developing an approach for 2018 capital spending based on these contingencies, which will allow SCE to ramp up its capital spending program to meet the rate base ultimately authorized in the 2018 General Rate Case decision while minimizing the associated risk of unauthorized spending. A component of this approach will be to focus initial 2018 grid modernization spending on capital that provides safety and reliability benefits while deferring most spending that is primarily focused on integration of distributed energy resources.

While we wait for the outcomes related to these 2 proceedings, over the long term, we continue to see SCE investing at least $4 billion per year and adding at least $2 billion per year of rate base for the foreseeable future as SCE continues to implement its wires-focused business strategy.

Please turn to Page 6. Our CPUC rate base forecast is based on the weighted average rate base that is authorized in the General Rate Case for the forward-looking 3-year period. Once SCE receive a final decision in the 2018 General Rate Case, our rate base forecast will be trued up along with our capital expenditures.

We have updated our FERC rate base forecast to reflect the change in deferred taxes related to accelerated tax benefits from our 2016 tax return filing. As you can see, the impact is very minimal with the rate base moving to $26.1 billion from $26.2 billion in 2017 and small impacts thereafter.

Please turn to Page 7. We increased our 2017 earnings per share guidance to $4.27 to $4.37 per share with a midpoint of $4.32 per share. This reflects both strong operational performance at SCE and the incremental $0.22 per share of tax benefits we have received during the year-to-date period.

Our new range includes SCE O&M, financing and other benefits of $0.35 per share, $0.01 higher than previous guidance. In addition, the EIX Parent and Other earnings drag has decreased from a negative $0.19 per share to negative $0.11 per share. Both of these changes related primarily to additional tax benefits received in the third quarter.

In general, we are on track to realize the operational and service excellence targets that we outlined at the beginning of the year with additional improvement attributable to tax benefits.

Please turn to Page 8, and I will touch on a few key topics. As a part of the cost of capital decision, we filed an advice letter with updated costs for debt and preferred equity for SCE's capital structure. This was approved last week. And starting January 1, 2018, our cost of debt will be reduced to 4.98% while our cost of preferred equity will increase slightly to 5.82%. Together with the return on common equity reduction to 10.3%, we estimate a pretax 2018 revenue requirement reduction of $73 million.

On October 27, we filed our annual update to our FERC revenue requirement. And in addition, we proposed a new FERC formula recovery mechanism for 2018. The update reflected a transmission revenue requirement of $1.175 billion, a decrease of approximately $13 million or 1.1% of SCE's 2017 authorized revenue requirement of $1.189 billion.

In the new FERC formula recovery mechanism, we proposed a FERC ROE, not including project-specific adders, of 10.8%. This ROE is composed of a base ROE of 10.3% and an adder of 50 basis points to compensate SCE for its participation in the CAISO. It is reasonable to expect that intervenors will file protest, in which case, FERC will likely accept the new rate subject to refund and provide time for settlement and formal hearings if a settlement is not reached. We cannot speculate on the outcome of this proceeding or the time line, but we'll keep you updated as new information is presented.

SCE continues to maintain a strong balance sheet and significant financial flexibility. Our weighted average common equity component of total capitalization remains at 50.2% as of September 30. We continue to maintain what we believe is a prudently conservative balance sheet at both SCE and at the holding company.

Finally, our fourth quarter earnings call is tentatively scheduled for February 20. Our normal practice is to provide 2018 earnings guidance when we report fourth quarter and full year financial results. However, this will be contingent on SCE receiving a final decision on the 2018 General Rate Case.

That concludes our remarks. Markey, please open the call for questions.

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Ali Agha of SunTrust.

First question. Given the time line that we do know for the schedule in both SONGS and GRC, just based on that and prior experience on how much time PDs, et cetera, take, roughly, when are the earliest could we

(technical difficulty)

Ali, it looks like we may have lost you. For other folks on the call, though, I think Ali may have been headed was -- question on timing of these various decisions, and we can't speculate on when those would be received. I think what we did say was that we don't expect the GRC PD to be issued within 2017.

