Regulatory Assets and Liabilities

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2020

Regulatory Assets and Liabilities Disclosure [Abstract]

Regulatory Assets and Liabilities

Regulatory Assets and Liabilities

Regulatory Assets

SCE's regulatory assets included on the consolidated balance sheets are:

(in millions)	March 31, 2020		December 31, 2019
Current:
Regulatory balancing and memorandum accounts	$	993	$	798
Power contracts	210		189
Other	22		22
Total current	1,225		1,009
Long-term:
Deferred income taxes, net of liabilities	4,145		4,026
Pensions and other postretirement benefits	85		87
Power contracts	387		434
Unamortized investments, net of accumulated amortization	118		119
Unamortized loss on reacquired debt	139		142
Regulatory balancing and memorandum accounts	1,129		981
Environmental remediation	235		237
Other	56		62
Total long-term	6,294		6,088
Total regulatory assets	$	7,519	$	7,097

Regulatory Liabilities

SCE's regulatory liabilities included on the consolidated balance sheets are:

(in millions)	March 31, 2020		December 31, 2019
Current:
Regulatory balancing and memorandum accounts	$	749	$	883
Energy derivatives	3		80
Other	12		9
Total current	764		972
Long-term:
Cost of removal	2,670		2,674
Re-measurement of deferred taxes	2,388		2,424
Recoveries in excess of ARO liabilities1	1,245		1,569
Regulatory balancing and memorandum accounts	1,356		1,261
Other postretirement benefits	420		416
Other	34		41
Total long-term	8,113		8,385
Total regulatory liabilities	$	8,877	$	9,357

¹  Represents the cumulative differences between ARO expenses and amounts collected in rates primarily for the decommissioning of SCE's nuclear generation facilities. Decommissioning costs recovered through rates are primarily placed in nuclear decommissioning trusts. This regulatory liability also represents the deferral of realized and unrealized gains and losses on the nuclear decommissioning trust investments. See Note 10 for further discussion.

Net Regulatory Balancing and Memorandum Accounts

The following table summarizes the significant components of regulatory balancing and memorandum accounts included in the above tables of regulatory assets and liabilities:

(in millions)	March 31, 2020			December 31, 2019
Asset (liability)
Energy resource recovery account	$	(120	)	$	(23	)
Portfolio allocation balancing account	599			537
New system generation balancing account	75			85
Public purpose programs and energy efficiency programs	(1,330		)	(1,235		)
Tax accounting memorandum account and pole loading balancing account	(7		)	17
Base revenue requirement balancing account	101			(328		)
DOE litigation memorandum account	(35		)	(35		)
Greenhouse gas auction revenue and low carbon fuel standard revenue	(234		)	(196		)
FERC balancing accounts	(58		)	(127		)
Wildfire-related memorandum accounts1	947			868
Other	79			72
Asset (liability)	$	17		$	(365	)

¹ 

The wildfire-related memorandum accounts regulatory assets represent wildfire-related costs that are probable of future recovery from customers, subject to a reasonableness review. The Fire Hazard Prevention Memorandum Account ("FHPMA") is used to track costs related to fire safety and to implement fire prevention corrective action measures in extreme and very high fire threat areas. The Catastrophic Event Memorandum Account ("CEMA") is used to track costs related to restoring service and damage repair, upon declaration of disasters by state or federal authorities. The Wildfire Expense Memorandum Account ("WEMA") is used to track incremental wildfire insurance costs and uninsured wildfire-related financing, legal and claims costs. During 2019, the CPUC approved a Wildfire Mitigation Plan memorandum account to track costs incurred to implement SCE's Wildfire Mitigation Plan that are not currently reflected in SCE's revenue requirements, a Grid Safety and Resiliency Program Memorandum Account ("GSRPMA") to track the costs of SCE's GS&RP that are incremental to costs approved for recovery in SCE's 2018 GRC and a fire risk mitigation memorandum account to track costs related to the reduction of fire risk that are incremental to the amount in SCE's any other revenue requirement.