Editors’ note: This is the second in Current’s summer public participation series. When the California Energy Commission voted this week on whether it had jurisdiction over a renewable power project, the decision-making process represented its major strength and weakness. Its forte is its ability to receive and contemplate input from community representatives, stakeholders and other members of the public on matters upon which it deliberates. The Energy Commission’s Achilles heel is that public input bogs down its bureaucratic decision-making process. In the jurisdictional matter before the commission, developer Solar Trust of America petitioned the agency to continue overseeing the permitting of its Ridgecrest Power Project. It currently is a 250 MW solar thermal project but the developer plans to switch the technology to photovoltaics--over which the commission lacks jurisdiction. Practically from the moment the petition was filed on June 17, there was pushback from officials in Kern County, where the project would sit. Trying to protect its territory, the county said the commission would overstep its boundaries and encroach on the jurisdiction of local cities and counties if it decided to keep the Ridgecrest matter if and when it converts to photovoltaic technology. The commission dutifully listened to representatives of Kern County, the Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations accuse the CEC of a power grab. In fact, each time there’s opposition to a matter, the CEC generally treats public participants respectfully. John Geesman, a commissioner from 2002 to early 2008 and a former executive director in the late 1970s, said that from the get-go the agency intended to make public participation one of its hallmarks. It fact, it was founded in part due to dissatisfaction with the CPUC and its inability to respond to certain issues at the time. “At that particular point in time, energy was one of the most divisive issues in the public domain,” Geesman said. “The Legislature, in drafting the Warren-Alquist Act, wanted to maximize the access of the public” to the Energy Commission. “There was a real effort to try to maximize the easy accessibility of the public to the decision-making process, both on the policy side and the siting case and regulatory side,” Geesman said. The CEC has continued to have a strong public engagement policy. It offers two types of public participation. One is informal, where people can show up at meetings, fill out a blue card with their name and contact info, then talk about any topic. Speakers generally are allowed a few minutes, but there’s no rule--unlike at the CPUC, which often limits public comments to timed minutes. The Energy Commission has the option to let a public speaker go on at length. Informal public comment also is allowed via the phone or online during any business meeting or workshop at which a commissioner’s present. At the CPUC, it’s extremely rare to allow public comments over the phone. The other type of participation is intervention, where people become a party to a proceeding. Interveners can even present evidence, file motions and present briefs, in support or opposition of a position. All of the input is posted on the commission’s website for the world to see. It’s largely ditto at the California Air Resources Board. It is characterized by its informal and open style when it comes to developing proposals for its board to consider. The air agency’s staff runs open meetings, where anybody can attend and speak. The meetings generally are webcast to boot. The Air Board also offers extensive opportunities for anybody to submit written comments and you don’t have to be an attorney to write something that will be considered. When the Air Board does meet, anybody can testify on any matter before it. That testimony is supposed to be taken into account. There have been many occasions when the energy commissioners have sat silently and attentively as people have angrily railed against one thing or another. Protestors are usually given free rein to voice their frustrations. They’re rarely cut off, talked over, or talked down to, as long as they show at least a modicum of respect for the proceedings. The decision at Aug. 24’s hearing also represents the CEC’s weakness--allowing public participation to elongate the timeframe for a decision. The bureaucratic nature of the commission routinely drags down the process. What the CEC did this week was vote to move a matter from the committee level to the commission, plus added a one-month window for people to file written comments on the matter, despite the fact that a similar comment period was held in July. Too often at the commission, procedural matters get bogged down in state government bureaucracy and drag on for months, instead of being handled in an expeditious manner. The CEC should take a dose of its own medicine and solicit public comment on how to speed up the process.
