The Conference of California Public Utility Counsel

home > About Us > 2012 Board of Directors > Bio Douglas Porter

Doug Porter is director of the Generation Policy and Resources Section of the Law Department.  Doug and his team of lawyers in the Generation Policy and Resources Section represent SCE in matters involving state and federal policies affecting SCE’s utility owned generation as well as ratemaking and contract issues impacting SCE’s own nuclear, coal, fuel cell, solar photovoltaic and natural gas-fired generation facilities.  That representation includes activities regulated by the CPUC, the CEC, the NRC and the FERC.

Prior to joining SCE in February of 1993, Doug Porter was Senior Counsel to Southern California Gas Company where he was lead attorney in matters before the FERC on behalf of SoCalGas, the largest single customer of El Paso Natural Gas Company and of Transwestern Pipeline Company.  FERC’s efforts to deregulate the interstate pipeline industry in the 80s started with the pipelines serving Southern California; namely, El Paso and Transwestern. Doug was counsel most directly involved in each of the regulatory and contractual steps taken by SoCalGas to further the transition from the pipeline as merchant to the pipeline as transporter. In addition, Doug was also responsible for representing the small power production affiliate of SoCalGas before the CPUC and the FERC.  That representation included the historic CPUC negotiations that were critical to the creation of the nation’s largest market for independent power projects.

Upon coming to SCE, Doug assisted SCE in becoming a large and active participant in the interstate market for natural gas and pipeline capacity.  Later he led the SCE team that brought a complaint against El Paso Natural Company and others for manipulating the market for interstate capacity at the California border during the California Energy Crisis of 2000-2001.  Those efforts resulted in settlements on behalf of California ratepayers in excess of $2 billion.

Doug is a member of the Nuclear Energy Institute Lawyers Committee and the California Conference of Public Utility Counsel.  He is admitted to practice in California and is a member of the bars of the United States Supreme Court, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Central District Court of California, the Federal Court of Claims and the United States Tax Court. In the course of his 35 years of practice, Doug has litigated numerous rate matters at the CPUC and at the FERC.

Doug earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of California at Berkeley, a Masters of Art degree in Social Psychology from Columbia University in the City of New York and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University with Departmental Honors.  Doug is married with three children.