Board of Education chair Herman T. Guerrero is opposed to the Commonwealth Public Utilities Commission\u2019s position that a rate petition must be filed with the regulatory body for a public law to be formally implemented by the utilities corporation.<\/p>\n
This comes in the wake of a CPUC letter to the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. clarifying that utility rates set by the Legislature are not exempt from the rate review proceedings of the commission.<\/p>\n
The to-do arises from the enactment of Public Law 18-19 in September last year, which mandates CUC to change the water and wastewater rates of public schools from government to commercial. This in effect would lower the utility costs of public schools.<\/p>\n
In its letter to CUC, the utility commission said that when the Legislature enacts a rate, a regulated entity should initiate a rate-setting proceeding with CPUC, which would either approve, disapprove, or modify the legislative rate.<\/p>\n
BOE\u2019s Guerrero disagrees with this determination, claiming that there\u2019s a need to revisit the CPUC opinion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe CPUC as well as the CUC were created by the Legislature. Are they saying that the Legislature doesn\u2019t have the authority on CUC? I think there\u2019s a need to revisit that [CPUC] opinion,\u201d Guerrero told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n
According to him, with these gray areas in the implementation of P.L. 18-19, the Office of the Attorney General\u2019s legal opinion must be sought.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy create another layer of bureaucracy when the action of the Legislature can be construed already an official request? It seems to me that it\u2019s the CPUC opinion that it has greater authority over the Legislature [in this matter]. We have to seek AG\u2019s opinion and interpretation on [P.L. 18-19],\u201d said Guerrero.<\/p>\n
He said concerns over the law\u2019s implementation were brought to the table at a recent meeting with Gov. Eloy S. Inos.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe raised this issue with the governor at one time and he told us to follow the law and that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing. We are not violating the law so we\u2019re disputing any differences [on the CUC billing],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
If parties don\u2019t agree with the OAG\u2019s opinion, another avenue to clear the gray areas is to submit a certified question with the Supreme Court, Guerrero said.<\/p>\n
Prior to the enactment of P.L. 18-19, PSS was charged a government rate for its water and wastewater. The law changed this to commercial rate, which reduced by 98.4 percent the charges for its water and 95.6 percent for its wastewater costs.<\/p>\n
CUC board chair David J. Sablan, in a statement last week to Saipan Tribune, indicated that CUC is not seeking the OAG\u2019s opinion officially.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, in my meeting with the PSS board chairman on May 5, he alluded to an AG\u2019s opinion on allowing PSS to pay the commercial water and wastewater rates [rather than government rates] without CPUC review and approval,\u201d said Sablan.<\/p>\n
He added that PSS may have to file a petition with the CPUC for rate review and implementation of that rate. CPUC\u2019s review, he added, will look at whether this reduction in the rate for PSS will have any detrimental effect on CUC meeting its operational needs and requirements under stipulated court orders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Board of Education chair Herman T. Guerrero is opposed to the Commonwealth Public Utilities Commission\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[915,49,40,38],"class_list":["post-36207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cpuc","tag-cuc","tag-pss","tag-saipan-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}