The New York Public Service Commission is the public utilities commission of the New York state government that regulates and oversees the electric, gas, water, and telecommunication industries in New York as part of the Department of Public Service. The department's regulations are compiled in title 16 of the ''

New York Codes, Rules and Regulations The ''New York Codes, Rules and Regulations'' (NYCRR) contains New York state rules and regulations. The NYCRR is officially compiled by the New York State Department of State's Division of Administrative Rules. Contents See also * '' New York ...

''. The current chairman of the Commission and chief executive of the Department is Rory M. Christian. His term began on June 10, 2021 and runs through February 1, 2027.

Organization

The Public Service Commission consist of seven members, each appointed by the

Governor of New York The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has ...

with the advice and consent of the

New York State Senate The New York State Senate is the upper house of the New York State Legislature; the New York State Assembly is its lower house. Its members are elected to two-year terms; there are no term limits. There are 63 seats in the Senate. Partisan com ...

for a term of six years or to complete an unexpired term of a member. Public Service Law § 4 A commissioner is designated as chairman by the Governor to serve in such capacity at the pleasure of the Governor or until their term as commissioner expires. No more than three commissioners may be members of the same political party. The Public Service Commission is within the Department of Public Service, Public Service Law § 3 and the chairman is the chief executive officer of the Department. In 2017, the Public Service Commission and the Department of Public Service were appropriated $101.4 million from the state budget and employed 556 people. The payroll totaled $44,195,996 and a commissioner was not listed among the top 25 salary earners. Engineering staff who are licensed professional engineers do not produce stamped engineering plans. The commission has employed and been influenced by an array of interesting personnel: a former

Weather Underground The Weather Underground was a Far-left politics, far-left militant organization first active in 1969, founded on the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally known as the Weathermen, the group was organiz ...

member, political insiders, and industry insiders - including an at least one industry insider whose parent was an employee of the commission.

History

The Public Service Commission was established in 1907. Notable former employees include Nora Stanton Blatch Deforest Barney and Delos Franklin Wilcox.

Reforming the Energy Vision

In 2014 the Commission and New York Governor

Andrew Cuomo Andrew Mark Cuomo ( ; ; born December 6, 1957) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the same position that his father, Mario Cu ...

initiated Reforming the Energy Vision. Reforming the Energy Vision (commonly abbreviated as REV) is a set of multi-year regulatory proceedings and policy initiatives. The end goals of REV include reducing carbon emissions from the electric sector and opening up new markets in New York state for emerging energy technologies. The affected utilities in the state of New York include Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation, Consolidated Edison Company of New York, National Grid, New York State Electric & Gas Corporation, and Orange and Rockland Utilities. In addition to the core project of utility restructuring, the REV initiative also encompasses a number of other energy programs, some of which were launched before REV itself. These include K-Solar, NY Prize, NY-Sun, BuildSmart NY and the state's Green Bank. Although the state regulates the siting process of utility-scale (25 MW or greater) electric generation in New York via the Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment, much of the planning process for utility-scale electric generation is undertaken by the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), an organization regulated under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The NYISO maintains an interconnection queue where it may be possible to calculate the success rate of utility-scale electric generation and merchant transmission proposals. In 2016, the Public Service Commission adopted a Clean Energy Standard, to assist in achieving the state's target of obtaining 50% of its electricity from renewable and nuclear sources by 2030, which will see customer bills increase to support these sources. A particular aim was to support three nuclear plants, Ginna,

James A. FitzPatrick James Anthony FitzPatrick (February 26, 1894 – June 12, 1980) was an American producer, director, writer, and narrator, known from the early 1930s as "The Voice of the Globe" from his ''Fitzpatrick's Traveltalks''. Biography James Anthony Fi ...

and

Nine Mile Point Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station is a nuclear power plant with two nuclear reactors located in the town of Scriba, approximately five miles northeast of Oswego, New York, on the shore of Lake Ontario. The site is also occupied by the James A. ...

that had become uneconomic; the support for nuclear is expected to cost $1 billion in the first two years.

Rate cases

The commission's regulatory oversight extends to the approval of retail consumer rate increase (or decrease) requests from the electric, water, steam, and local natural gas distribution

utilities A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and ...

it regulates. The commission approves (or denies) these rate requests because each utility operates as a

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

service provider in its retail region. This is a process which offers the public an opportunity to comment.

Utilities A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and ...

determine when they wish to file for a new case. The commission uses a standard of reasonability - or how a

reasonable person In law, a reasonable person, reasonable man, or the man on the Clapham omnibus, is a hypothetical person of legal fiction crafted by the courts and communicated through case law and jury instructions. Strictly according to the fiction, it i ...

would judge - to assess the public need for proposed levels of

capital expenditure Capital expenditure or capital expense (capex or CAPEX) is the money an organization or corporate entity spends to buy, maintain, or improve its fixed assets, such as buildings, vehicles, equipment, or land. It is considered a capital expenditure ...

s, operating expenditures and other spending. Regulated utilities are

publicly-traded companies A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (list ...

