STATE News:
SANTA FE — The Public Regulation Commissioners voted Wednesday to oppose HB11: Reorganizing the Operating Structure of the PRC during the Commissioners weekly open meeting.
“Staff shouldn’t be punished for the decisions we make as a commission as we do our job to protect the public interest and 3 commissioners voted to oppose the bill,” Commissioner Valerie Espinoza said.
The three commissioners who voted to oppose HB11 are Espinoza, Theresa Becenti-Aguilar and Jefferson Byrd.
PRC experts on the subject matter have been excluded from the deliberation process up to the drafting of the Bill. One wonders if the act is an attempt to wear down the PRC’s opposition to controversial cases by attrition.
There are substantial fundamental and technical issues to consider with the proposed Bill and several of those issues were provided in the PRC’s FIR (posted on the NMPRC website).
During yesterday’s meeting, several long-time staff members raised their respective concerns relating to possible transfer to another agency and the “unknown” future that would await them. All expressed strong opposition to such legislation and move.
The PRC, as a whole, recognizes that every agency has growing pains, transition periods, and issues recruiting and retaining employees. This was recently acknowledged and recognized by Sen. John Arthur Smith, LFC Chairman, in the September 2019 LFC newsletter.
“Reassigning PRC staff to another agency does not magically create an available workforce to fill the current vacancies. Restricting and ignoring the real need to appropriately fund the PRC is a real issue that we need the legislators to continue recognizing and supporting,” PRC Chief of Staff Jason N. Montoya said.
The House Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources Committee voted 8-5 supporting House Bill 11: Reorganizing the Operating Structure of the Public Regulation Commission.
The sponsors of the Bill claim that HB2 includes approximately 13 percent to FY20 Operating Budget increase to support and address what HB11 proposes. Realistically this increase was recommended by the Legislative Finance Committee which was justified to help the PRC address the workload and resources needed resulting from the Energy Transition Act passed by the Legislature in 2019 and does not include any appropriations or resources allocated for HB11.
To be very clear that the current language in HB11 does not protect 100 percent of the classified employees as its sponsors claim. These classified employees include the Office of the General Counsel, Hearing Examiners, Records, PIO and Chief of Staff’s executive assistant, to name a few.
The Commission believes House Bill 11 transfers regulatory authority from the PRC to the executive branch in violation of the principle of the separation of powers of the respective branches of state government.
Article XI, Section 2 of the New Mexico Constitution grants the PRC “responsibility for regulating public utilities, including electric, natural gas and water companies; transportation companies, including common and contract carriers; transmission and pipeline companies, including telephone, telegraph and information transmission companies; and other public service companies in such manner as the legislature shall provide.”
Section 2 of House Bill 11 would create a new Division of Regulatory Affairs to be headed by a Director appointed by the Governor. The sponsors of House Bill 11 claim that the bill would transfer only advocacy positions that would “represent the public interest” in matters before the commission to this new Division of Regulatory Affairs.
However, the bill actually transfers the entire Legal Division, Utility Division, Transportation Division (including the Pipeline Safety Bureau), Consumer Relations and the existing Administrative Services Division.
Several of these divisions perform regulatory work in the form of inspection, compliance and enforcement through a delegation of the Commission’s regulatory authority.
While the Legislature may direct the manner in which the Commission regulates, the principal of separation of powers does not permit the Legislature to remove regulatory responsibility and authority from the PRC and grant it to the Executive Branch.
More information is available at https:////www.nmprc.state.nm.us