At the annual National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners conference in Orlando last November, the Todd Snitchler Show was one of the hottest tickets.
NARUC gatherings are not known for their production effects or sense of humor, but Snitchler — the moderator of a session titled “The Environmental and Economic Implications of Carbon Restrictions” added a bit of show biz flair. The session opened with a soundtrack featuring Pink Floyd’s Money and a clip from a Will Ferrell movie. The six speakers stood at podiums, debate-style, while Snitchler strode among the audience like Oprah with a handheld microphone.
Snitchler won’t be enlivening any future NARUC conferences. The colorful, controversial chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio announced last week he won’t seek reappointment, ending a three-year run during which he championed electric choice and alienated environmentalists with his Twitter posts expressing skepticism about renewable power and climate change. The 43-year-old Republican’s term as head of the 320-person agency ends April 10.
Legacy
Don Mason, an energy attorney and former PUCO member called Snitchler “one of the finest regulators that Ohio has ever had.”
“Wicked smart,” was the way Gov. John Kasich described Snitchler when he appointed him to the commission. Kasich praised the chairman in a statement last week as an “effective leader” and a “fierce defender of the PUCO’s independence.”
The Columbus Dispatch summed up his legacy in less glowing terms, writing, “Snitchler has been part of decisions that angered utility companies, consumer advocates and large businesses, sometimes all at the same time.”
Electric Deregulation
In an interview with RTO Insider yesterday, Snitchler expressed few regrets and said he was proud of his agency’s role in the state’s transition to electric deregulation.
“I think we have moved steadily and consistently into a more competitive posture,” Snitchler said, citing the “dramatic increase” in the number of competitive suppliers and the increased shopping activity by individuals and municipal aggregators. The PUC announced last month that, for the first time, more power customers are buying their power from alternative suppliers than incumbent utilities.
Consumer advocates give Snitchler and the commission he headed mixed marks, acknowledging that electric prices declined since 2009, due to the combined effects of the recession and the influx of cheap natural gas.
“The outgoing chair is very much a devotee of the free market, à la the Texas model, which our organization doesn’t see as very advantageous to consumers,” said David Rinebolt, executive director of Ohio Partners for Affordable Energy. That model forces everyone to shop rather than allowing default service providers, which Rinebolt said forces consumers to absorb marketing costs.
While Ohio law requires default service in electricity, it doesn’t in natural gas. Rinebolt’s group is currently challenging a move to eliminate default service for some commercial gas customers.
Rinebolt praised Snitchler, however, for pushing electric distribution companies to use competitive procurement to obtain energy for their standard service offer.
Sam Randazzo, counsel to the Industrial Energy Users-Ohio, faulted PUCO for allowing utilities to collect “massive amounts” of transition, or “stranded” costs. As a result, he said, Ohio businesses and individuals are paying rates that are much higher than what are reflected in PJM capacity prices.
ALEC
Gov. Kasich appointed Snitchler in January 2011 to complete the term of former Chairman Alan Schriber.
Then a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, Snitchler was, like Kasich, active in the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group that promotes free markets and reduced regulation. Snitchler was a keynote speaker at an ALEC task force meeting in April 2011 after joining the PUC.
Last year, Ohio legislators battled over legislation backed by ALEC to weaken or repeal the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS).
The legislation targeted Ohio’s “25-by-25” standard, which requires power companies to get 12.5% of their electricity from renewables and an equal amount from “advanced energy,” such as fuel cells, “clean coal” or new-generation nuclear power by 2025.
The legislation stalled in committee in December in the face of opposition from stakeholders including the Ohio Manufacturers Association and the Ohio Office of Consumers’ Counsel.
Snitchler and PUCO took no public position on the legislation. But he has made clear his misgivings about renewable power in frequent Twitter postings.
Tweets
The Columbus Dispatch reported a year ago that among more than 1,000 tweets from the previous year, “Snitchler did not once share anything positive about renewable energy.”
Among the tweets: “After [Hurricane] Sandy no one lined up for wind turbines,” and the “‘green’ religion is taking over from Christian religion.”
He also shared posts expressing doubts about climate change, quoting a report that noted that “the Himalayas and nearby peaks have lost no ice in past 10 years.”
On another occasion, he re-tweeted a story from the Communist Party newspaper Pravda, titled “Elites of West have cranked up myth of Global Warming.” Snitchler said he found the article “interesting.”
State Rep. Mike Foley, a Democrat, called Snitchler’s posts “radical.”
