Potential Legislative Enablements
David Magnus Boonin is president and founder of TBG Consulting. He served as a member of the Philadelphia Gas Commission, chief economist of the Pennsylvania PUC and a principal at the NRRI. Recently he has focused on issues such as rate design, resource planning, cost management, and climate change.
State and federal statutes and regulations both enable and constrain public utility regulators.
These regulators address public interest responsibilities that extend beyond setting reasonable rates that provide utilities an opportunity to earn a fair rate of return such as economic growth, security, utility service affordability, energy planning, etc. within the confines of current laws that differ from state to state.
Now these regulators and the utilities under their jurisdiction find themselves at the core of the battle against climate change. All too often, state laws and regulations, often enacted many decades ago, limit commissions' and utilities' ability to help save the planet.
Regulators and utilities know what enhanced tools and authority they need to be effective in the battle against climate change, while still meeting their responsibilities to utility customers and investors. This goes beyond the broad strokes that some states have adopted, setting carbon reduction goals by a certain date. If legislatures authorize utility regulators to use an array of specific tools, these regulators can become more effective climate change warriors.
One approach would be for regulators, through a joint campaign coordinated by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and energy utility industry trade associations, to develop model legislation that each state can tailor for its own situation.