Lawmakers confirm PUC members
State senators have confirmed two appointees to the beleaguered California Public Utilities Commission, including the current president, who is working to reform the agency.
Senators voted Tuesday to confirm commission President Michael Picker, who was appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown in January 2014. Lawmakers also confirmed Liane Randolph, who was appointed in December 2014.
The PUC oversees nonmunicipal utilities, including electricity, natural gas, telecommunications and water.
“I am very thankful to the Senate for confirming my appointment and allowing me to continue working with the CPUC’s dedicated staff to make the CPUC a modern, accessible and formidable regulatory agency,” Picker said. “Through open and transparent interaction with the Legislature, consumers and other stakeholders, we have the opportunity to improve the way that the CPUC operates.”
Picker promised reform of the commission after revelations of secret dealings between his predecessor on the commission and two of the state’s investor-owned power utilities.
The trouble with regulators’ secret talks with utilities was highlighted in an Aug. 5 ruling by state Administrative Law Judge Melanie Darling. She ruled that Southern California Edison representatives engaged in 10 unreported communications with one or more commissioners or their personal advisors.
The communications, she said, related to the payment of costs from the shutdown of the San Onofre nuclear power plant.
Darling’s ruling, which recommends that Edison pay penalties as high as $34 million, sparked new questions about the San Onofre cost settlement as well as the apparently cozy relationship between the PUC and the utilities it regulates.
Starting last year, PUC commissioners and officials, including former President Michael Peevey, were criticized for improper communications with executives at Pacific Gas & Electric Co. The conversations included how much to fine PG&E for the 2010 explosion of a natural gas transmission line that killed eight people in the Bay Area city of San Bruno.
Thousands of emails also revealed that Peevey, who retired as PUC president at the end of 2014, involved himself in internal decisionmaking at PG&E, such as corporate leadership and rate-setting cases affecting billions of customer dollars.
Before his retirement, Peevey denied wrongdoing and defended his record. He has not commented since then. Edison and PG&E also have disputed many of the allegations.
Peevey’s involvement with executives of the businesses he regulated has prompted probes by the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco and the California attorney general’s office.