{"id":416,"date":"2012-10-15T09:51:01","date_gmt":"2012-10-15T13:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/ga-psc-questionnaire-answers-david-staples.html"},"modified":"2012-10-15T09:51:01","modified_gmt":"2012-10-15T13:51:01","slug":"ga-psc-questionnaire-answers-david-staples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/ga-psc-questionnaire-answers-david-staples.html","title":{"rendered":"GA PSC questionnaire: David Staples"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\n\"David<\/a>\nThe Georgia Sierra Club sent a questionnaire to all candidates for\nGeorgia Public Service Commission.\nNone of the incumbents answered.\nThe two challengers did.\nHere’s the one from\nDavid A. Staples<\/a> for District 5.\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. \nAs a Candidate for Public Service Commission, what is your\ncampaign strategy for achieving 50% +1 of the votes cast?\n

    \n[I’m omitting the answers to this question. -jsq]\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \nHow should the Public Service Commission consider and weight the\nimpacts to community\nhealth (asthma, cancer rates, etc.) and on Georgia’s environmental\n(water quantity, air quality\netc.) when making decisions about a utility’s generation portfolio?\n

    \nImpacts to community health and the environment have to be considered\nvery carefully. I know\nthere are a number of different ways of viewing the situation but the\nexplanation I’ve found\nthat works best with Republicans in trying to get their support is that\nit comes down to a private\nproperty matter. The right to swing ones fist ends at the other\nperson’s nose. Does anyone have\nthe right to pollute the air that I breathe or the water that I drink?\n<\/p>\n

    \nIf I buy a piece of property for\ninstance along the Savannah River or Ogeechee River, does someone\nupstream from me have\nthe right to pollute the water that then flows onto my land, carrying\nthose pollutants with it?\n<\/p>\n

    \nAbsolutely not.\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

    \n
      \n
    1. \nAs a Public Service Commissioner, would you enforce utility resource\ndiversification by\nmandating a continued expansion of Georgia Power’s energy efficiency and\nsolar energy\ncapacity? If so, what would your mandates look like?\n

      \nIn the absence of a free market for electricity, I think the\nCommissioners have to work closely\nwith Georgia Power to examine what sources of electrical generation\nmake sense for Georgia.\n<\/p>\n

      \nWe have to keep in mind that there are no perfect sources of electrical\ngeneration available. If\nthere were, we’d already be using them. There are pros and cons to\nevery type of electrical\ngeneration. I don’t really like the word mandate though.\n<\/p>\n

      \nAlternatively, I think Georgia Power\ncould be incentivized to make more responsible decisions.\nRight now, as I understand it, Georgia Power has a guaranteed profit\nmargin of roughly 12%.\ndon’t think guaranteed profits are appropriate. I think profits\nshould be tied to performance.\nCertain key performance indicators could be the expansion of their\nenergy efficiency program\nwhereas another could be tied to their solar energy capacity. The\nbetter they perform in these\nareas, the more they are allowed to profit. The worse they perform,\nthe lower their profits.\n<\/p>\n

      \nHowever, any solar projects the company takes on should also be\nmonitored. Doing solar for the\nsake of doing solar doesn’t suffice. It needs to be done wisely and\nusing the right technologies.\n<\/p>\n

      \nThe type of technology, efficiency and capacity factor need to be taken\ninto account as well to\nensure that the ratepayer is protected and that people don’t have reason\nto call any particular\nsolar project a boondoggle because one project or another wasn’t managed\nappropriately.\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    2. \nDo you believe that the Georgia Territorial Act allows for renewable\nenergy power purchase\nagreements and third party sales? As a Public Service Commissioner,\nwhat would you do to\nensure Consumers retain the right to generate electricity from\nrenewable energy on their own\nproperty?\n

      \nI’ve read through the act a few times now. I can see each side’s\nargument for why third party\npower purchase agreements are or are not legal. I suppose at this\npoint what matters is what a\ncourt would decide. If a court decides that these types of agreements\nare not legal, then the law\nshould be changed and I would proactively fight for that law’s passage.\nFrom a private property\nperspective, people should have the right to enter into these\nagreements with companies they\nwish to do business with so long as it doesn’t inflict harm on someone\nelse. The only harm these\ntypes of agreement inflict are less business going to whatever monopoly\ncurrently is assigned to that area. However, nobody is suggesting\noutlawing solar or distributed generation altogether, so\nreally all we’re talking about here is the method of financing and who\nretains ownership. Should\nthe government or a monopoly utility have any say over a private\ncontract between a property\nowner and one of these companies? Absolutely not.\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    3. \nWould you advocate for the repeal of the Nuclear Construction Work\nin Progress Tax? When\nGeorgia Power Seeks additional cost-recovery for the expansion of Plant\nVogtle would you, as a\nPublic Service Commissioner, require risk-sharing mechanisms or deny\nthose requests in order\nto shift the economic burden of construction cost-overruns from\nrate-payers to share-holders? At\nwhat degree of cost overrun would the cost-recovery be denied?\n

