BALTIMORE — More than 1,300 regulators and other stakeholders attended the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ 129th Annual Meeting and Education Conference at the Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor, where the theme was “Infrastructure, Innovation and Investment.” The National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) attracted more than 200 to its annual meeting at the same hotel.

Here’s some of what we heard.

Powelson Seeks ‘Patience’ as New FERC Forms

FERC Commissioner Robert Powelson said it will take a while for the commission to move forward on rulemakings that languished during its six months without a quorum.

Powelson and Neil Chatterjee joined Cheryl LaFleur on the commission in August, restoring a quorum. Two other commissioners, Kevin McIntyre and Richard Glick, are waiting to be sworn in after being confirmed by the Senate on Nov. 2.

“It’s kind of hard to calibrate around some of these high-level decisions that need to be made. It’s critical that people have a little bit of patience as we get back up and running,” he told NASUCA.

Powelson said he expects FERC to act on its November 2016 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on electric storage within the next three months. (See FERC Rule Would Boost Energy Storage, DER.)

“We also have a conversation started on the fast-start NOPR,” he added. (See FERC: Let Fast-Start Resources Set Prices.)

Powelson said he is using the Department of Energy’s NOPR for coal and nuclear plants as an “inflection point to see what’s working and what’s not working in the organized markets. What I know is working hyper-efficiently is wholesale power prices have dropped and that’s a darn good thing. … Let’s not screw that up.”

The commissioner said he also wants to explore “friction” between RTOs and their market monitors, an issue he said was raised by Virginia State Corporation Chairman Mark Christie at a recent conference.

Christie said in an interview later that he was raising a “structural issue that applies across all RTOs.” (See Order 719: FERC Balanced MMU Independence Against RTO Autonomy.) “What constitutes truly independent market monitoring?” Christie asked. “As the regulator of RTOs, FERC is the appropriate forum to tee up the issue and air it out.”

“I don’t want to go back to the old days,” Powelson said. “I really believe in the independence, and protecting the sanctity of that compact for these independent market monitors. I think they should have the ability to file [with FERC]. And I get a sense that Big Brother RTO wants to say, ‘Yeah, you can be seen and heard when it’s appropriate.’ That’s not a good thing in this world of transparency that we live.”

Powelson expressed skepticism that Order 1000 has resulted in competitive transmission development, saying it is another subject worthy of a “conversation” to determine “what’s working and not working” under the order. “I’m not saying we’re going to amend FERC Order 1000, but I think we owe it to ourselves to have that conversation,” he said.

Stefanie Brand, director of New Jersey’s Rate Counsel, asked Powelson if he was aware of concerns by industrial customers and others about the rising cost of supplemental transmission projects, which are not required by FERC or NERC reliability rules. (See Report Decries Rising PJM Tx Costs; Seeks Project Transparency.)

“Yes, it is something we’re looking at,” Powelson confirmed without elaboration.

Resolutions on Solar Tariffs, Tax Policy OK’d

NARUC’s Committee on Electricity approved a resolution urging the U.S. Trade Representative “to carefully weigh the harm that could result to energy customers from increasing the costs of solar inputs across the country, and the potential challenges to achieving state renewable energy and greenhouse gas goals that may result from higher solar energy prices.” (See Federal Trade Panel Recommends Solar PV Quotas.)

It also approved a measure asking Congress not to restrict state regulators’ ability to determine how any reduction in corporate income tax rates are addressed in utility rates. The resolution said any reductions in taxes on state-regulated investor-owned utilities “should result in a direct benefit to customers, so long as it is captured in the state ratemaking process.”

Betkoski Begins Term as President

NARUC members formally elected Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority Vice Chair John W. “Jack” Betkoski III as its new president for a one-year term. Betkoski has been serving as president since August, when Powelson, a former Pennsylvania regulator, vacated the post to join FERC.

Ellen Nowak, chair of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, was elected first vice president, and Edward S. Finley Jr., chair of the North Carolina Utilities Commission, as second vice president.

NARUC also named Andreas D. Thanos, of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, the winner of the 2017 Terry Barnich Award. The award, which recognizes commissioners and staff who promote international cooperation among utility regulators, is named for the former chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission, who was killed in 2009 while working for the U.S. State Department in Iraq. Thanos was named in recognition of his work in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere.

— Rich Heidorn Jr. and Rory D. Sweeney