Fitial justifies continued emergency declarations

Gov. Benigno R. Fitial has justified his continued use of disaster declarations to address the Commonwealth’s power problems, saying “we are still in crisis.”

Fitial in a letter to the Legislature said the continuing power outages, although sporadic, are proof of the problems still besetting the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.

“Although the Aggreko generators provided us with substantial relief, we must not be lulled into a sense of complacency,” Fitial told legislative leaders. “Make no mistake, we are still in a crisis situation with our public utilities and we have a very limited time frame to resolve this crisis and avert the kind of rolling blackouts we experienced last summer.”

The governor wrote the letter amid lawmakers’ concerns about his use of emergency powers to deal with CUC’s problems. A resolution recently adopted by the House of Representatives requests the governor to issue a full and detailed report to the Legislature on actions taken and funds used to address the disaster emergency described in numerous executive orders. The resolution also calls on Fitial to present a plan to the Legislature, including a financial strategy, for addressing the present state of disaster emergency.

“I know the Legislature is concerned about our need to use disaster declarations to address the terrible problems with have with CUC’s power plant engines and transformers,” Fitial’s letter says, adding that such needs were addressed in Executive Order 2008-20, the latest extension to the emergency declaration, which the governor issued last week.

The letter continues, “Unfortunately, two of the conditions I anticipated came to pass—a major engine failure and a major transformer failure. Extraordinary measures may continue to be necessary to solve extraordinary problems. I hope we can work together on the solutions because we have less than a year to rehabilitate our existing capacity and discontinue the use of the temporary Aggreko units.”

In the House resolution, the lawmakers note that the situation at CUC appears to be worsening despite nearly three years of the utility being under the direct control of the governor. They also maintain that the governor has failed to present a plan to the Legislature to address the management, operational, and infrastructural challenges facing CUC. Further, they say the governor has failed to deliver full and detailed reports on the money that have been diverted to cope with the emergencies.