Illuzzi: Elect Public Service Board
Toolbox
By DAVE GRAM The Associated Press - Published: August 4, 2009
MONTPELIER — An influential lawmaker says he'll introduce a bill in the next legislative session calling for the Vermont Public Service Board to be elected rather than appointed, as the utility regulation panel is now.
Sen. Vincent Illuzzi, chairman of the Senate Economic Development Committee, said Monday he believes electing the board's three members would make the panel more responsive to the public. He said he hopes the issue can be debated when lawmakers reconvene in January.
"To the extent that the Public Service Board has at all challenged the utilities it's been because of outside political pressure brought to bear, primarily by the General Assembly," said Illuzzi, a Republican who represents Essex and Orleans counties.
He maintained that the board has been too friendly to utilities. "It should be called the Utility Service Board, rather than the Public Service Board," he said.
The board has been at the center of many of Vermont's hottest controversies in recent years. It rejected one large-scale wind farm proposed for the northeastern part of the state and approved another with conditions. It approved the purchase of Verizon's landline phone and Internet service business in Vermont over the objections of Illuzzi and others.
It has approved a 20 percent power boost for the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant and given the plant permission to expand its storage of highly radioactive waste on its grounds in Vernon. Now it is considering whether to approve a 20-year extension on Vermont Yankee's operating license.
Illuzzi's proposal for an elected board got a negative reception both from Public Service Board Chairman James Volz and from David O'Brien, commissioner of the Department of Public Service. The department represents consumers before the board.
Volz said the board operates like a court, noting that its members, like judges, are recommended by the Judicial Nominating Board for appointment by the governor.
"The concept is to have us be independent. I don't work for the governor," he said. "We follow the statutes that the Legislature lays down and implement them in a way that's in the best interests of the state."
Running for a spot on the board would mean raising campaign contributions, the chairman added.
"I'm guessing it's going to be potentially people who have a financial interest in utilities" who make such contributions, Volz said. "It introduces some of the less attractive aspects of politics into the whole thing."
James Moore, energy advocate for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, said Illuzzi's idea has some appeal to his group.
"Greater accountability to the public through our democratic process is a plus," he said. "However, we'd need to make sure that these elections could not be bought by the very companies that are being regulated." He said public financing of elections to the board could solve that.
O'Brien said issues that go before the board are highly technical, involving matters of the law, utility economics and environmental policy.
Illuzzi was a critic of the board's decision early last year to allow North Carolina-based FairPoint Communications to buy Verizon's landline and Internet service territories in Vermont. FairPoint since then has run into problems with its service quality and finances.
Charles Gray, executive director of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, said 10 states, mainly in the South and West, elect members of the boards and commissions that regulate their utilities.
37