Download CCIF’s July 2012 Report, Focus on the Regulatory Process. |
Background
This CCIF initiative began with the recognition that state commissioners, consumer advocates, and utilities are grappling with the challenges of a changing regulatory environment and the increasing pressure on electric rates during a prolonged economic downturn. As such, CCIF’s leadership designed the 2011 Kickoff Forum (collocated with the NARUC and NASUCA Annual Meetings in St. Louis) to focus on mitigating rate impacts to consumers while addressing numerous challenges – preserving reliability; complying with applicable federal and state mandates (environmental, transmission, efficiency, renewables, etc.); responding to other federal and state initiatives (cybersecurity, grid modernization, demand response, economic development, etc.); and investing in new and replacement infrastructure.
Initially, CCIF expected panelists to identify and debate innovative approaches and tools to address the impacts of these numerous challenges on rates. However, as the discussion progressed, it became clear that there was considerable angst among the participants regarding the underlying regulatory process and that foundational issues with respect to the process needed to be examined before addressing alternative regulatory tools. To be responsive to this critical need and because CCIF initiatives are shaped by participants from the three communities, we adjusted the topic accordingly, focusing on four recurring themes from the kickoff discussion – transparency, communication, prioritization, and collaboration – within the regulatory process.
In the spring summits that followed in Dallas, Atlanta, and Chicago, participants drilled down into these four themes, and it was evident that they were indeed ripe for discussion, of considerable interest to all three communities, and critical to success of the regulatory process. With respect to each theme, participants identified initiatives already underway (that could be duplicated) and additional ideas for improvement. It was generally agreed that many of these ideas, if implemented, would strengthen the regulatory process, better enabling that process to deal with the current challenges and with alternative regulatory approaches that may be necessary in the future. Not only were the discussions valuable to the participants in real time, suggestions memorialized in the report may lead to regulatory process improvements in a number of states.
Report on the Regulatory Process
On July 22, 2012, CCIF issued its report, “The Challenges of a Changing Regulatory Environment: Focus on the Regulatory Process.” The report includes a section dedicated to each of the four key themes – transparency, communication, prioritization, and collaboration – and how each may be used to improve the regulatory process. Specifically, it includes details regarding the definition, value, challenges and barriers, and ideas and action items for improvement with respect to each theme. The report also incorporates a section on federal issues and a section on selected priority issues that may be overlooked as we focus on other challenges and priorities. Finally, the report includes a number of existing initiatives put in place to improve one or more of the key themes in some way, as identified by participants (see Appendix A).
CCIF thanks the state commissioner, consumer advocate, and electric industry communities for their participation and significant contributions to this initiative. Based on the robust discussion at the kickoff forum and in the summits that followed, challenges with the regulatory process clearly remain, and perhaps the ideas shared within will contribute to mitigating them.