Amended Utilities Act reflects new government issues
Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
April 02, 2008
The British Columbia Utilities Commission is expanding its traditional role from minding the public's money into one where social and environmental issues will also weigh on decisions about the future of crown agencies such as BC Hydro, Energy Minister Richard Neufeld said Tuesday.
Changes to the Utilities Commission Act were introduced this week in the legislature, and were described by one expert observer as the biggest shift in the commission's mandate in a generation.
Neufeld said the amended act is intended to reflect new government priorities including energy efficiency, conservation and demand management.
Key objectives include reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, enhanced regulatory support for clean and renewable energy, and more long-term planning for electricity generating and transmission infrastructure.
Neufeld said in the past the commission has made decisions exclusively upon economic considerations, and the government wanted to change that mandate "a bit."
"We depend on that quasi-judicial body to make some pretty significant decisions for us," Neufeld said in a telephone interview.
"It's not that the commission was doing anything wrong. They were actually living up to what the legislation said.
"The commission has to be aware that we want to maintain competitive [electricity] rates, to stay amongst the lowest rates in North America, but [also] to actually start looking at the social part of the world and also the environmental part of it. That's getting to be much more on people's minds than it used to be."
Energy sector commentator David Austin said government's concern about greenhouse gas emissions is central to the amended act, which incorporates most objectives of the B.C. Liberals' phase one and two Energy Plans.
"The electricity business in this province is at a critical juncture because for years we have been coasting along on the traditional way of generating and supplying electricity without regard to greenhouse gasses," Austin said in an interview.
"People haven't really taken into account what a reduction in greenhouse gasses is going to mean to the electricity business in this province.
"The government is looking ahead. It is not looking at the way we were doing things in the past because the utilities commission act itself was never set up to deal with something of the magnitude of GHGs."
Simon Fraser University energy economist Mark Jaccard, a chair of the BCUC in the mid-1990s, applauded the changes.
"The utilities commission act has needed updating for some time and I see these as welcome amendments that improve the ability of our regulated electric and natural gas companies to contribute to the province's greenhouse gas reduction goals. Once again, B.C. is proving to be a leader in North America and even globally," Jaccard said in an email.
NDP Opposition Leader Carole James said the party will take some time to study the proposed legislation, but she already has doubts that a utility regulator is the best tool for deciding policy on emissions.
"Is BCUC the right vehicle to be monitoring greenhouse gas?" James asked in a telephone interview.
"There will be questions from people I know -- it doesn't seem to us that it's the right mechanism to be doing that examining, to be reporting out.
"That will be the real issue for us to take a look at it."
Posted by Arthur Caldicott on 03 Apr 2008