      \nFrom what I’ve read, it appears to me that most of the money collected\nas CWIP isnt necessarily\ngoing towards prepaying the financing costs, but instead is going to\nGeorgia Power as extra\nprofit. As I stated earlier, I don’t approve of guaranteed profits for\nany business. I’ve talked to a\nnumber of people about these issues and it seems I’ve gotten different\ninformation from a variety\nof different sources. One person explained to me that the current\nprocess is already pretty\nmuch a risk sharing mechanism in and of itself and to hold the company\nand shareholders more\nresponsible for such things as fluctuations in the prices of\ncommodities (fuel for the construction\nequipment, price of copper, concrete, other building materials, etc.)\nwasn’t fair. However, I\ndon’t think holding the ratepayer solely responsible is fair either.\n<\/p>\n

      \nWith that in mind, I’m open to\ndiscussing what is fair and putting into place a risk sharing mechanism\nto ensure that ratepayers\naren’t footing the entire bill upfront for an electrical generation\nplant that some of them may not\never use.\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    4. \nHigh-risk investments into new nuclear and traditional fossil fuels\ndevelopment are taxing to\nour state’s water resources. In cases of severe drought, water dependent\ngenerating facilities\nwill be forced to shut-down operations. As a Public Service\nCommissioner, what will you do to\nensure a diverse energy portfolio which protects Georgia’s vital water\nsupply and the Georgia\nPublic from rolling brown-outs?\n

      \nThe drought issue is actually one of the greatest benefits of solar to\nGeorgia I believe. It is those\nhot summer days where the temperature reaches past the 100 degree mark\nwhere air conditioners\nall over the state are kicked into high gear that solar is readily\navailable to meet that need. This\nis also one of the factors that should be taken into consideration upon\nlooking at the appropriate\nmix of technologies that are appropriate for Georgia Power’s electrical\ngeneration portfolio.\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    5. \nDo you support prohibiting campaign and lobbying contributions to PSC\nCandidates or\nincumbents from utilities regulated by the PSC as well as from both\ntheir employees and law\nfirms?\n

      \nCurrently it is already illegal for utilities to donate to PSC\ncandidates from what I have been\ntold. Perhaps it’s not a bad idea to enact legislation preventing at\nleast the utility executives of a\ncertain level from contributing to PSC candidates or incumbents.\nGeorgia Power has quite a few\nemployees, so I’m not sure whether we should restrict their rights to\ndonate to a PSC candidate\nor not. I don’t believe the average employee is where the problem\nlies, though I suppose there is\na potential for abuse should there be a change in the law. I suppose\nthere are always ways to get\naround the system though. Executives could create a PAC that they\ndonate to and then donate from the PAC to the candidate and then run\ntheir own campaign.\n<\/p>\n

      \nIn the same spirit of preventing utility executives from donating to\ncandidates \/ incumbents I\nwould support the same type of rules for the lobbyists and law firms\nhired by the utility.\n<\/p>\n

      \nIdeally, if we elect people that have certain moral and ethical\nstandards, these types of issues\nn’t even come into play. I don’t believe accepting money from an\nentity that is regulated by\nthe PSC is ethical and will not accept contributions or gifts from\npeople associated with those\nentities.\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

      \nUpdate 2012-10-15 11:40:<\/strong> Added back missing apostrophes. -jsq\n

      \nUpdate 2012-10-15 15:10:<\/strong> Added vertical space between paragraphs. -jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Georgia Sierra Club sent a questionnaire to all candidates for Georgia Public Service Commission. None of the incumbents answered. The two challengers did. Here’s the one from David A. Staples for District 5. -jsq As a Candidate for Public Service Commission, what is your campaign strategy for achieving 50% +1 of the votes cast? […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[142,14,49,264,265,16,70,17,8,18,2,20,104,21,22,32,23,24,55],"tags":[8746,1542,8704,8721,1564,8754,8755,8706,8728,8707,8701,8708,379,8699,8702,8710,12,8737,8711,8712,8715,8713,34,8714,8727],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cwip","category-economy","category-elections","category-energy-conservation","category-energy-efficiency","category-environment","category-ethics","category-ga-psc","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-government","category-law","category-nuclear","category-planning","category-politics","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-water","tag-cwip","tag-david-staples","tag-economy","tag-elections","tag-electric-territorial-service-act","tag-energy-conservation","tag-energy-efficiency","tag-environment","tag-ethics","tag-ga-psc","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-georgia-sierra-club","tag-government","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-nuclear","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-pollution","tag-renewable-energy","tag-sierra-club","tag-solar","tag-water"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-6I","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}