The V.I. Legislature appointed Sens. Judi Buckley and Clarence Payne to serve as ex-officio members of the Virgin Islands Public Services Commission, Senate President Shawn-Michael Malone announced Wednesday._.jpg "Sen. Judi Buckley.")
Two members of the Legislature are appointed to the PSC each legislative term to serve in an ex-officio, nonvoting capacity.
"I am confident that Sen. Payne and Sen. Buckley will take this duty very seriously given the pressing issues we now face, particularly in terms of electricity costs," Malone said in a statement from his office. "There is much work to be done in the coming months and the PSC has a very important role to play," he said.
Buckley said in a statement Wednesday that she will take "a competitive, market-based approach to utility regulation that is deeply embedded with the public’s best interest."
"I was honored by the Senate president’s request and, after a brief conversation with him on matters regarding the commission, I quickly learned that although we may sit on opposite sides of the aisle politically, we are in many ways aligned when it comes to ensuring that our territory’s ratepayers receive safe, reliable and reasonably priced services, while at the same time encouraging maximum efficiency in our local utilities’ operation and management," Buckley said.
The PSC regulates services such as electricity, water, telecommunications, interisland ferry transportation, waste management and cable television. The PSC board, by law, is composed of nine members. Seven are appointed by the governor with legislative consent while two nonvoting senators representing both the St. Thomas/St. John district and the St. Croix district are appointed by the Senate president.
The PSC has important issues before it, Buckley said.
_.jpg "Sen. Clarence Payne.")
"It is my understanding that (the V.I. Water and Power Authority) has several concerns with the (PSC’s) request that says from now on WAPA will have to meet certain minimum filing requirements before asking for any further LEAC increases. They have also taken umbrage with a report issued by the PSC’s consultants, Georgetown Consultant Group, that blames poor plant efficiencies rather than the rising price of oil on the global market as a major factor in the high LEAC being charged to local ratepayers," Buckley said. (See related links below)
"I’m hoping to get down to the bottom of what is behind the skyrocketing rates that businesses and individuals are paying in the territory,” she said. “At the current LEAC cost of 41 cents per kilowatt hour, there is no hope of getting our economy on the right track if a solution to our energy crisis cannot be reached in the immediate future," Buckley continued, while saying she realizes WAPA must make a reasonable rate of return.
People, more important than this story is our WAPA situation. We continue to pour millions of dollars into this old dinosaur. Those who run the dinosaur are stuck in the old adage ‘we go with what we know’. Wrong! Business as usual is killing us! Google ‘WCG Energy (US based company) building a 50 MW solar plant in the Dominican Republic.’ In addition, the DR just completed 3 major wind farm projects within the last 2 years. Isn’t St. Croix’s peak demand around 45 MW? These countries are making alliances with major producers. What separates the third world from the first world? What sets them apart from us….could progress be a part of determining this criteria? Our message to these alternative energy power producers should be: You build it and you reap the benefits (as long as our $/KW is largely reduced to the contractual value, i.e. $0.10/KW as opposed to the $.50+/KW we are paying today; therefore, all Virgin Islanders win). Lowering the bills of VI consumers should be the priority; the priority should not be to keep WAPA under the government’s control at all cost