Ch12’s Joe Dana is bored, or maybe just biased

Another day, another biased news story from Channel 12’s “investigative reporter,” Joe Dana, whose “investigations” are limited to one subject: Republicans at the Corporation Commission.

Dana’s latest story is another example of the reporter’s lack of understanding of both Commission rules and energy policy generally. He alleges that there was something wrong, unethical, and even corrupt about Commissioner Kevin Thompson meeting with representatives of investors who provide capital to Arizona utilities so that they can build infrastructure to serve their customers. Commissioners from across the country consistently attend these same meetings with investors, as they do with every other stakeholder. Arizona commissioners on both sides of the aisle, including former Corporation Commissioner and current Democrat Attorney General Kris Mayes, have attended these meetings for nearly 20 years.

It takes a special kind of bias to argue that a utility regulator should not meet with investors whose funding is not only necessary, but essential to keeping the lights on in Arizona. Would Dana argue that commissioners shouldn’t meet with the banks who loan money to the utilities as well? Would it be wrong for him to ask what the Commission can do to help the utilities acquire capital at lower costs so that customers pay less on their utility bills?

We know that the solar and renewable industry depends on lucrative state and federal tax subsidies and regulatory mandates to survive—subsidies that have turned ordinary door-to-door salesmen into solar millionaires (see this recent Time story). We also know that Commissioners Thompson and Myers oppose subsidies for any fuel source when that subsidy falls on Arizona utility customers through their rates.

It's no coincidence that the only “ratepayer advocate” that Dana could find to buttress his ridiculous argument is a former commissioner, Bob Burns, who consistently, publicly, and unashamedly voted with the solar industry at every opportunity. Burns made no secret of his love of solar—no matter the cost to Arizona customers—and his hatred of Arizona utilities, whose demise he welcomed.

We also know that Thompson and Myers publicly campaigned on this principle: the elimination of subsidies and mandates that have required utility companies to add more solar generation, even when cheaper resource options are available.

It’s a campaign promise they’ve delivered on by saving Arizona utility customers not tens, but hundreds of millions of dollars that would otherwise have flowed into the pockets of giant out-of-state solar companies. They opposed an expensive ‘community solar’ program pushed by environmental and solar special interest groups that would have cost customers millions. They’ve also moved to reduce the payments to rooftop solar customers—a massive subsidy that increases non-solar customers’ bills each month. And more recently, they eliminated one utility's $5 million per year subsidy for electric vehicle charging stations.

Is it any surprise then that the solar industry would use any means at its disposal to attack these two commissioners, including using a local TV station to run salacious and meritless stories?
Joe Dana is an “investigative reporter” like The Onion is a serious news source. If he wants to be taken seriously, he needs to do his research, interview more than one side, and get the facts right.