Chairs Council Conference

NARUC held its 27th New Commissioner Regulatory Orientation on April 27-29 at its offices in Washington, D.C. NARUC also held its Chairs Council Conference at the same time.

NARUC Second Vice President and Virginia Commissioner Jehmal Hudson presided over the New Commissioner Regulatory Orientation, which educated them with information and resources to navigate an interconnected regulatory world. District of Columbia Chair Emile Thompson and Iowa Chair Erik Helland presided over the Chairs Council Conference, which educated them on administrative and regulatory functions, as well as helping build relationships.

PUF Senior Advisor Paul Kjellander met with two regulatory leaders on the importance of these educational meetings. He spoke with NARUC President and Georgia Commissioner Tricia Pridemore, as well as NARUC Second Vice President and Virginia Commissioner Jehmal Hudson. 

PUF's Paul Kjellander: You brought together some of the Commission Chairs to Washington, D.C. in late April. Why the focus on Commission Chairs?

FERC Chair Mark Christie was an instructor.

Commissioner Tricia Pridemore: As a former Commission Chair, I recognized quickly that there is a whole host of managing and operating at any Commission that falls outside the ordinary daily responsibilities of regulating.

There is a state agency that must be managed. There are staff, budgets, and relationships with our respective legislatures and governor's offices. A variety of stakeholders are involved and it's important for Commission Chairs to be able to talk openly in a Chatham House rule environment with their peers on how to navigate some of the challenges that are outside of the daily responsibilities of a regulator.

PUF: The administrative functions of the Commission Chairs may be new to them. Is that what you look at as one of the common themes that you want to address?

Commissioner Tricia Pridemore: Absolutely. Back when I was a Commission Chair, I and two other Chairs from across the country had a monthly call. We would share job descriptions and talk about salary ranges.

Hiring is such a big important part of what Commissions do and making sure we have access to great talent. What online tools are we using to recruit folks? We would talk about our work where we interface at the federal level, especially on important aspects of federal programs, such as PHMSA and LIHEAP.

There's a good amount of management that Commission Chairs must do, and we saw this as an opportunity to open it up into a larger format and invite all the Chairs to voluntarily share among their peers and learn.

Besides administrative functions, there is increased turnover of Commissioners and Commission Chairs. We need to get them up to speed and ensure they understand the basics of the regulatory compact, their roles as Commissioners, and how it works within their requisite states. Then, it is making sure they have relationships built with other Commission Chairs.

They can pick up the phone and call at a moment's notice, and it helps sets the tone for how they can relate to one another outside of the three yearly, standard NARUC conferences where every Commissioner is busy and running from committee meeting to subcommittee meeting to vote, representing the interests of their states. We saw this as a great place for NARUC to come in and provide this forum.

The response from the Commission Chairs was overwhelmingly positive and I'm not just saying that because I'm president of NARUC. They seek the opportunity to talk with other Chairs, especially those with similar considerations going on in their states.

Provisioning electricity generation for data centers is huge. On the gas side, pipeline permitting reform is huge. We've got states mining through legislative and Commission priorities, and this provides an opportunity to talk with like-minded Commission Chairs, learn, engage, and be together.

PUF: A common theme is staff turnover, and the role Commission Chairs have in trying to address retention and recruitment. What are you hearing?

Commissioner Tricia Pridemore: The two staff areas that every state seems to struggle to fill are engineers and attorneys. Much of the conversation I had with Commission Chairs this last week was about how to fill those critical roles, especially considering we're dealing with state budget salary ranges.

States used to attract top talent right out of top tech engineering and law schools. That was because of pension programs and what state employment afforded into retirement.

Most states don't have that anymore. We talked about how to effectively recruit people into predominantly engineering and attorney-based roles, whether through insightful ways to talk with governors and legislatures to get staff salaries increased, best places for recruitment, and recruiting tactics. 

That is at universities or programs that are either NARUC adjacent, offering degree programs needed as an industry or those within our requisite states. There was great conversation about recruiting and holding on to top talent and how critical it is to Commissions to operate.

There's a lot of best practices sharing on HR and planning, and of course Commissioners. We love to talk about how we can properly express our needs to state legislatures.

PUF: We used to joke that it was easier for Commission attorneys to go toe-to-toe with utilities' attorneys because of the salary we paid. Then the salaries became lower.

Commissioner Tricia Pridemore: It's true. From a Georgia perspective, we fought hard this last session with our legislature and on behalf of our attorneys to get them raises.

It takes so long to come up to speed on these detailed, intricate regulatory issues that are so important to our state. We hate the idea of bringing somebody in, and once they get up to speed, they get scooped up by the industry. We get them trained and then they leave.

I spent time with some Commission Chairs discussing how we got those raises out of the legislature, the points we made, the value proposition we presented, and what we offered to cut out of our own budget to help with this.

I can't say it enough. Commissioners and Chairs are scrappy people. For the most part, we are invested in the intricacies of these jobs, and work hard to find solutions to complex problems.

PUF: Some Commission Chairs are appointed by a governor, others are elected by Commission colleagues, and some rotate on a regular schedule to allow other Commissioners to serve. There are times one becomes a new Commissioner and Chair simultaneously.

Commissioner Tricia Pridemore: We recently had the new Commissioner orientation going on in a separate conference room and had two Commission Chairs eligible to be in both rooms.

Not only are they coming in as new Commissioners, but they're also coming in as new Chairs of their Commissions. There're four ways that you can come into the Chairmanship. In states like mine, we're elected among our peers.

In other states, you're appointed by the governor to be chair. There are states that rotate. We have states where the Chair runs statewide and is elected by the voters. Sometimes Commissioners come into the role voluntarily and sometimes by default.

PUF: You're currently NARUC President and formerly Georgia commission Chair. What is the best advice received as you stepped into that role?

Commissioner Tricia Pridemore: Any new Commission Chair should first make sure that the surrounding team can be communicated with, and that you know the specific challenges before the Commission at any given time. Don't try to conquer them all at once but prioritize the areas where you know that during your time as Chair, you can make a difference to improve the agency.

That might be in hiring, budgets, and right sizing your agency. It could also be in updating the agency from a technological perspective, prioritizing what needs to be done and ensuring you've got the right people on staff to help with it, which is important.

I always tell a story from when I was Chair, when I first was elected to the Georgia Public Service Commission. State law requires all utilities to submit their rates, in either a monthly or quarterly fashion depending upon the utilities.

This applies to utilities that the PSC in Georgia doesn't rate regulate. It's easy with those we rate regulate, as staff just enters them into the system. But for those we don't regulate, up until I was Chair, all information was coming in on either a quarterly or monthly basis based upon their requirement to file on a CD-ROM.

When utilities told me they were buying CD-ROMs on eBay and CD-ROM burners on eBay to ensure they were meeting the deadline that the state gives them to submit, I was blown away. I was thinking that it's 2021 and you are buying materials to do your job in a secondhand market.

I knew immediately I had to make that a top priority and ensure we could legally collect utilities rates in a safe and protected manner that abided by the statutes of reporting. But my goodness, let them file it electronically.

That's an area that sadly is state government, and it took a couple of months to get it done. But it got done. Now, we have a simple format, no longer where someone goes to four or five utilities in South Georgia and drives the three hundred miles to Atlanta or sends them in a FedEx.

There are opportunities for improvement and efficiencies inside of a state agency that always exist. Chairs should have their ears open and a heart to make it better, so the Commission serves the public interest in the best possible way, and it is why we're there.

We are there in the public interest. Anything a Commission Chair can do to improve the public and the public interest's interaction with the regulatory body should be done.