June 4, 2020

NARUC Stands Committed to Social Change
 

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners is committed to the principles of peaceful racial reconciliation and healing among our communities.

We are beginning to emerge from a pandemic that forced social distancing, but it has become painfully evident that we can no longer distance ourselves from or turn a blind eye to a deep and serious issue that has plagued our nation for generations — that of systemic racism directed at people of color.   

NARUC believes that we all have a moral obligation to do more within our respective organizations to address the blatant discrimination occurring daily in the lives of people of color.  We must have honest conversations about this scourge in our society and adopt specific policies that create inclusion through training and job opportunities that rise up people of color and give them the economic opportunities they deserve.  Organizations must adopt a “do more” culture to halt the disproportionate suffering that so many people of color in society live every day.

Writer James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

We are prepared to face this problem with the help of our members, who are charged with serving the public interest for communities throughout America. No one’s interest is served when we are divided by race and social injustice.

Therefore, we will use our national platform, working with state members and through our committees; namely, the Subcommittee on Supplier and Workforce Diversity and the Committee on Consumers and the Public Interest, to address areas of bias, find opportunities to reduce barriers, and engage in constructive national dialogues on race, as it relates to issues within our purview.

Collectively, we must direct our energy to create the changes that our country desperately needs.

 

“Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  (Where Do We Go from Here? 1967 Speech)

Brandon Presley NARUC President   Commissioner, Mississippi Public Service Commission

Greg R. White Executive Director National Association of Regulatory Utility  Commissioners