Our next question comes from Julien Dumoulin-Smith of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Perhaps just a follow-up on some of the commentary you provided. How are you thinking about SONGS with respect to the time line and specifically around sort of the reopening of the multiple phases, right, because we never really got to that in the -- prior to your initial original settlement here. How are you thinking about the prospects here in terms of going back to each one of the separate phases? Or would it be correct to kind of read this as a going directly to the question of cost allocation?

I think the way we read the -- where the process is, and again, we'll all be reading the various comments from parties filed today, but the ACR that the assigned commissioner and the ALJ issued jointly specified a list of topics to be addressed. As I said in my comments, if they determine that the settlement was -- did not continue to be reasonable. They also commented on a proposed time line for addressing all those questions where they envision hearings completing in March of next year. Beyond that, though, I don't think they provided any guidance as to timing, so we're not able to speculate on how long that would take. And at this point, what will -- as I mentioned also, the next step is the November 7 proceeding, and I think that is to get parties talking further about their various filings. And from all of that, the PUC will issue a scoping memo determining final topics for consideration as we go towards the hearings that they have tentatively scheduled for March. So Julien, I think that's about all we can read from the ACR, and we'll have to stay tuned here.

And just a quick -- a couple of housekeeping items, more with respect to your commentary around capital spending contingency plans. By what date next year, broadly, would you need to get that in place in order to execute on the contingency to keep capital spending on track? Is it by midyear or by 1Q, really, that you think?

So Julien, this is Maria. We're actually -- our plans are being put in place even as we speak, and the plan revolves around ensuring that we have the proper resources and the right -- whether it's crews or what have you, to really spend at a level, mostly focused particularly on the grid mod space around safety and reliability types of projects, but spending at a level that will allow us to then ramp up over the course of the year in our, I'll say, more traditional programs, the sustained planning that we would do every year. And so we really don't see any need at any time during the year to have any sort of bright line sort of test where we planning as we always would for that.

And Julien, probably pretty obvious, but the sooner we have clarity, the better for everybody. But I think the team is working hard to continue to build and retain as much optionality as possible as they think about their plans for 2018.

The next question comes from Praful Mehta of Citigroup.

So I just wanted to clarify on the stock-based compensation and the tax benefits. It looks like the $0.09 incremental benefit, just wanted to understand what drove that. And secondly, is that all showing up as cash flow or is this more GAAP related or not really cash flow?

So as to your first question, the incremental piece of it, that's all related to 3 areas. We have stock-based compensation, incremental since we updated guidance in July. We have some net operating loss carrybacks to periods that had higher tax rate, and so we got some tax -- some benefit there. And then the third area is sort of around the audit settlement. So there's really 3 things that are driving that. In terms of cash flow versus earnings, we do get, obviously, benefit from cash flow. We are not a taxpayer right now, and so we will see that over time.

Okay. So the cash flow benefit is not incremental because you're already not a cash taxpayer effectively?

That's right.

Got you. Okay. And secondly, on the grid mod, I get the spend is more safety related at least till you have the decision. Could we understand what percentage of the grid mod spend is safety related? So at what point in time do you run out of steam on safety and you got to have to spend on, I guess, the other components of the spend?

So I think, Praful, in terms of grid mod spend, I think you probably heard us talk about this before. There's an aspect of it that it relates to true modernization, whether that's a new generation of sensors or communication networks or what have you. Another part of it is related to reinforcing the grid and increasing business resiliency and the like. So around, say, our worst circuits and our worst circuit rehab program as well as replacing 4 kV circuits with 12 or 16 kV circuits. We're still in the planning phases right now, so we have not buttoned down the numbers for next year, obviously, but we have a significant portion of spend that we can aim at next year that's related to safety and reliability.

The next question comes from Jonathan Arnold of Deutsche Bank.

Can I just ask if you could give me a or us a preview of what you're going to file on the SONGS issue statement today?

Sure. I'll turn over to Ron Nichols to answer that.

