States Archives - Page 7 of 31 - Checks and Balances Project

Wisconsin Public Service Commission: Slow-Walking Accountability?

2016-02-18

Part Three in a Series The Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSCW) has agreed to fulfill our request for the release of records surrounding a powerful former staff member’s communications with the clients and lobbyists from the lobbying firm he joined right after he left the Commission. It took the PSCW three and a half months… Read more »

Facts Do Not Support Bob Stump’s Wishful Thinking About Exoneration

2016-02-3

Is Arizona Attorney General Brnovich Hiding the Ball? Nearly 11 months ago, a reader tipped us that Arizona Corporation Commissioner Bob Stump used text messaging as his preferred means of communication. We found and reviewed footage of him texting repeatedly during Commission meetings. That led us to ask to examine Mr. Stump’s text messages, in… Read more »

Nevada Utilities Commissioner Noble’s Travel Records Subject of Inquiry

2016-01-28

PUC Agrees to Release a Thousand Pages of Records – for $339 The Public Utilities Commission of Nevada doesn’t keep an accurate sign-in log of visitors to its headquarters in Carson City and has maintained for five months and counting that Commissioner Noble’s public office appointment calendar isn’t a public record. Yet the PUCN’s… Read more »

Nevada’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision Mirrors Utility Lobby’s Template

2016-01-25

Public Utilities Commission Staff Denies Lobbying Contacts, But Won’t Release Noble’s Meeting Records Checks and Balances Project has been using public records requests to help citizens better understand the origins of what one couple called “the Christmas bait-and-switch decision” by the Public Utility Commission of Nevada (PUCN) to end the solar rooftop industry… Read more »

Were None of Stump’s Text Messages On Our List Reviewed by Judge Cole?

2016-01-25

While Judge Cole’s two-paragraph report is silent about which of Commissioner Bob Stump’s text messages he actually looked at, the former judge’s comments last Friday to the Arizona Republic indicate that he did not look at any of the more than 3,500 text messages sought by C&BP’s public records request. Only those text messages given… Read more »

First Report from Judge Cole Leaves Unanswered Questions

2016-01-20

Two Paragraph Letter Tells Us Little Wednesday evening, C&BP attorney Dan Barr received a two paragraph report from Judge Cole, the special master appointed to examine Commissioner Bob Stump’s text messages from his government-issued smartphone. According to Cole’s report, “none of the text messages” that the Attorney General’s investigators downloaded from Stump’s iPhone6 are… Read more »

Wisconsin Public Service Commission Ex Parte Rules Gutted

2016-01-13

Part Two of a Series There are rules and then there are no rules. If you live in Wisconsin and want to talk to Public Service Commission of Wisconsin Chairperson Ellen Nowak or another commissioner about a utility’s proposal to, say, double the monthly fee for residential rooftop solar – essentially making it unaffordable –… Read more »

Nevada PUC Chair Thomsen’s Ties to NV Energy Probed

2016-01-11

Inquiry Triggered By Sweeping “Christmas Bait and Switch” Decision to Wipe Out Solar Jobs and Savings Citizen outrage is building in Nevada in the wake of the sweeping “Christmas Bait-and-Switch” decision that the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada (PUC) made on Wednesday, December 23. The vote increases the monthly fee for residential solar customers and lowers… Read more »

Arizona Corporation Commission Hires Chief Ethics Officer

2016-01-7

Is it a New Era? Or Is Winter Coming? Can an ethics honcho help to restore public confidence in the Arizona Corporation Commission? There’s certainly a lot to clean up. On New Year’s Eve, Commissioner Bob Stump was partying with Strategen’s Lon Huber. Theoretically an impartial judge for Arizona citizens regarding energy rates, Stump… Read more »

Wisconsin’s Strange Case of the Missing Job Description

2016-01-4

First in a series on Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission We recently received an intriguing tip that the most powerful person at the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC) isn’t Chairperson Ellen Nowak, or Commissioner (and former Chair) Phil Montgomery, or even the newest Commissioner, Mike Huebsch, whose previous job was managing Governor Scott Walker’s… Read more »