Roberts: APS has chance to improve its image
Finally, a ray of sunshine in the rooftop solar-APS hostilities.
Rooftop solar representatives and Arizona Public Service et al have declared a cease-fire, agreeing to take their rate wars to the bargaining table rather than the ballot.
Credit Gov. Doug Ducey, Sen. Debbie Lesko and whomever else got the two sides to stop trying to change the state constitution and instead start trying to work out a compromise that is fair for solar and non-solar customers without killing an industry that is important to Arizona’s future.
A pro-solar group, funded by SolarCity announced its voter initiative two weeks ago. The solar industry was taking its case to the voters because it had no confidence – zero – in the Arizona Corporation Commission to give solar interests a fair hearing.
Will commissioners get APS pocket lint out of their hair?
That’s something for the commission to think about. It is, generally speaking, not a good idea to set yourselves up as puppets to the state’s largest utility – one you’re supposed to regulate.
It’s something in particular for Commissioner Bob Burns to consider, as he contemplates his next steps in ordering APS to open its books so that he can see whether the utility secretly spent $3.2 million to get Commissioners Tom Forese and Doug Little elected in 2014. Burns is the public’s only hope in finding how just how beholden regulators are to those they (are supposed to) regulate.
Something also for legislators to consider, before they jump again to do APS’s bidding. It is telling – to me, at least -- that APS was so easily able to deploy legislators to quickly to put not one, but two proposed constitutional changes on the November ballot in response to the solar industry’s initiative petition drive.
How many special interests can say 'jump' and have state leaders immediately respond: 'how high'?
OK, so maybe I shouldn’t ask that.
In this case, it worked out as the Legislature now doesn’t have to act as APS’s muscle.
And it really worked out for key APS players, Lesko, Sen. Don Shooter and Rep. Kate Brophy McGee, who allowed a bill of hers to serve as the referendum vehicle. The Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which gets a fair amount of funding from APS, this morning set up independent campaign committees for each of them, with $6,333 each for Lesko and Brophy McGee and $1,333 for Shooter. It'll be interesting to see how much dark money flows into those campaigns as races heat up later this year.
Can there be peace?
So now, with a little help from Ducey and his chief of staff Kirk Adams, come settlement talks. It can’t have been easy to get APS to agree to a professional mediator, given widespread suspicions that it owns the commission that will decide its upcoming rate case.
APS wants to impose new fees on rooftop solar customers and pay less for the energy their rooftop arrays produce. APS says solar customers aren’t paying their fair share. Solar reps say they are, when the benefits of solar are taken into account, and that boosting the bills of its solar customers is a move by APS to drive the competition out of business.
An APS spokesman said Thursday that the utility is willing to try to work something out. That’s potentially a big concession, given that our current Corporation Commission appears to reside in APS’s pocket.
“We’re open to engaging in constructive dialogue with SolarCity that benefits all Arizonans,” APS spokesman Hal Pittman said in a statement. “Our goal, as we’ve stated, has always been to ensure fair energy policy for the state at affordable pricing for all of our customers, and sustainable solar for the long term.”
I, for one, hope his boss, APS CEO Don Brandt, means it. It would be easier to swallow had APS not skulked about in 2014, reportedly spending millions in dark money to pack the commission with friendly faces.
But hey, this is a good day. The sun is shining all over Arizona.
If only that sunshine could extend to APS's books, showing us how much the utility spent to install our present crop of utility regulators.