Sure, Jonathan. This is Ron. We'll be filing a statement, a brief perfunctory, actually, that lays out just the fact that we continue to support the existing settlement. I think it's fair and equitable allocation of costs. There were about 9 items, specific items, topically, that the assigned commissioner ruling came out asking for areas that could be addressed and asking for propositions on them. Rather than going into a lot of detail on those, we actually referred to the many different proceedings in which we already commented on these, and give -- we'll have a very brief summary table that will describe in summary fashion what our position is on each of those, but really referring back to the final -- the prior discussions, which went into quite a bit of detail and record.

So in summary, you're going to sort of hold your position and not sort of invite some offer on any of those topics?

Yes. As Ron said, we affirm our view that the current settlement is reasonable and in customers' interest. And obviously, we've been through the set of confidential meet and confer and mediation sessions. As I mentioned earlier, those were not successful interchange. My thesis is consistent with what we said all along. I think the settlement is reasonable, Jonathan. We certainly approach the meet-and-confer mediation sessions with an open mind and engaged, I think, in full good faith. Can't comment beyond that because those were confidential. But at this point, I think we're back to more of a litigation approach and we do stand firmly by our current position.

And do you believe that the process this commission's laid out where everyone just opines on this case's questions of cost allocation and then the commissioner will have sufficient record to make a decision at that point? Does that -- do you procedurally -- do you see that as correct?

Yes. Let me turn it over to Adam Umanoff, our GC.

I think, simply put, we can't speculate on where this is going to lead. The commission has laid out a process. We're going to fully participate in that process, and we'll see what results. As you know, the timing is still uncertain. Hearings are scheduled tentatively to end by the first quarter of next year. That's really all we can say about the process for now.

And, Jonathan, as you can hear from our comments, we're really staying away from speculating on the process, but we remain committed to doing our part. And I think the commission, the ACR, laid out a process, laid out some initial timing and steps. That's constructive, but we'll -- I think we'll all stay tune.

The next question comes from Michael Lapides of Goldman Sachs.

A couple of things. First of all, historically, was there much differentiation between during your annual [TO] filings, the authorized ROE you get at the FERC level for FERC transmission assets versus what California had granted you?

So Michael, the FERC has actually acknowledged that distribution investments have carried with them a higher level of risk than transmission investments, so in our filing that be made on Friday, we did reiterate that position that they have already expressed. I mean, from a -- what's in the record perspective, the FERC has said that they don't have to be guided by that, by whatever the state level ROE is, but in fact, that they do view distribution or have viewed distribution as a more risky investment than transmission. In our filing, we actually did have a base ROE that was equivalent to the 10.3% that we have here in California, but then we added to that the 50 basis point adder for CAISO and then depending on what level of spend is in there for different projects and incentives, you'll see something over that.

Got it. And I just want to make sure -- and I'm looking at the CapEx slides you've put out today, and they're a repeat of stuff you had out earlier. The CapEx does not include much for the transportation electrification, and how much of the storage is actually in there?

So in terms of the transportation electrification, storage, et cetera, the only thing we really have in here is the pilot for Charge Ready, which is about $12 million or so. The phase 2 of Charge Ready, which is the light-duty vehicle charging infrastructure CapEx, that's not in here yet. We have to file a report by next May on the pilot program. And then in 2018, we'll file an application for the balance of that program. The transportation electrification investment that we filed in the application in January, so the medium and heavy-duty charging infrastructure as well as in those smaller priority projects, none of that is in here. And the storage that we have in here is really related to -- we have some storage in our GRC. So that's in the request, and so you'll see that in here, it's buried in there. And then the Aliso Canyon, the 40 megawatts of Aliso Canyon storage is in our numbers now. It's not -- and it's flowing through rate base. It doesn't make a material difference because it's a relatively modest number still.

Got it. And last thing, which is significant transmission projects still require major permits before they can go ahead with construction?