“The First Amendment entitles Snitchler to say what he wants. But Ohio isn’t paying Snitchler to do stand-up,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote in an editorial. “Ohio is paying Snitchler to do the judgelike job of setting utility rates. That requires an open mind, not a juvenile one.”
“The guy is a right-wing ideologue and he doesn’t belong in a regulatory body that’s supposed to be impartial and protect the consumers, which he’s not doing,” Henry Eckhart, former commissioner who now represents utility consumers, told the Massillon, Ohio, Independent.
He quoted America’s Natural Gas Alliance so often that one commenter said “on some days @snitch92 might be confused for the ANGA’s feed.”
In fact, Snitchler has expressed concerns about the state becoming overly dependent on natural gas as an electric source, and called for a continued role for coal.
“While shale gas may be a major component in the here and now planning by our utilities there is no doubt coal needs to continue to play a major role in our future generation mix,” he told an Ohio House committee in October.
Snitchler declined yesterday to talk about specific postings or his view of climate change science.
“That’s not been a focus of my effort at the commission,” he said. He acknowledged, however, “You always learn lessons about better ways to communicate, and that was a lesson learned on my part.”
AEP Solar Project
The tweets came to light after Snitchler voted with a 3-1 majority to reject American Electric Power’s proposed Turning Point solar energy project.
The 50 MW project — about 250,000 solar panels on a reclaimed strip-mine — would have been the largest solar farm east of the Rocky Mountains. It had been championed by Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, during his unsuccessful 2010 reelection campaign against Kasich.
The PUCO staff supported it, saying additional solar capacity was needed to comply with the state’s renewable mandates.
Ohio’s industrial energy users and FirstEnergy Corp. were among those who opposed the project, criticizing the funding mechanism AEP sought — a surcharge on all AEP distribution customers, including those who purchase power from competitive suppliers.
Snitchler joined with Commissioners Lynn Slaby and Andre Porter — now Kasich’s Commerce Department director — in finding that the project sponsors had failed to demonstrate it benefited ratepayers and was in the public interest.
“It wasn’t a question of being anti-renewables or anti-solar,” Snitchler said. “The Ohio Power Siting Board, on which I also served, approved a number of renewable projects, particularly wind, during my tenure.”
Former PUCO Commissioner Cheryl Roberto, now the Environmental Defense Fund’s Associate Vice President of Smart Power, said although she disagreed with Snitchler on environmental issues, she found him “pragmatic” and cooperative.
“I really enjoyed working with Todd,” said Roberto, who left the commission in December 2012. “I think Todd works very hard to understand some very complex and arcane issues.”
Travel Expenses
Snitchler came under criticism this month after the Dayton Daily News reported that the commission spent nearly $35,000 to send the five commissioners and 15 staff members to the NARUC conference.
The Ohio PUC delegation was the largest among those attending from PJM states. The Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission was second with 16 attendees. None of the other state regulatory agencies sent more than seven attendees.
“You don’t need 15 staff people listening to a bunch of lectures,” former PUCO chairman Henry Eckhart told the Daily News. “Get a copy of the handouts and bring it back.”
A PUCO spokesman responded to the criticism by noting that the commission is the fifth largest state regulatory agency in the country.
Voluntary Departure?
Kasich and Snitchler described the end of the chairman’s tenure as Snitchler’s choice. After five years of commuting weekly to Columbus from his Canton-area home two hours away, Snitchler said, he wanted to spend more time at home, particularly with a daughter about to enter her senior year of high school.
Some in Columbus, however, speculated that Snitchler wanted to keep the post, which pays more than $124,000 annually, but was rebuffed by the governor.
“Those folks are wrong,” Snitchler insisted. “I thought long and hard about it…Everybody has an expiration date.”
Snitchler, who previously had a private legal practice, said he hopes to continue working in the energy field but has no landing place yet.
Before his term expires, he hopes to complete PUCO’s investigation into whether the state’s electric utilities have a true separation between their regulated and unregulated sides. A staff report issued last week recommended the commission audit utilities every four years to ensure compliance with code of conduct rules that bar sharing of competitive information between regulated and competitive subsidiaries.
Replacement
Under state law, the five-member commission can have no more than three from any political party. Snitchler’s departure will leave it with a single Republican, Slaby, Democrat Steven Lesser and two members not registered with either party, Asim Haque and Beth Trombold.
Twenty-seven aspirants applied to replace the chairman by last week’s deadline, including two PUCO staffers, former elected officials and several attorneys and engineers. All but two of the candidates are men.
A 12-member nominating council that includes consumer, labor and industry stakeholders will screen the candidates and forward a list of four finalists to Kasich.
