Kinda Like Mr. Scott’s Warp Drive
Steve Mitnick has authored five books on the economics, history, and people of the utilities industries. While in the consulting practice leadership of McKinsey & Co. and Marsh & McLennan, he advised utility leaders. He led a transmission development company and was a New York Governor’s chief energy advisor. Mitnick was an expert witness appearing before utility regulatory commissions of six states, D.C., FERC, and in Canada, and taught microeconomics, macroeconomics, and statistics at Georgetown University.
A personal note, if I may. Public Utilities Fortnightly started its run ninety-eight years ago with the enthusiastic support of NARUC and the utility leaders of that day so long ago. Its mission, to be a platform for the principled perspectives of the thought leaders of the late nineteen twenties and early thirties on utility regulation, policy, and management, to impact the debates about them, all in the service of the public interest.
Throughout its history, to today, PUF has mostly served that mission well. It was not perfect, to be sure. In the middle decades of the twentieth century, it sometimes leaned over to one side, first by politicking against public power through the fifties, then by complaining about the states putting in place consumer advocacy agencies through the seventies. In the late nineties, caught up in the push to deregulate nearly everything in sight, across the utilities industry, and in the belief that utility regulation was passe, PUF was sold to its employees.
From then, to a decade ago, PUF became increasingly commercial and decreasingly focused on utility regulation and the public interest. Accordingly, interest in PUF by the utility regulatory community waned.
But then, your PUF team took the reins, in late 2015. Since that point, well, you know the rest of the story. In the last decade, PUF has grown enormously. From our hard work. From our refocus on utility regulation and the public interest. And, most certainly, from the enthusiastic support of leaders across the state commissions, state advocacy agencies, electric, natural gas and water utilities, and the associations, vendors, and professional firms that support them.
What next? That’s been on my mind of late. I have felt like what Gene Rodenberry, the legendary creator of Star Trek, must have felt in the late nineteen seventies. It has become evident to me in the last couple of years, as it must have been for him, that it is time for the next generation to carry the torch, albeit at warp speed. To keep the story going. But freshly, so the story can have as much meaning for those younger as it has had for those older.
It was then that we started talking with the folks leading the Smart Electric Power Alliance. Beginning with a conversation at last year’s NARUC Winter Policy Summit with SEPA CEO Sheri Givens, a former utility officer, a former state consumer advocate.
SEPA clearly was as passionate about Public Utilities Fortnightly as we were. And was ready to invest aggressively to really ramp up our capacity and expand our service to you and the entire utility regulatory and policy community.
Assuring me that PUF would blow past its hundredth birthday in 2028 and well beyond fulfilling that noble mission set so long ago. To be a platform for the principled perspectives of the thought leaders of today and tomorrow on utility regulation, policy, and management, to impact the debates about them, all in the service of the public interest.
So, naturally, I said, “Beam me up, Scotty.” So now, PUF is powered by SEPA. Which is, I think, kinda like Mr. Scott’s warp drive.