So we have a number of projects that, as you know, we've disclosed in the 10-Q, West of Devers, Mesa, Alberhill, Riverside and Eldorado/Lugo/Mohave upgrade, they're in various stages. West of Devers, as you know, we had some issues with the CPUC getting our certificate of public convenience and necessity. That's all behind us. We certainly still have some local permits that we need to obtain, but it's more of that nature. The Mesa substation also, we had some, I'll say, pushback on the CPUC end, but we've now obtained that. We're out for competitive bids on that. It's going to be done in 2 phases. So one of them is still yet to be done. The Alberhill system is still going through a CPUC decision process. The final environmental impact report was issued but -- and it did reject various alternatives, but we're still going through that approval process, expecting that -- obtain that in 2018. The Riverside Transmission Reliability Project, which is the fourth of the 5 disclosed projects. It's really a joint project, and that is still going through its own process. We've agreed with some revisions that have been recommended for the project, but the CPUC is continuing to collect information on it. And then finally, the Eldorado/Lugo/Mohave Upgrade Project, we proposed an expedited schedule for that, and the regulatory permitting agencies are still considering that. So I would say we are in varying stages of approval. Certainly West of Devers and Mesa, we've gotten through our CPUC process with those.

And quite frankly, Michael, that's why we've wanted to provide this increased level of disclosure over the last several cycles here just because there's some big items in terms of certainly those 5 projects, so we thought that would be good for investors to have a little bit more click-down visibility on that.

The next question comes from Travis Miller of MorningStar.

I was wondering if there was anything within the EIX vision all the different programs and thoughts, transportation electrification, storage, where if you did not get CPUC approval through rate base, through the GRC, that you could perhaps do those projects, invest that capital through, say, energy -- Edison Energy or some other unregulated, less-regulated entity.

Yes, thanks for the question. I think when we talk about the California piece of the story and certainly the elements within Southern California and we look at those elements like electric transportation or as you'll see in our white paper tomorrow, the emphasis on building electrification, water heaters, so the use of that -- greater use of clean energy resources. At the core, I think most of that activity keeps coming back to the essential role for the grid being at the center of helping all that happen for the state of California. Though, I think the focus certainly as we've been talking about some of these key elements with you all, the focus keeps coming back to all of that being supportive of the long-term capital investment story at SCE and being able to support the program at the $4-plus billion year level over likely multiple rate case cycles. There's always a possibility that any given other piece of work could be done outside the utility. I think, again, most of the -- when we see that most of the impact to the company, it's less about, for example, you look at the charging infrastructure programs, we, to date, have not really gotten into the actual ownership of the charger, right? Our focus has been on ensuring that the grid is sufficiently robust and modern to be able to accommodate the chargers that are going to be coming online and then we provided support for customers doing that by in the Charge Ready program rate basing some of the customer-side infrastructure up to but not including the charger itself. So again, I think the bulk of the capital story for us around these programs is the support for grid investment at SCE. Now as we look outside of SCE and frankly outside of California and technology is opening up efficient electrification opportunities across a number of sectors, I do think that's a place where there's Edison Energy is advising large commercial industrial customers, that I think folks understand what we're doing there based on our August Edison Insights discussion. But I think that's more a focus outside of the California story per se.

The next question, we have Ali Agha, back in queue, of SunTrust.

Ali, you had us worried there. You're back.

I am back, Pedro. Thank you for letting me come back. I just wanted to clarify a point you'd made when you talked about the SONGS proceedings going forward most likely now will be litigated and will come to a decision. Does that mean that a potential for or a re-potential for settlement that is essentially now no longer a viable option? Now it is litigation that's the way we should be thinking about this?

Ali, I think that would require us to speculate on whatever twist and turns continue to happen as we go towards the final decision. I will just make a general blanket statement, frankly, about any regulatory proceeding that's litigated that has at least 2 sides to the equation. We are always, as a matter of fact, open to hearing ideas that folks may have around different potential solutions short of a litigated outcome. With SONGS in particular, we went to the meet-and-confer process, we went to the mediation, we were unable to get there. We can't comment on what happened inside the room, as I said before, because of the confidentiality issues. And so that's not where we're focused right now. We're focused on our filing today and the conference coming up November 7 and the next steps after that. Like with anything in life, you never say never. Folks have different ideas as we walk down the pathway here, but we're surely very focused now on how we do high-quality filings and the rest of the process that the PUC is prescribing.

