Two seats are up for election on the Arizona Corporation Commission this year. The Corporation Commission is tasked with approving rates charged by utilities like Arizona Public Service Co. and Southwest Gas, ensuring the safety of railroads and pipelines, investigating the securities marketplace and receiving organizing documents for corporations in Arizona.
A rapidly growing state, increasing numbers of days with extreme heat, supply-chain disruptions and shut-down power plants all threaten to cause blackouts in the Southwest in coming years. That’s the message Arizona Public Service Co., Tucson Electric Power and Salt River Project officials gave regulators this week during a normally routine meeting about the summer power supply.
We are disappointed in the decision by the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) to not pass the clean energy rules that would have provided an immediate boost to our economy, the technology sector and the protection of our environment.
The Arizona Corporation Commission rejected adopting a package of new, statewide clean energy rules following a 3-2 party-line vote from the commissioners on Wednesday. The ACC, which regulates most of the electricity providers in the state, had been considering this rule package for years, workshopping and compromising on details since 2018. The measures had support from APS, Tucson Electric Power, the Arizona Technology Council, the Sierra Club and many more but ultimately failed after a surprising vote from Commissioner Jim O’Connor.
Arizona voters increasingly recognize climate change as a crisis and strongly support actions to shift the state’s investments away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy sources and technologies, according to a new poll released today by the American Lung Association.
On Wednesday, the Arizona Corporation Commission is scheduled to vote on a package of updated clean energy rules that is years in the making. The package now under consideration, which benefits from several recent amendments, is the product of an extensive and bipartisan stakeholder process with significant support from individuals and businesses large and small from across Arizona. Most importantly, these rules allow Arizona to remain competitive with other states by providing the type of robust clean energy commitment that businesses demand before bringing jobs and substantial investment into a state while at the same time providing key protections to make sure the public does not pay more for clean energy.
Flicking a switch and filling a room with light is one of the most basic expectations of modern life. If darkness persists, the culprit is likely a dead bulb, not insufficient electricity. This reliability of power is easy to take for granted, but it is essential to the daily operations of society and the economy. Even small interruptions can have significant financial impacts.
A recent report commissioned by the Arizona Corporation Commission likely overstated the costs for utilities to increase their clean electricity resources in coming years, presenting a flawed outlook at the effects of the state’s proposed Clean Energy Rules, according to the Arizona Technology Council and the sustainability nonprofit Ceres.
It’s disappointing that Arizona Corporation Commission Chair Lea Márquez Peterson has reversed her position, voting down a bipartisan set of clean-energy rules twice in one month. We are especially pleased to see the strong energy-efficiency standard and a 100% carbon-free electricity standard included in the package. While we would have liked to see a more aggressive timeline for Arizona to achieve 100% carbon-free electricity, the compromise of a strong interim target to achieve 50% clean energy by 2032 will go a long way to growing a thriving clean-energy industry.
The new rules update the Renewable Energy Standard and Tariff that an all-Republican commission passed in 2006 and requires utilities to get 15% of their power from renewables by 2025, as well as the 2010 energy-efficiency requirements for them to use efficiency measures to meet 22% of their energy demand by this year.