press releases
Contact: Regina Davis rdavis@naruc.org
Resolutions, Workshops, Transmission Task Force Highlight Event
SAN DIEGO (July 20, 2022) — The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners convened more than 1,000 attendees, comprised of state utility regulators, industry representatives, consumer advocates and others, at its annual Summer Policy Summit. This event represented the first non-hybrid NARUC meeting since its February 2020 Winter Policy Summit.
The meeting opened with a general session, “The Transforming Grid – Embracing Change While Preserving Reliability,” which provided essential insights from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation assessments and industry experts to address the clean energy evolution in a reliable manner. Participants included PJM President Manu Asthana; NERC President Jim Robb; Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs Caroline Choi, Edison International & Southern California Edison; Global Regulatory Lead for Energy Markets and Development Briana Kobor, Google; and Itron Senior Vice President of Outcomes Don Reeves.
“I am so pleased that we were able to forgo the hybrid format and meet in person to discuss an array of important issues,” said NARUC President Judith Williams Jagdmann, of the Virginia State Corporation Commission. “I am particularly pleased to have moderated the Transforming Grid panel. We were fortunate to have an esteemed group of knowledgeable experts able to look at how the grid is changing and how we should navigate that change from different perspectives.”
Jagdmann moderated a second general session, held on Wednesday (“Are We Ready for a Nuclear Reactor Renaissance?”), which examined a carbon-free future, noting that the energy sector needs to reconcile the dynamic interrelationships connecting resources, reliability and reality. Speakers for that panel included Oklo, Inc. CEO and Co-Founder Jacob DeWitte; Nuclear Energy Institute President and CEO Maria Korsnick; TerraPower President and CEO Chris Levesque; and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP Partner Jeffrey S. Merrifield.
The NARUC board of directors passed two substantive resolutions:
Resolution on Improving Resilience, Sustainability and Security of Clean Energy Supply Chains: The resolution urges the continued implementation of comprehensive policies and programs to expeditiously improve the resilience and sustainability of clean energy supply chains and diverse technologies.
Resolution for Federal and State Entities to Promote Consumer Awareness of the Affordable Connectivity Program and Share Database Access to Automatically Verify the Eligibility of Consumers for the Program: This resolution requests that state commissions, the Federal Communications Commission and the Universal Service Administrative Company work collaboratively with other agencies that work with eligible participants for Lifeline and ACP to promote awareness.
Read the complete substantive resolutions here.
Along with a full slate of sessions covering a range of electricity, gas, water and telecommunica-tions topics, the four-day meeting included several special activities. July 17 featured an interconnection workshop, a Black Sky workshop and a poverty simulation, which gave participants the experience of four weeks of life in poverty.
Regulators also had an opportunity to experience riding in an electric school bus. The Environmental Law and Policy Center and Lion Electric provided rides and tours of the bus. During the ride, organizers highlighted the value of the buses to passengers, citing diesel fuel harms to children and the use of the electric buses to provide power back to the grid.
Immediate Past President Paul Kjellander received an Exemplary American Leadership Award from the NARUC Commissioners Emeritus group on Tuesday, July 19.
After the conclusion of the summit, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission convened its fourth meeting of the Joint Federal State Task Force on Electric Transmission. In her opening remarks on Monday, President Jagdmann thanked FERC for scheduling and locating its meeting immediately after the Policy Summit, which facilitated greater participation from attendees, including state commissioners.
The next NARUC conference will be the Annual Meeting and Education Conference in New Orleans, La., November 13-16.
###
About NARUC
NARUC is a non-profit organization founded in 1889 whose members include the governmental agencies that are engaged in the regulation of utilities and carriers in the fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. NARUC’s member agencies regulate telecommunications, energy, and water utilities. NARUC represents the interests of state public utility commissions before the three branches of the federal government.