By Jared Jacang Maher, FACE THE STATE
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission on Thursday approved a $1.3 billion plan that requires Xcel Energy to significantly reduce the use coal-burning power plants in favor of natural gas. The conversion will enable the utility to meet clean-air requirements while increasing ratepayer costs an estimated 2.4 percent to pay for it. It’s a big win for environmentalists and natural-gas interests. The loser is the state’s coal mining industry, which stands to lose significant revenue and jobs under the plan.
The Colorado Mining Association made an unsuccessful attempt to have PUC Commissioners Ron Binz and Matt Baker disqualified from ruling on the deal after e-mails were released that showed the pair had been heavily involved in negotiations with Excel Energy and lawmakers.
Now, Affordable Reliable Energy Colorado, a political nonprofit whose membership includes coal and other energy businesses, is raising questions about the hefty out-of-state travel schedules of the PUC commissioners and whether certain all-expenses-paid trips taken by Binz and Baker violated state law. Though nonprofit organizations are allowed to pick up the tab for travel expenses under Colorado law, rules established by the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission under voter-enacted Amendment 41 prohibits state officials from accepting free travel offers from corporations, lobbyists, and private individuals.
Kelly Weist, spokeswoman for Affordable Reliable Energy Colorado, points out that Evergreen-based Bentek Energy reimbursed Binz $832 for expenses he incurred traveling to Houston for a speech to a natural gas industry event in June. Additionally, Spanish utility corporation Extenda paid $2,845 to fly Baker to Seville, Spain, to speak at a five-day conference for renewable energy businesses.
Information culled from over 3,600 pages of travel records that Weist’s group obtained through an open-records request shows that Binz has taken 55 out-of-state trips since he was appointed PUC chairman by Gov. Bill Ritter in 2007. He’s spent 30 percent more time on out-of-state work trips than his two PUC counterparts this year, racking up an $18,426 travel bill, $15,908 of which was paid for by outside groups.
In an e-mail to Face the State, Binz acknowledges that, “it’s probably true that I’m more active than some recent PUC commissioners have been.” But he says this is largely due to the fact that his 32 years of experience as a public policy researcher, consultant and consumer advocate, “means that I am invited very frequently to speak at conferences, join advisory boards, participate in think tanks, etc.” He argues that these activities improve his skills as a regulator by keeping him up-to-date with developments in the utility sector. “I rub elbows with executives from every possible orientation on the major issues when I attend these meetings,” Binz writes.
Just because Binz is out of state the most doesn’t mean that his peers are staying home. Commissioner Jim Tarpey, whose name has not been included in any of the coal industry complaints, has taken 11 out-of-state trips in 2010 to various energy conferences, including a week in Amman, Jordan as part of a utilities commissioner exchange partnership funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. What one doesn’t see in Tarpey’s travel schedule, however, are the kinds of events or conferences that cross the line from middle-of-the-road regulatory themes into more activist territory, where the purpose is to push a specific energy-policy agenda.
For example:
· Binz made two trips to Washington, D.C., this year on the dime of the Keystone Center, a Colorado-based environmental think tank. Binz sits on the group’s Energy Board, which includes a range of energy company executives, environmental activists and government regulators (although Binz is the only member who is an active utilities commissioner).
· In April, Rutgers University paid $528 for Binz to travel to Newark, N.J., to speak on a panel on dynamic pricing for a conference organized by the university’s Climate and Social Policy Initiative, which conducts, education and public service “to address the challenges posed by global warming, greenhouse gasses and the reduction of carbon emissions.”
· In May, the National Association for Public Utilities Commissioners (NARUC) paid $1,073 for Binz to travel to Washington, D.C., for a meeting with the White House’s Environmental Director. Binz chairs NARUC’S Climate Policy Task Force.
· In late May, the Electric Policy Research Institute paid $1,013 for Binz to tour the Electric Vehicle Research Center facility in Pasadena, Calif., to learn how electric vehicles can plug into smart grids and lower carbon emissions. The group met with the facility’s owner, Ted Craver, CEO of Edison International, a California electric utility that also has significant corporate holdings in wind and solar power companies.
· Extenda, a Spanish public utility company, covered Baker’s $2,845 in travel costs last month to Seville, Spain. Extenda is a public company founded by the Spanish government.
Such trips have given Binz’s adversaries ammo in their assertions that the PUC’s traditional quasi-judicial role has been hijacked by the green-energy ideology and industry. But Binz disputes the suggestion. He says that the position of the organizations in which he is heavily involved are largely “technology-neutral” and, in the case of the Electric Power Research Institute, “decidedly pro-nuke, pro-coal and pro-gas.”
And as for some of the other groups that have a clear agenda on the energy front? “I am careful to ensure that any outside engagements do not interfere with my duties as chairman,” he says. “In the four years of my term, I don’t think I’ve ever missed a hearing other than for illness or personal vacation.”
Considering his out-of-state travel schedule, that’s pretty impressive.
