The Commonwealth Public Utilities Commission is now in the process of crafting a reporting mechanism that will show the public the regulation costs of CPUC, the Commonwealth Utilities Corp., and other parties involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn all fairness to the public, everything should be laid out on the table on what [CUC and other parties] are spending on regulation rather than going through every two years having another rate case about fees,\u201d CPUC chair Joseph Guerrero said.<\/p>\n
Guerrero instructed CPUC hearing examiner Harry Boertzel to craft the order and link up all costs of regulation in its entirety. <\/p>\n
The subject came up after Guerrero announced that the regulatory body has seen some reports of regulation costs from their consultant, Georgetown Consulting, but not from CUC.<\/p>\n
Guerrero said that members of the public have questioned the fees and costs that CUC and other parties incur whenever they file a rate petition with the commission.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything has to be substantiated,\u201d said Guerrero, referring to the reporting mechanism that they are now crafting.<\/p>\n
He said the \u201cserious allegation\u201d that CUC pays too much for Georgetown\u2019s fees and the cost of the hearing examiner is unsubstantiated and that everybody should know what has been spent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we can all agree that regulation is necessary and without regulation it may cost more,\u201d Guerrero said.<\/p>\n
CPUC commissioner Dave Guerrero said that it is really a question of evaluating the regulatory body, the costs, and how effective the regulatory body is.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre we overspending compared to other jurisdictions? Are our consultants overcharging? I just don\u2019t want to leave it out for the people to choose. I\u2019d rather we have a report out there to show what we have spent, including CUC,\u201d Dave Guerrero said.<\/p>\n
He also said such a report would help to keep track of costs, \u201cjust as a transparency so that people know that the taxpayer dollars are being used wisely and they can comment freely on the report.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joseph Guerrero noted that the allegations really hit the \u201cheart of the commission,\u201d which the Legislature intended the regulatory body to do.<\/p>\n
CPUC commissioner Oscar Quituga agreed that the parties should release the information and that the order be crafted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey [the public] want to be assured that the commission and all parties\u2019 costs are prudent, reasonable, and just,\u201d Joseph Guerrero said.<\/p>\n
The proposed reporting mechanism will be discussed at the regulatory body\u2019s meeting this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Commonwealth Public Utilities Commission is now in the process of crafting a reporting mechanism…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[260,915,49,67],"class_list":["post-42949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-commonwealth-utilities-corp","tag-cpuc","tag-cuc","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42949","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\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}