Turzai takes position as general counsel for Peoples Gas
One day after resigning as speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Mike Turzai has been hired as general counsel for Peoples Natural Gas.
The North Shore-based utility, which was acquired by Bryn Mawr-based Essential Utilities Inc. (formerly known as Aqua America), announced the long-rumored appointment on Tuesday. Mr. Turzai announced his resignation from the House last Wednesday.
Mr. Turzai, a Republican who lives in Marshall with his wife and three sons, represented the state’s 28th Legislative District, which encompasses the suburbs in northern Allegheny County, for nearly two decades. He was elected speaker of the House in 2015.
When he announced in January he wouldn’t seek re-election, Mr. Turzai said he received a lot of interest from private companies.
It was a pitch from his longtime friend Chris Franklin, CEO of Essential, that prompted Mr. Turzai to leave before his term expired.
The job involves dealing with regulatory, contractual and litigation work.
“Clearly, I think my perspective as a legislator has always been very analytical,” Mr. Turzai said.
The position that now belongs to him has been empty for over a year since Kevin Acklin last occupied it. Mr. Acklin, too, left a government post — he was the chief of staff for Mayor Bill Peduto — to work at Peoples, but now works for the Penguins.
Former Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is the gas utility’s vice president of marketing.
In their public service, all three had worked in various capacities regarding the ailing Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority.
Mr. Turzai had been an advocate of privatizing the PWSA for years. In 2017, during a time when both Peoples and Aqua were interested in acquiring or otherwise operating its assets, Mr. Turzai shepherded the effort to bring the PWSA under the oversight of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.
After the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported in February 2018 that Peoples was crafting a proposal to partner with PWSA by assuming its $1 billion debt, investing money in infrastructure and operating the system, Mr. Turzai voiced his support for the offer.
“PWSA was nothing short of a disaster,” he said Tuesday, explaining his thinking in 2017. “PWSA was never an asset. It was always a liability. A
significant liability.”
When Aqua announced plans to acquire Peoples, the natural gas utility’s plans to pursue an arrangement with PWSA and build a new wastewater treatment plant were put on hold.
It’s not clear where they stand now, but Mr. Turzai said he wouldn’t be involved in anything dealing with the PWSA “because that’s not in my portfolio.”
“My portfolio is chief legal officer for natural gas utility,” he said.
According to Pennsylvania’s revolving door law, Mr. Turzai is prohibited from lobbying legislators in the Pennsylvania House for one year. But, according to legal precedent, he is not restricted from promoting the interests of Peoples before any other government body, including the state Senate, according to Pennsylvania Ethics Commission Executive Director Rob Caruso.
Mr. Turzai will have a lot of business before the PUC, he said, but he said there are no restrictions on that.
“I’m not hired as a lobbyist. I’m part of the executive team at Peoples Gas,” he clarified.
He said his legislative philosophy has always been focused on helping the private sector create jobs. It’s why he became a big proponent of shale gas development in the state, he said.
“I would say that I definitely was ahead of the curve in understanding what it could mean for Western Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania in terms of job opportunities,” Mr. Turzai said.
That stance meant he held back proposals to impose a severance tax on the gas extraction and advanced incentives for natural gas use.
Last year, Mr. Turzai championed legislation to grant tax credits to manufacturing facilities that utilize natural gas — similar to the incentive package passed in 2013 to attract the Shell cracker plant now being built in Beaver County. Shell received around $1.6 billion in incentives to use the natural gas liquid, ethane, for its process.
The 2019 bill passed both chambers earlier this year, but was vetoed by Gov. Tom Wolf. If there was any momentum to orchestrate an override of that veto, Mr. Turzai said, it was swept away by the COVID-19 pandemic. “It never really got on the plate.”
After nearly 20 years in state government, Mr. Turzai said he’ll miss the “friendships that we’ve built on both sides of the aisle, both sides of the Legislature.”
“I’ll miss it in that sense of public service. But, you know, I was a steward. Nobody’s speaker for a lifetime. For me, I felt getting the budget done, helping to manage the economic and COVID crisis [was enough] The recovery is going to come from the private sector.”