GOP leader Stivers tables bill to remake Kentucky's utility regulator
The leader of the GOP-controlled Kentucky Senate says his bill to remake and expand Kentucky's powerful commission that regulates utilities won't advance in the legislature this year, arguing more discussion on how to address the state's long-term energy policy is needed.
Senate Bill 8, sponsored by Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, would have expanded the membership of the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) — and potentially remove existing commission members — by giving the state auditor, Republican Allison Ball, the power to appoint two additional members to a board currently appointed by the governor. A spokesperson for Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear panned the bill as 'partisan politics.'
The PSC regulates the rates and services of more than 1,100 utilities from large investor-owned electricity providers to small water districts that provide drinking water to rural communities.
Stivers previously told the Lantern the bill would advance this legislative session. But in a Wednesday hearing of the Kentucky Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee, Stivers asked lawmakers not to vote on the bill and only discuss the legislation.
'The state doesn't really have a long-term energy policy, and part of the long-term energy policy, it has to have a discussion of the Public Service Commission,' Stivers said.
Stivers has previously co-sponsored or supported bills that became law the past two years that create new barriers and bureaucracy before the PSC can approve requests from utilities to retire fossil fuel-fired power plants.
One of those laws created a new commission separate from the PSC that reviews the impacts of utility requests to retire fossil fuel-fired power plants before those requests reach the PSC, something investor-owned utilities strongly opposed. Executives with those utilities are now a part of that separate panel, called the Energy Planning and Inventory Commission (EPIC).
Stivers said the discussion over potential legislation dealing with the state's energy policy would continue into next year's legislative session, including how EPIC and another state research authority dealing with nuclear energy fit into long-term energy policy.
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