The Western Conference of Public Service Commissioners held its annual meeting, "Regulatory Summit: Peak Perspectives 2024," in May.

The MARC 2024 conference was held in Minneapolis in May with the theme "Cooperation and Innovation." It highlighted the ways that the region’s utilities, developers, regulators, stakeholders, and communities have worked together for the public good.

The 2024 SEARUC Annual Education Conference was held in June with the theme "Empowering the Southeast: Navigating Load Growth, Resiliency and Affordability."

“In January of 2025, we’ll be hosting that educational meeting in Oklahoma City because our MARC colleague and good friend Bob Anthony will be ending his term with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission as the longest-serving Commissioner in the country.”

“I increasingly see a need for SEARUC and other regional organizations to meet more frequently and have substantive, detailed, Commissioner-only meetings where we can discuss issues of common concern that we need to focus attention upon.”

Conversations with the President of SEARUC and a Commissioner on the North Carolina Utilities Commission, Floyd McKissick; and incoming President of MARC and Commissioner on the Indiana Utilities Regulatory Commission, Sarah Freeman. SEARUC is NARUC’s division for the southeast and MARC is the division for the midwest.

“We are getting more sophisticated about understanding all factors that go into how and where we make investments. That also helps us defend investments to regulators and others, because we have the science, rigor, and discipline to justify them as prudent.”

“We’ve got over 450 weather stations deployed and take 30 years of data, crunch it, and get a good sense of what the forecast could be. Situational awareness is important because it’s a cost-effective method for getting visibility into the environment and is foundational information for all other mitigation measures.”

“We put effort into the bills, making sure all concerns the legislators had were addressed. We didn’t cross the finish line. We’re looking at what we can do without legislation, what’s under our power. We can ask the utilities to develop a wildfire protection plan.”

“Through EEI and the CEO task force, we’re talking to Congress and the Department of Energy and asking for options that don’t require us to serve as insurers of last resort for all damage associated with wildfire. Now, we are the insurers of a last resort and that’s untenable.”