As he started his first day on the job Monday, newly appointed California Public Utilities Commission member Michael Peevey faced a chorus of criticism from consumer groups challenging his objectivity, given his recent history as a utility and energy services senior executive. Peevey asked his critics not to “stereotype” him, and proceeded with cutting his ties to any energy industry executive and/or board positions, or stock ownership that would cause conflicts-of-interest questions.

“If you carry their argument to a logical extreme,” Peevey said in a Los Angeles Times report last Saturday, “because I was a utility executive I shouldn’t be on the commission. Pretty soon the only people you get appointed are dispassionate with no experience. I think you need a cross-section of people to bring various expertise.”

Peevey, 64, is a labor economist with a master’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and has worked in the U.S. Department of Labor as an economist and been a trustee for the California State University 24-campus system. He has said publicly that he accepted Gov. Gray Davis’ appointment to the CPUC last week out of a sense of “duty.” He resigned last Friday as chairman/founder of TruePricing Inc., a Pasadena, CA-based power technology company and from the board of Excelergy Corp., the Massachusetts-based energy software developer.

The new CPUC commissioner said he sold off his energy stocks more than a year ago before accepting an unpaid energy advisor’s role with Davis last January at the height of the state’s electricity crisis.

Peevey’s wife, Carol Liu, is a state legislator in the lower house Assembly, and her recently amended financial disclosure forms indicate that she sold more than $100,000 of PG&E Corp. stock in March 2000 and more than $100,000 of Southern California Edison Co. stock in August 2000 when she was a candidate for the Assembly. The Assemblywoman’s disclosures also indicate that she and Peevey bought more than $10,000 of Enron stock last June, selling it two months later.

Richard Bilas, the Republican appointee of a former governor whose seat Peevey is taking, said Monday he thought Peevey’s appointment was a “good thing,” given his business background, and his past support for direct access deals in the electricity industry, an issue still simmering at the CPUC. Bilas said he resigned, effective last Friday (March 8), for a cumulative set of both personal and philosophical reasons, and he leaves with no animosity toward his former colleagues on the five-member regulatory panel, although he disagreed with many of them strongly on some issues.

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