By Amanda Durish Cook

ST. PAUL, Minn. — MISO Steering Committee members are asking if there is a need to formalize the creation and retirement of task teams following the Resource Adequacy Subcommittee’s contentious decision in July to retire the Competitive Retail Solution Task Team.

“There’s no formal process for retiring a task team, and there’s good reason for that. Task teams do not follow the Stakeholder Governance Guide,” Steering Committee Chair Tia Elliott said. “I heard from stakeholders that it’s important to keep that process outside of formalization.”

American Electric Power’s Kent Feliks said he opposed formalizing task team creation and that, like PJM, MISO could use special meetings to discuss issues that would cut down on the number of task teams that parent entities create.

Resource Adequacy Subcommittee Chair Gary Mathis said it may be helpful to insert language into the Stakeholder Governance Guide to define how task teams are formed and dissolved.

Ameren’s Ray McCausland said Robert’s Rules of Order currently govern the creation and disbanding of task teams, because the Stakeholder Governance Guide defers to Robert’s Rules when directions “aren’t otherwise stated.”

Mathis said the bylaws are worded so that only parent entities are required to follow Robert’s Rules, not task teams.  Feliks said he preferred leaving the creation and dissolution of task teams up to parent entity leadership.

After discussion, the issue was tabled until the Steering Committee’s Nov. 3 Stakeholder Governance Guide workshop.

Conference Call Protocol

Steering Committee members also discussed whether changes are needed to get callers queued up more quickly during meetings. Currently, entity chairs are in charge of recognizing callers with opinions and questions.

Currently, McCausland said, operator-assisted calls are in violation of the governance guide. He said callers should be able to interrupt the speaker directly by deselecting their mute buttons. He argued that people attending in-person have rights that those dialing in do not have.

“It’s a brainer. We have to think about this,” Mathis added.

Elliott said the issue could be handled by MISO with a technology fix, possibly through a function that allows callers to immediately open lines without operator assistance.