I see. Understood. And may I just have one clarification from you. The tax benefit that you've been recording and getting over the course of this year, are they anticipated to continue as we look forward? Or do you think all the audits, et cetera, are done? Or this could still be a swing factor going forward as well?

Well, we haven't given guidance for future years, Ali. But as I said before, in terms of the different buckets of tax benefits, share-based compensation, people make their own decisions about when they're going to exercise their options, and so we can't really anticipate when and then if there'll be some benefits associated with that. In terms of the audits and the return to provision kind of elements, we do every year have to true up our tax returns and sometimes it's up, sometimes it down, but it varies. As you look at prior years, we've had somethings that have gone in the opposite direction. And then as far as audit settlements, we disclosed what's still open in terms of audits. At the federal level, we're up through 12. We've completed all our audits at the state. We still have a number of years that are open, either being audited or subject still to examination. That's because the state lags until the federal stuff has been resolved. We will continue to provide disclosure around that as we get closer to when those things are completed.

Our next question comes from Shar Pourreza of Guggenheim Partners.

So most of my questions were answered, and I apologize I hopped in a little bit late here. But a lot of the timing of sort of the procedural items you discussed today is kind of unknown, but you're hoping to get closure with the most of it by sometime in early 2018. You do have somewhat of a resource-constrained CPUC. Is there sort of any indirect impact to your procedural plans with sort of the Sonoma fires likely maybe inundating a lot of the time and resources, so net-net, I guess I'm asking have the fires -- I mean, could the fires push out any of your plans somewhat?

Let me take a -- there's a couple of things on that. One, obviously, I think that the PUC and PG&E and a lot of state entities are all still grappling with the aftermath of the fires. So that is a new piece of work, if you will, that hadn't been foreseen a month ago. And so that's certainly will require some work by some of the staff of the PUC. That said, I think the PUC always does a nice job at segmenting work across the various staff areas. So I wouldn't expect necessarily this would mean that all 700 staffers at the PUC are now turning their attention on this one topic. So maybe a long way of saying I don't know, but I would speculate that while it's a -- wildfires may create a new amount of workload for the PUC, it doesn't necessarily mean that everything else stops or gets delayed. The other thing to clarify, though, is to make sure that we're telegraphing precisely what we mean to all of you. As we pointed to 2 key proceedings here at the GRC and the SONGS proceeding, in your question, you mentioned -- it sounded like you had carried away an expectation that we'll be seeing decisions early in 2018. So I want to clarify, we did not say that. We did say that in the GRC, we think it's very unlikely that we would see a PD coming out within 2017, so that implies that we'd see a PD sometime in 2018. Once a PD is issued -- first of all, PDs can take a while to be issued. And secondly, once a PD is issued, then there's the process until it actually gets adopted as a final decision. So that's -- we're now speculating at what point in 2018 or even what year we'd get a rate case decision. We would hope it would be in 2018, but we can't say with certainty. In the SONGS case, likewise, we pointed to an early 2018 date as the date in the SONGS ACR, the March date, March 2018 date by which the PUC expects to have completed hearings. But again, after that, then you have the process of ultimately preparing a PD and then having that become a final decision voted on by the PUC, and we're not speculating on what date that might entail. But just with both of those, I would think it's probably further unlikely. Certainly unlikely we would have a SONGS decision in early 2018 since the hearings wouldn't be completed through March. And with the GRC, given that PDs usually take a similar amount of time to get completed and we still have public participation hearings coming up here soon, I would think it's probably also unlikely we'd have a final decision in the rate case in early 2018.

Speakers, that was the last question. I will now turn the call back to Mr. Sam Ramraj.

Thank you very much for joining us today, and please call us if you have any follow-up questions. That concludes the call. Thank you.