From outgoing PRC: A few tips for the new guys

Dec. 28 will be the final meeting of an elected Public Regulation Commission in New Mexico. During the 22-year span of elected commissioners, the PRC has had varying success as a regulatory agency, depending in no small part on the membership and interactions of the commissioners. We feel our past two years may be the most productive, collegial period of the elected commissions. We would like to provide our insights on success and highlight our achievements, which the next commission will build on.

At the outset of this commission’s tenure, we committed to being proactive instead of reactive, especially regarding the need for new or updated rules, agency effectiveness, grid security and stability, and consumer protection. We developed a two-year plan to achieve the changes the new commission would need in place. Having a common plan created a common understanding of purpose that helped unite the commission on many projects.

In deciding cases in public meetings, we developed an informal practice of inviting comments from each commissioner, rather than allowing commissioners’ perspectives to be neglected. This practice fostered a sense of inclusiveness and trust, a bulwark against enmity on a decision-making body. Our cooperative approach led to thoughtful, thorough and sometime creative solutions, where differences of opinion arose, and aided us in balancing the interests of utility investors, ratepayers and the public interest.

Our relative harmony on the bench has supported a tremendous output of work. We met the challenge to adopt a final Community Solar Rule by the statutorily mandated deadline of April 1, 2022, expanding access to solar energy with a 30 percent carve-out for low-income ratepayers. We successfully engaged in multiyear efforts to revise our Integrated Resource Plan Rule to provide transparency and efficiency in utility resource procurement and deployment; to revise the Interconnection Rule to modernize the process for residential and small commercial solar generators’ grid connections; and to initiate a grid modernization rulemaking aimed at bringing the New Mexico grid into the 21st century. We conducted numerous other rulemakings, including on utilities’ renewable energy and reporting compliance requirements, and prison phone-calling charges.

We opened inquiry dockets to increase the commission’s awareness of utility cybersecurity threat protections, investigate utilities’ and co-ops’ readiness to provide services during extreme weather events and supply chain delays, and to investigate utilities’ vegetation management and wildfire mitigation plans.

To stabilize and professionalize staff, we permanently filled the chief of staff position and key positions in the administrative and utilities divisions and the hearing examiners’ and general counsel offices. We created new commission adviser positions in accounting, economics and engineering for much-needed technical assistance. We strengthened our ability to ensure compliance with commission orders by expanding reporting requirements. We aggressively augmented our limited staffing in creative ways: two energy experts on loan from the Department of Energy, emergency grant funding from the state, contracted experts, university experts and a law student intern.

Throughout, we’ve adjudicated many cases, some controversial, all important to the parties involved and the public interest. We continue to administer funds to provide broadband services to unserved and underserved areas of New Mexico, and we’re actively seeking solutions for a failing water utility. We participate in numerous state- and federally authorized committees concerning organized electricity trading markets and electricity transmission in the West. We collaborate with other state agencies, universities and national laboratories on matters of mutual concern.

The new commission has many vital issues awaiting it, particularly concerning utilities’ ability to avoid unscheduled outages, grid modernization, and Western electricity markets and transmission. An excellent staff awaits, as well. We wish them only the best in their endeavors.

Cynthia Hall is Public Regulation Commission chair, and Joseph Maestas is vice chair.