California’s often-criticized regulatory commission will strive to take a more “balanced approach” in weighing consumer, utility and economic interests, according to Michael Peevey, the former utility senior executive who was named New Year’s eve to a six-year commission term and as president of the five-member California Public Utilities Commission.

“I do not represent the utilities, though I worked for one,” he said. “I do not represent business interests, though I have founded several. I do not serve only ratepayer financial interests, though I am a ratepayer.”

The new chairman laid out his philosophy Friday in a two-page memo to the CPUC staff that was released to news media. Peevey’s “vision” differs somewhat with the regulatory body’s recent past, in that it “moves beyond the crisis management of the past three years and into an era of reinvigoration of our work on behalf of the citizens of California.” He said that as the largest state in the nation (for population), the CPUC should return to a position of “leadership”among regulatory commissions nationally.

“I define public interest broadly to include ratepayer and consumer needs, healthy utilities providing quality services, a viable economy in which businesses thrive, and a commitment to environmental enhancement,” Peevey said in his memo, adding that it is the CPUC’s job to “take a balanced approach to serving these component parts of the public interest in an integrated way.”

The 64-year-old former president and director of Edison International, parent of Southern California Edison Co., has founded several energy and telecom start-up companies in the past eight years. He was named to the CPUC last March to fulfill the remaining term through the end of 2002 of Richard Bilas who resigned.

Peevey took on his consumer and political critics, who accuse him of representing the utilities on the commission, noting that he doesn’t represent any particular sector.

In addition to sharing his personal philosophy and admitting to being perhaps difficult to work with at times, Peevey reiterated that the state regulatory panel has “much work to do,” and needs to work more cooperatively with California’s alphabet soup state agencies with impact on the industries the CPUC oversees. (Since the state’s energy crisis this has included the additions of the Department of Water Resources (DWR), state Power Authority, and state Attorney General’s Office, in addition to a half-dozen traditional energy/environmental agencies.)

“It is my intent to signal our cooperative effort strongly to our partners, and I expect that staff will get to know their counterparts in other agencies and work cooperatively toward the common goals articulated by the leadership,” Peevey said.

In what some inside observers may see as a slap at the outgoing president Loretta Lynch, a lawyer who remains on the CPUC as one of its five members, Peevey said he did not find “micro-management and/or crisis management to be helpful.”

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