CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, AUGUST 29, 2017, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“STATE SENATE SHOULD LOOK HARD AT NEW UTILITY REGULATOR”
Depending on how
things go in a scheduled Aug. 23 state Senate confirmation hearing on Gov.
Jerry Brown’s latest choice for a seat on the powerful state Public Utilities
Commission, many millions of consumers could face both health risks and
higher-than-necessary electric, gas and water bills for the next six years.
That’s the length
of the term to which Brown appointed his longtime close aide Clifford
Rechtschaffen, labeled a “lapdog” of the oil industry by some consumer
advocates. Once confirmed, he can’t be fired by either Brown or the next
governor.
The Consumer Watchdog group tags him a utility
lapdog, claiming Rechtschaffen in 2011 told two top state oil and gas
regulators to grant hydraulic fracking permits for Occidental Petroleum Co. in
Kern County on pain of firing. When they refused, citing state and federal laws
requiring drinking water aquifer safety checks prior to permitting, he
allegedly dismissed Derek Chernow, then acting director of the state Department
of Conservation, and Elena Miller, the state’s top oil and gas supervisor. It
is undisputed fact that after they were dumped by Brown’s administration,
Rechtschaffen temporarily assumed Chernow’s job.
In appointing him
to the five-member PUC, which often favors utility companies over their
customers, Brown said his adviser “has the experience as a lawyer, teacher and
specialist in environmental and energy matters…to do an outstanding job.”
Meanwhile, a
usually reliable source told this column that Rechtschtaffen wrote one or more
of 63 still-secret emails between Brown or his aides and the PUC from the time
soon after the 2012 failure and shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating
Station. That source also said one email threatened the job of a PUC official
unless that official supported a settlement dunning consumers more than
two-thirds of San Onofre’s closure costs – or $3.3 billion.
Brown press
secretary Evan Westrup called this claim “pure fiction,” but neither confirmed
nor denied that Rechtschaffen wrote one or more of the hidden emails, instead
citing a PUC spokeswoman’s statement that “the emails in question did not
relate to the San Onofre settlement…” Westrup did not respond when shown a PUC
statement saying the emails were withheld in part because they reflect
“discussions between … (PUC President Michael) Picker and his advisors, the
disclosure of which would reveal (his) thought process regarding the matter.”
The San Onofre
settlement is notorious for its essence having been reached in a secret meeting
between former PUC President Michael Peevey and executives of the Southern
California Edison Co. Revelations of that meeting impelled the PUC in May 2016
to order a reopening of its settlement decision.
Rechtschaffen
ignored a request to answer questions on all this. His confirmation is before
the Senate Rules Committee, chaired by Democratic Senate President Kevin de
Leon. Similar hearings for PUC appointees have almost always been love fests
between senators and appointees. More of the same seems likely this time, as de
Leon craves support from Brown for his bill to make the entire state a
sanctuary for undocumented immigrants.
Brown openly
questions parts of that plan, and no one knows what he might do if de Leon’s
committee were tough on his aide Rechtschtaffen.
Meanwhile, press
secretary Westrup called questions about Rechtschaffen’s record “chasing bogus
conspiracy theories.” He insisted the appointee will be independent. “You
should know that sharp, independent thinking is among the attributes valued
most by the administration,” he wrote in an email.
The most
significant PUC move during Rechtschaffen’s six months as an acting
commissioner came when it signed off on the partial reopening of the Southern
California Gas Co.’s Aliso Canyon natural gas storage field in northern Los
Angeles. Area residents, many still suffering from malaises associated with a
five-month methane leak there in 2015-16, complained Aliso Canyon should not
have reopened until the still-unknown causes of the leak are found.
Commissioners did
not vote on the reopening, but could have objected or asked the PUC’s executive
director not to OK it. Neither Rechtschaffen nor any other commissioner did
that.
Now it’s incumbent
on Rules Committee members to ask Rechtschaffen why he did not speak up when
public health might be at risk. His answers could provide clues about whether
he’ll be independent of the companies he’s set to regulate.
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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His
book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and
the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover
fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net.
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