Dive Brief:
- Paul Clanon, executive director of the California Public Utilities Commission, will resign his post in the near future amid controversy surrounding the commission's close relationship with the utilities it regulates, the San Francisco Business Times reports.
- CPUC Commissioner Mike Florio has also been indirectly implicated in new revelations regarding improper emails between officials at the commission and Pacific Gas & Electric regarding judge selection for its rate case.
- CPUC President Michael Peevey will step down when his term expires at the end of the month.
Dive Insight:
It's not clear that Clanon's resignation, reported by the San Francisco Business Times, is directly related to new revelations regarding improper utility-regulator communications. He was appointed executive director in 2007, and joined the commission in 1984. Combined with Peevey's impending departure, the state's primary utility regulator is poised for major changes.
And the stage may be set for even greater shakeup. Commissioner Mike Florio had previously escaped too much scrutiny in the scandal — PG&E was recently fined $1 million for a series of emails that showed the utility attempting to negotiate with commissoners for a favorable judge to be assigned to its rate case.
But in a new email released by the utility, the San Francisco Chronicle reports, PG&E Vice President Brian Cherry tells two colleagues Florio has agreed to help them if a proposed rate order is not to the company's liking. Cherry was later fired, along with the two other PG&E employees on that email. Florio has said he remembers the conversation differently.
