Jerry Brown has appointed utility reform lawyer Mike Florio to the CPUC. Florio is the longtime senior attorney for the consumer watchdog group The Utility Reform Network.
KQED anchor Cy Musiker characterizes the move as a sharp regulatory turn to the left. He describes Mike Florio as being the "terrier dog at the heels of the CPUC" whenever the regulatory agency takes the side of the utilities.
Brown's other CPUC appointment is Catherine Sandoval, associate professor at Santa Clara University School of Law.
A week after the San Bruno explosion, Florio appeared on CNN. (Transcript here.) Here's a snippet, to give you an idea of just where he's coming from:
(voice-over): The line that exploded last week was lay down in 1948. It was so old that for safety reasons, Pacific Gas and Electric made plans to replace a section of it in South San Francisco just a couple miles away. In 2007, it got rate increases to do the work. According to a consumer watchdog group, PG&E got $5 million for the project, but the group called TURN, The Utility Reform Network, says it never happened.
MIKE FLORIO, SENIOR ATTORNEY, TURN: The money is spent on what they call higher-priority work.
SIMON (on camera): And what was that?
FLORIO: Well, you can't track the dollars one by one. But we do know that they spent $62 million more on management incentive bonuses than they had forecasted in 2009.
SIMON (voice-over): Mike Florio is a senior attorney for the watchdog. He says PG&E spent the money dedicated to replace the pipeline. So, it is now seeking rate increases again -- another $5 million to replace the same stretch of pipeline.
(on camera): And how do you know this?
FLORIO: Because it's right in the documentation they file with the PUC to support the rate cases. You know, it's -- if you dig deep enough into these big, thick documents, this is what you find.
- California Public Utilities Commission could get pro-consumer majority (Jan 7, LA Times)