CUC wants fixed timeframe for CPUC to issue decisions

Due to long periods of time it takes for the Commonwealth Public Utilities Commission to make a decision on rate case petitions, the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board has recommended to the Legislature to amend the law governing the commission so it could come up with decisions faster.

The CUC board has recommended to Sen. Pete P. Reyes (R-Saipan), chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Utilities, Transportation and Communication, to amend Public Law 15-23 and give the commission just 90 days to issue decisions on rate case petitions presented by CUC.

A similar recommendation was also presented to the House of Representatives.

CUC board members described the 90-day period as a “more reasonable time frame.”

“The CPUC law should be amended to require the CPUC to finish rate cases that are put before them within a reasonable time frame, otherwise they would automatically be considered approved,” CUC board chair David Sablan Jr. said.

He cited past CUC rate petitions that he said took the CPUC an inordinately long period of time to decide on.

“We ponder through some of those in the past few months, with our experience with the hold on the rate cases that are sitting with the board,” he said.

According to Sablan, among the issues that took awhile to get decided on were an oil contract, the incentive rate contract for large commercial customers that got approved only last Friday, and CUC legal counsel James Sirok’s presentation on costs paid by CUC to CPUC.

Sablan said that Sirok’s report was a breakdown of how much CUC paid CPUC and described it as “very eye-opening” to see how much the commission charges CUC for regulatory costs, even for small changes in CUC’s operational requirements.

“That was unconscionable. There was no need for that, but in my opinion there should be a dollar limit on cases that we put before them,” he said.

Rep. Larry Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan), who chairs the House PUTC committee, told the CUC board last Tuesday that he has yet to hear about the recommendation to amend P.L. 15-23.

“I was not informed of the recommendation because I was not here last board meeting. But I am willing to help you guys in terms of CPUC coming within a time period of approving the rates and its decisions,” he said.

Deleon Guerrero told CUC board that he can draft an amendment to the law requiring CPUC to hasten its decisions within a fixed time frame.

Sablan said it is important for CPUC to hasten its decision because if they continue to wait and delay “things don’t get done and the rate goes up.”