Regulator

The White House this week forwarded to the Senate the nomination of former New Mexico regulator Suedeen G. Kelly for a seat on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The move comes three months after President Bush announced his intention to tap Kelly, a Democrat, for the five-member federal regulatory agency (see Daily GPI, March 11).

Although clearly an attempt by FERC to extend an olive branch to states and regions miffed by certain elements of the federal agency’s pending standard market design (SMD) proposal, the head of the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (WUTC) last Tuesday said that an SMD white paper recently unveiled by FERC doesn’t go far enough in meeting state concerns over retail electric jurisdictional issues.

Over the lone objections of the former head state regulator, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. Thursday received a $7.6 million conditioned reward from state regulators for its natural gas buying in 2001-02, including the period of extreme wholesale energy price spikes. The reward for keeping costs below a formula tied to gas price indices was less than half of the almost $17 million requested by the utility and was subject to future forfeiture pending the outcome of pending California wholesale border price investigations.

In another indication that California’s new top regulator wants his own team, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Thursday replaced its civil service executive director with an outsider who is a long-term consumer/environmental activist, Bill Ahern, a former state government manager who has been a senior policy analyst in the Consumers Union San Francisco office.

California’s Gov. Gray Davis re-appointed Michael Peevey, 64, to the California Public Utilities Commission and appointed his current cabinet secretary, Susan Kennedy, 42, to another spot on the five-member CPUC. Both are appointed to six-year terms and their new positions are subject to state Senate confirmation. Davis also re-appointed John Geesman to the California Energy Resources and Development Commission, which serves as the state’s primary energy policy/planning agency. Geesman, 51, the newest member of the commission was appointed to a full five-year term.

California’s Gov. Gray Davis Tuesday prepared for the New Year by re-appointing Michael Peevey, 64, to the California Public Utilities Commission and appointing his current cabinet secretary, Susan Kennedy, 42, to another spot on the five-member CPUC. Both are appointed to six-year terms and their new positions are subject to state Senate confirmation.

The sole remaining Republican appointee on the five-member California Public Utilities Commission, Henry Duque, received a four-week extension to his term to have time to file an appeal of an earlier ruling regarding alleged conflict-of-interest violations involving his ownership of telecommunications stock of a company the CPUC regulates. The extension was granted despite an earlier court ruling recommending his removal from the state regulatory panel.

The current Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) got off to a rocky start, but it seems to have “hit its stride,” said a former FERC commissioner last Thursday.

Although the state appears to have all the elements in place to successfully open its electricity markets to competition, the chairman of the Mississippi Public Service Commission (PSC) continues to harbor serious doubts as to how such a move will accrue to the benefit of the state’s retail customers.