State Regulatory Relations
New Co-Vice Chairs Named for NARUC Critical Infrastructure Committee
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Commissioner
Jeffrey L. Golc |
Commissioner Jeffrey L. Golc of the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission and Commissioner Anthony Palermino of theConnecticut Department of Public Utility Control, were recently named co-vice chairs of the NARUC Committee on Critical Infrastructure.
Chairman Elizabeth B. Fleming of the South Carolina Public Service Commission is the chair of the committee.
Golc was appointed to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission on Jan. 3, 2007, by Gov. Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. Golc is a member of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) and is an active member of the NARUC Water Committee.
Golc also participates in the American Water Works Association (AWWA), the Mid-America Regulatory Conference (MARC) and Water for People (WFP) Committee. On Feb. 26, 2008, Golc was appointed by Marsha H. Smith, president of NARUC, to be a liaison between the NARUC Committee on Water and the Committee of Critical Infrastructure.
Before joining the IURC, Golc served as the government/regulatory affairs manager for The Kroger Company, where he acted as the official spokesperson. In 2005, he received the President's Award, the highest honor given to Kroger employees.
Prior to his position with The Kroger Company, Golc served as the deputy commissioner for the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. He was also an elected member of the Indianapolis City-County Council from 1988-1999.
Golc graduated from Indiana University, where he earned his B.A. (`76) and M.A. (`82) in communications.
Commissioner Anthony J. Palermino was reappointed commissioner of the Connecticut Public Utility Control Authority for a four-year term, which expires June 30, 2011. In his position, he primarily focuses on telecommunications and cable television issues. Palermino serves as a NARUC representative to the Joint Federal-State North American Numbering Council and the Joint Federal-State Board on Separations, and is a member of NARUC's Telecommunications Committee and Critical Infrastructure Committee. He represents the DPUC as a member of the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Economic Resource Center and the Connecticut Commission for Educational Technology.
Prior to his appointment, Palermino operated a private law practice in Hartford, since 1980, and a consulting firm, PAL Associates LLC, since 1991. He has a broad background in government and business affairs with extensive experience in legal representation, litigation, collective bargaining, mediation and arbitration, legislative and governmental policy making, and business operations, including capital and operational budgets.
Palermino has held a variety of positions in both state and municipal service,including: state representative for the 5th District, 1983-90; chair of the state Bonding Subcommittee with responsibility for the state’s capital budget, 1987-1990; special Counsel to the Connecticut General Assembly, 1990; chair of the Building Committee of the Connecticut Convention Center Authority, 1996-98; member of the Connecticut Commission on Hospitals and Health Care, 1980-81; and City of Hartford special counsel, 1975-76. He is a member of the Connecticut Bar; the U.S. District Court, District of Connecticut Bar; the U.S. Court of Appeals, First and Second Circuit Bars; and the U.S. Supreme Court Bar.
He has also served in various civic capacities, including: Newington’s Lucy Welles Library Board of Directors (1993-present), serving as chair 2000-2001; Newington Board of Ethics, 1990-1991; legal services director for Hartford’s SouthEnd Community Services, 1980-1985; and mentor for the University of Connecticut Law School, 1994-2004.
Palermino received a B.A., magna cum laude, from College of the Holy Cross in 1972 and a Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1975.
Established on a temporary basis after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the now-permanent Critical Infrastructure Committee provides state regulators a forum to analyze solutions to utility infrastructure security and delivery concerns. As demonstrated on Sept. 11 and later during Hurricane Katrina, protection of the nation's energy and telecommunications infrastructure is critical to national security, and this committee gives state regulators opportunities to share best practices and collaborate among themselves and their federal counterparts.
Preparation Underway for 5th National Drinking Water Symposium
The 5th National Dinking Water Symposium will be held Oct. 11-14, 2009, at The Swan in Orlando, Fla.
The symposium, with a theme of, “Assuring Drinking Water Sustainability in a Time of Economic and Infrastructure Challenges and Change,” is presented in cooperation with the National Association of Water Companies, the Unites States Environmental Protection Agency, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators.
Program information including registration material is available at www.nawc.org.
Limited travel stipends will be provided by NAWC for commissioners and commission staff. For stipend information, please contact Cade Clark at cade@nawc.com
Kentucky Assesses Storm Response via the Web
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Chairman David Armstrong |
When major power outages strike, state utility regulators are deluged with calls and e-mails from unhappy customers. Getting those same customers to assess outage-related issues months after the fact, when public interest and outrage have waned, is a difficult task.