, and must also provide returns for shareholders. These returns are argued for in these rate cases, and a

return on equity The return on equity (ROE) is a measure of the profitability of a business in relation to the equity. Because shareholder's equity can be calculated by taking all assets and subtracting all liabilities, ROE can also be thought of as a return on ''a ...

of around 10 percent is normal.

Electric power facilities siting

Transmission facilities siting

For the incumbent electric utility companies and the merchant transmission developers that it regulates, the commission must issue a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need prior to the operation and construction of an electric transmission line - a "major utility transmission facility" - in the state. This is pursuant to Article VII of the Public Service Law. The process provides for public notification and participation. This certificate provides detail on the final routing of a transmission line, the public need for the line, the probable environmental impact of the line, among other details. After this certificate is granted, the utility or developer then files an Environmental Management and Construction Plan that the commission also must approve prior to construction. It may require many years for a project, depending upon the level of controversy, to proceed through the Article VII siting process, although it may take only 6 months to construct. The certification process can take even longer if routing occurs through municipalities that are charged with managing a Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4). Final state certification requires approval from the local MS4 municipality in accordance with its MS4 plan.

Part 102 siting

There are some instances when electric transmission lines can be built without going through the Article VII transmission facilities siting process. The Public Service Law defines a "major utility transmission facility" as an electric transmission line operating at greater than 125-

kilovolts The volt (symbol: V) is the unit of electric potential, electric potential difference (voltage), and electromotive force in the International System of Units (SI). It is named after the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta (1745–1827). Defi ...

(kV) and longer than 1-mile in length, or an electric transmission line operating at greater than 100-kV (and less than 125-kV) and greater than 10 miles in length. It does not extend this definition to transmission facilities located wholly underground in cities with a population of greater than 125,000 people or to facilities approved in relation to FERC-certified hydroelectric facilities. Notably, Part 102 of the Public Service Law, for example, allows for the 60-day review of a 115-kV transmission line with a length of less than 10 miles, without a formal response from the commission. Part 102 filing has enabled certain utilities to maintain their infrastructure without being burdened with the financial and time constraints of Article VII filings.

Generation facilities siting

Electric generation facilities siting in New York is the responsibility of a multi-agency board called the Siting Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment. It reviews and certifies projects with proposed capabilities of 25 MWs or greater. Its board members are the heads of the Public Service Commission, the

Department of Health A health department or health ministry is a part of government which focuses on issues related to the general health of the citizenry. Subnational entities, such as states, counties and cities, often also operate a health department of their ow ...

, the Department of Environmental Conservation, NYSERDA, and the

Empire State Development Corporation Empire State Development (ESD) is the umbrella organization for New York's two principal economic development public-benefit corporations, the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC) and the New York Job Development Authority (JDA). T ...

. The generation siting process in New York is still fairly young - the Article 10 statutes passed into law in 2011 by Governor

. Prior to the Article 10 regulations, Public Service Law Section 68 acted as a gap regulation after the expiration of the Article X - not "10" - process in the early 2000s.

Local community response and participation

The local community response to proposed electric facilities siting depends largely upon the notification process to local land owners. The Article VII and Article 10 regulations call for fairly wide notification. The Article 10 process, notably, invites local community members to serve as Siting Board members. Many of the comments posted by local community members reflect

NIMBY NIMBY (or nimby), an acronym for the phrase "not in my back yard", is a characterization of opposition by residents to proposed developments in their local area, as well as support for strict land use regulations. It carries the connotation that ...

positions or appeals to a perceived health threat from low-frequency electric and magnetic fields. As of 2018, a large number of proposed

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each yea ...

facilities located in

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

and

Upstate New York Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long Is ...

are being processed under the Article 10 regulations, and the impacts of astroturfing and the rate at which the commission staff can process the amount of these projects has yet to be determined.

Service disruptions

The commission is empowered with various tools to monitor and investigate utility service disruptions. Their response to events that cause or have the potential to cause service disruptions has historically depended upon media coverage, administrative agendas, the number of customers impacted, and the severity to which customers are impacted. Prior to large storms and other weather disturbances, the commission will send staff to the State Office of Emergency Management bunker located in the

New York State Police The New York State Police (NYSP) is the state police of the state of New York in the United States. It is part of the New York State Executive Department, and employs over 5,000 sworn state troopers and 711 civilian members. History The Stat ...

headquarters to report on electric outage numbers during the event. This bunker is usually staffed 24 hours a day for the duration of an event, and utility company staff may also be present. The

GIS A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing Geographic data and information, geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with Geographic information system software, sof ...

software that commission staff uses to report outage information to SOEM staff aggregates freely available outage numbers from each utility website in real-time.

References

External links

Analysis Group Energy & Environment Whitepapers

Brattle Group Energy & Utilities Whitepapers

New York State Department of Public Service

Department of Public Service
in the

{{authority control New York

Public Service A public service is any service intended to address specific needs pertaining to the aggregate members of a community. Public services are available to people within a government jurisdiction as provided directly through public sector agencies ...

1907 establishments in New York (state) Government agencies established in 1907