ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Andrew Cuomo has nominated John Rhodes, CEO of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, to chair the Public Service Commission, NYSERDA Chairman Richard Kauffman said Wednesday.
“John represents continuity,” Kauffman told several hundred attendees at the Independent Power Producers of New York annual meeting. “If you know his background, he’s someone committed to markets.”
The PSC has been operating with only interim Chair Gregg Sayre and Commissioner Diane Burman since March, when Chair Audrey Zibelman resigned and Commissioner Patricia Acampora retired. The commission also has had a two-year-long vacancy. (See NY REV Won’t Lose Momentum, Departing Zibelman Says.)
The Cuomo administration has taken a position that the two existing commissioners are sufficient for a quorum, but that interpretation “hasn’t been tested,” said state Sen. Joseph Griffo (R), chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Telecommunications, who spoke to the IPPNY conference before Kauffman.
Kauffman said Cuomo, a Democrat, intends to name nominees for the other two vacant seats soon enough to ensure their confirmation before the end of the current legislative session in June.
But Griffo said that the Senate will “carefully vet” Cuomo’s nominees. “It’s not going to be a pro forma type of submission,” he said.
Rhodes has run NYSERDA since September 2013, following stints as director for the Center for Market Innovation at the Natural Resources Defense Council and chief operating officer at Good Energies, an investment firm focused on renewable energy and energy efficiency.
He is a former partner at Booz Allen Hamilton and has also worked as a trader and general manager at Metallgesellschaft, a German mining, metals and engineering firm. He has a bachelor’s degree in history from Princeton University and a master’s degree in management from Yale.
— Rich Heidorn Jr.