But a new program in Kentucky has proved that customers will provide such information if it is easy for them to do so.
Kentucky’s Public Service Commission is conducting a comprehensive review of utility performance during Hurricane Ike in September 2008 and the January 2009 ice storm. Those two events produced the largest utility outages in Kentucky history. Hurricane Ike, which knocked out service to about 600,000 customers, was twice as large as the previous record outage. Less than five months later, the ice storm topped that with a new record by knocking out service to 770,000 customers.
In the course of preparing lengthy information requests to utilities and local government officials, the KPSC determined that some information could best be obtained directly from customers.
“We need to have a customer perspective on how well utilities responded to customer inquiries and concerns,” PSC Chairman David Armstrong said. “We also want to know whether customers had adequate access to vital information, particularly with respect to health and safety. And we want to know about the extent of individual emergency preparedness.”
In considering how to obtain that information, the KPSC focused on low cost and ease of use, Armstrong said.
“A Web-based survey was the obvious choice,” Armstrong said. “Nothing else could match it for cost effectiveness.”
The staff team working on the storm review devised a survey that asks questions about:
- The duration of outages for each utility serving the customer;
- The cause of any electric outage, if known to the customer;
- Any cost borne by the customer to repair damage to the electric service connection;
- Customer experiences in attempting to contact utility companies during the outage;
- Household emergency preparedness; and
- Availability and sources of information for power restoration, public health, safety and other key issues.
Customers also have an opportunity to provide open-ended comments. Names and addresses are requested but not required. Those filling out the survey must provide their city and county of residence, and an e-mail address. Once the questions were formulated, the PSC’s IT division turned them into a survey form that incorporated check-off boxes and use pull-down menus for ease of use.
After testing, the survey went live on the PSC Web site, http://www.psc.state.ky.us, on June 10. A press release was issued announcing the survey, and a link to the survey is displayed prominently on the site’s home page.
In its first two weeks, the survey received more than 700 responses, with about half of those in the first two days. The survey will remain available until July 31, with a final report completed this fall.
Commissioner Robert M. Pickett Re-Elected As RCA Chairman
Commissioner Robert M. Pickett was unanimously re-elected as the chairman of the Regulatory Commission of Alaska (RCA) during a public meeting held May 27, 2009.
Pickett will continue to be responsible for the administrative functions of the RCA and will preside over the commission for a one-year term, which started at the beginning of the fiscal year, July 1, 2009, through June 30, 2010.
Kentucky PSC Approves Rate Settlement
The Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) has approved a proposed settlement agreement which authorizes Kentucky-American Water Company (KAWC) to increase its annual base-rate operating revenues by $10.3 million, or approximately 18.1 percent; Adjustment of Rates of Kentucky-American Water Co., Case No. 2008-00427. Of particular note, the settlement agreement (1) permits KAWC to rate base $20.2 million of Kentucky River Station II (KRS II) costs, without an Allowance for Funds Used During Construction offset, and (2) precludes signatory parties, which included the Attorney General of Kentucky; the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government; and the Community Action Council for Lexington-Fayette, Bourbon, Harrison and Nicholas Counties Inc., from arguing in KAWC’s next general rate case that some part of its KRS II costs should be disallowed on grounds of “rate shock.” The commission noted, however, that it was not waving its rights to raise such issues in a future proceeding.
U.S. Supreme Court Rules In Alaska Case
In an opinion released on June 22, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that had invalidated a permit granted by the U.S. Corps of Engineers authorizing a mining company to dispose of tailings into an Alaskan freshwater lake; Coeur Alaska, Inc. v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, 174 L.Ed.2d 193 (2009).
In essence, the court held that, under the Clean Water Act, the Corps of Engineers’ wetlands permitting jurisdiction trumped the Environmental Protection Agency’s water pollution process, i.e., that the tailings constituted fill rather than mine wastewater. Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justices Souter and Stevens, dissented, concluding:
[I]t is neither necessary nor proper to read the [Clean Water Act] as allowing mines to bypass EPA’s zero-discharge standard by classifying slurry as “fill material.” The use of waters of the United States as “settling ponds” for harmful mining waste, the Court of Appeals correctly held, is antithetical to the text, structure and purpose of the Clean Water Act.
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