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Gov. Jerry Brown Picks New PUC Commissioners

Gov. Jerry Brown announced the appointment of two new commissioners to the California Public Utilities Commission on Wednesday, opting not to renew the terms of Mike Florio and Catherine J.K. Sandoval, whose six-year terms come to an end Sunday.

By Dominic Fracassa, San Francisco Chronicle

Gov. Jerry Brown announced the appointment of two new commissioners to the California Public Utilities Commission on Wednesday, opting not to renew the terms of Mike Florio and Catherine J.K. Sandoval, whose six-year terms come to an end Sunday.

Brown’s nominees, Martha Guzman Aceves and Clifford Rechtschaffen, have both served in the governor’s office since 2011, and both have backgrounds in energy and environmental policy. They now require state Senate confirmation.

Guzman Aceves currently works as a deputy legislative affairs secretary, where she focuses on natural resources, environmental protection, energy and food and agriculture. Rechtschaffen is a senior adviser on climate, energy and environmental issues.

Brown touted Guzman Aceves’ “experience, know-how and insight” in a statement announcing the appointments. Rechtschaffen’s “experience as a lawyer, teacher and specialist in environmental energy matters,” make him well-equipped for the job, Brown said.

Florio’s departure will wrap up a term blemished by his role in a 2014 scandal in which he and others on the commission were widely criticized for being overly cozy with Pacific Gas & Electric Co., a utility the PUC regulates. The extent of the scandal infuriated regulators and corroded the public’s trust in the PUC.

Calls for Florio’s resignation were raised after emails emerged indicating that he had engaged in behind-the-scenes communications with PG&E, in one instance intervening in the selection of an administrative law judge who would oversee a natural gas rate-setting case.

Exchanges that emerged between then-PG&E Vice President Brian Cherry and other top brass at the utility suggested that Florio was willing to appoint a different judge if the energy provider was unhappy with the commission’s first choice.

Florio, who couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday, said at the time that the emails “mischaracterized” the conversations he had with Cherry.

“I simply reject any suggestion that Mr. Cherry’s memo reflected either my words or my actions,” Florio wrote in a 2014 statement. “I want to assure the public that I am committed to restoring the Commission’s credibility and public trust.”

Cherry was later fired along with other PG&E executives as the email scandal deepened to reveal the close ties that also existed between the utility’s top brass and former commission President Michael Peevey.

Anita Taff-Rice, a telecommunications attorney in San Francisco who follows and works with the commission closely, said that she believes the wave of uproar and investigations that followed the scandal may have compelled Florio to forgo another term. Commissioners serve for six years, but can be reappointed by the governor.

“I believe that Mike Florio really took a long, hard view of that very tumultuous period, and I do think he regretted some of his communications with PG&E,” Taff-Rice said. “I really think he decided that, given all of that history, he was not going to strongly seek a reappointment.”

Sandoval’s tenure, according to observers, has been largely defined by her efforts to bring greater telephone and Internet access to the most rural parts of California, and for taking a tough look at how telecom mergers would impact consumers.

Mark Toney, the executive director of The Utility Reform Network, a consumer utility advocacy group in San Francisco, commended Sandoval for spending “so much time visiting rural counties, visiting Indian reservations, meeting people who have never seen a commissioner before, to gain an understanding of what a lack of telephone service means in so much of California.”

Sandoval plans to return to her professorship at Santa Clara University School of Law. Through a CPUC spokesman, she thanked the governor “for the opportunity to serve the state of California.’’

Toney said his organization has worked with the governor’s newest nominees for years on matters of energy and telecommunication policy. And though he added that TURN was encouraged by the experience that both Guzman Aceves and Rechtschaffen would bring to the commission, he also said his group would be keeping a close eye on them, given their ties to the governor’s office.

Commissioners, Toney said, “have a responsibility to make independent decisions based on the public interest, and that’s based on what the evidence is, not just a phone call from the governor’s office.”

©2016 the San Francisco Chronicle. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.