Former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins: “Because current SEC rules make it very easy for shareholders to file proposals (you only need to own two thousand dollars of a company’s shares for one year or more), activists have increasingly used shareholder proposals to target publicly traded companies [including electric utilities] and to advance ideas motivated by environmental or social concerns.” Page 31, 58, December’s PUF
American Gas Association CEO Dave McCurdy: “I believe that we won the election [to hold the World Gas Conference — the triennial Olympics of Gas — in the U.S. this June] because of the breadth of natural gas activities in North America and because of our world class industry that delivers and uses natural gas… It is the foundation fuel for the United States, and many countries are looking to follow our example.” Page 29, December’s PUF
Dairyland Power Coop CEO Barbara Nick: “The IOUs had a view that municipals and cooperatives were the dark side.Now I’m in the co-op world where the IOUs are seen as the dark side… Any time there’s a disaster, it doesn’t matter if you’re a co-op, public power or an IOU.When the lines are down, we are all there helping each other restore power to our customers and members. The differences are more cosmetic than substantive.” Page 34, December’s PUF.
NARUC’s Bailey Bearss: “In East Africa, small-scale mini-grids, typically powered by solar panels, directly link to distribution networks which can power a small village for vital electric needs. They involve drastically less investment in infrastructure than traditional grid expansion.” Page 37, December’s PUF
New Jersey Board of Public Utilities’ Mark Beyer: “The environment benefits from a preference for electricity because the low or negative marginal cost electricity [at certain times] often is produced by zero carbon resources such as solar and wind. They would displace higher carbon content natural gas.” Page 49, December’s PUF
Association of Energy Services Professionals CEO John Hargrove: “The energy efficiency sector of utilities is a great place to work. The work done there is economically valuable, in service to the customers and our world in general, and something you can feel good about. Maybe I was working for the core business [of my utility] after all.”Page 51, December’s PUF.
Is your organization impacting the debate as a member of the PUF community? Nearly two hundred utilities, commissions, consumer advocates, associations, agencies, professional firms and vendors are members.How about yours?
Steve Mitnick, Editor-in-Chief, Public Utilities Fortnightly
E-mail me: mitnick@fortnightly.com