NEPPA eNewsletter
December 2015
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S REPORT
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For those of you who are fans of the hit HBO series Game of Thrones, you know Ned Stark’s famous warning that cold, dark days lie ahead. And while the Northeast isn’t exactly Winterfell, we’ve all started making preparations for the worst while hoping for the best. The question, however, is how many of us have considered the importance of communication in our planning processes? At our recent Annual Membership Meeting, we heard from Anthony Huey, President of Reputation Management Associates, who talked about techniques for communicating in a crisis. Number one on his "10 Point Crisis Checklist" is to "have a plan." This advice may seem somewhat obvious, but how many of us can say we have an actionable plan when it comes to communicating in a crisis? Who is your spokesperson? How do you communicate among your team? Who are the local reporters, bloggers, and elected officials that need to hear your message? As Anthony underscored, it is critical that you have thought this through and developed a written plan before the first crisis lands at your door.
I would also like to highlight another part of Anthony’s presentation – that it is important to build relationships before a crisis hits. A reporter who has met you before is far more likely to be receptive to your message than one who has not. The same can be said for elected officials – a Senator or aide who knows you is far more likely to listen and act than one who has not. While NEPPA has done a great job advocating for public power in Washington, we can certainly do more to build upon our relationships with our region’s Congressional delegation.
How can we enhance our relationships with our federal legislators? Remember that you and they serve the same constituents. Keeping their offices in the loop during an outage is a great way to build those relationships. So, in the next few weeks, take a moment to call your federal legislators in their district offices. Ask to speak with the district director or constituent services director and introduce yourself. Make sure this person has your cell phone number and encourage them to give you theirs so that you can maintain communications during an outage. Building this relationship now will pay dividends both in terms of crisis communication and our advocacy efforts in Washington.
Winter is coming, but planning ahead will help us weather the storm.
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AROUND NEW ENGLAND
 Energy New England, LLC (ENE), an energy cooperative of municipal electric utilities operating throughout New England, announced that Christian Scorzoni has been unanimously elected as a new member of the ENE Board of Directors. Mr. Scorzoni is an attorney at Travaglini, Eisenberg & Kiley. Drawing upon his years of experience working with the legislative and executive branches of state government, Christian advises a wide cross-section of businesses and non-profits in developing successful public affairs strategies. Prior to joining the firm, Christian served as Assistant Secretary at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy & Environmental Affairs where he led the policy development and legislative passage of 6 landmark pieces of legislation addressing clean energy, biofuels, oceans management, and climate change including the 2007 Green Communities Act. Christian also previously served as General Counsel and Deputy Chief of Staff to Massachusetts Senate President Robert Travaglini between 2003 and 2007, focusing largely on energy, environmental, healthcare, and children’s issues.
"I am excited to join the outstanding team of professionals at Energy New England", said Mr. Scorzoni. "This will allow me the opportunity to apply my years of knowledge, contacts and relationships in the energy, renewable energy and power industry to public power and the clients that ENE serves."
John G. Tzimorangas, President and CEO of ENE, said, "Christian is a tremendous addition to our Board. His background, especially at the state and municipal levels, will help us to continue our targeted growth throughout Massachusetts and New England. He brings a diverse set of experiences within the energy sector and at the legislative level, which is becoming increasingly more important as the energy industry continues to evolve."
ENE Chairman William G. Bottiggi commented, "I am excited to add such a high quality individual to our Board to assist in promoting our mission and expansion."
Christian received his B.A. from American University and his J.D. from Suffolk University Law School. He is currently a member of the Amesbury School Committee and was elected this week to serve on the Amesbury City Council, a seat that he will take over in January.
About Energy New England, LLC. Energy New England, LLC (www.energynewengland.com) is a leading provider of wholesale and retail energy services. The company conducts more than $300M in structured transactions annually, and has also grown to become the leading provider of conservation and efficiency services for the public power community in the region. The company’s customer base has grown exponentially over the past few years. Its comprehensive portfolio includes power supply and risk management services, energy and water conservation services, energy brokering, and renewable energy solutions. Energy New England has customers situated throughout New England as well as other power pools. The company works with an increasing number of utilities, independent power producers, industrial, commercial and institutional facilities, municipalities and non‐profits.
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Rhode Island's congressional delegation is calling on federal regulators to improve the methods they use for projecting electricity capacity and setting energy prices across New England. U.S. Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse and U.S. Reps. Jim Langevin and David Cicilline sent a letter to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Norman C. Bay.
In the letter the lawmakers say the operator of New England's power grid insufficiently takes into account so-called distributed generation sources of energy — such as solar panels on consumers' homes — when tallying the region's future energy needs.
The lawmakers said neglecting those sources of renewable energy inflates the region's projected capacity shortfall and drives up the amount of capacity the region needs to buy at auction, resulting in unnecessarily high prices for residents.
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ASSOCIATION HAPPENINGS
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NEPPA welcomes ECA Solar LLC as an associate member as of Wednesday, November 4, 2015! ECA Solar LLC is a solar energy development company. The company is located at 30 Newbury Street, Boston, MA 02116. The primary contact person is Todd Fryatt. He can be reached at tf@ecasolar.com or 617.750.7159 (phone). Megger became an associate member of NEPPA on Thursday, November 5, 2015! Megger is a provider of high voltage test equipment for the utilities and testing companies. The company is located at 8 Woodland Drive, Hudson, NH 03051. The primary contact person is Douglas Finn, who is a technical sales engineer. He can be reached at doug.finn@megger.com or 469.412.3694 (phone).
NEPPA welcomes back Phoenix Communications Inc. as an associate member as of Wednesday, November 11, 2015! Phoenix Communications Inc. is the Northeast’s leading provider of fiber optic construction services to the telecommunications industry and municipalities throughout the northeastern United States.. The company is located at 25 Bowditch Drive, Shrewsbury, MA 01545. They can be reached at riannacchino@phoenix-fiber.com or 508.438.0360 (phone).
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This past September NEPPA mailed out the 2016 Education & Training Catalog and the 2016 Safety & Training registration forms. If you didn't receive them, please let Colleen know! If you haven't sent in your completed registration forms, please do so because the sooner next year’s calendar can be completed, the sooner you will be notified of your yearly schedule. *If you have certain days or times of the month that you require classes be held, please make a note of this somewhere on the registration form so we can take this into consideration before beginning the scheduling process.* If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to speak with Colleen Del Signore at 978.540.2200 or cdelsignore@neppa.org. You may also contact the Director of Training, Steve Socoby, at ssocoby@neppa.org.  ##SHARELINKS##
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NEPPA held its Annual Membership Meeting on November 13, 2015 at the Chocksett Inn in Sterling, Mass. The meeting was well attended by members of the Northeast Public Power Association including utilities and affiliates from all over New England. The meeting began with Calvin Ames, NEPPA’s President, welcoming the group and delivering his President’s report. Following that, Anthony Huey, the President of Reputation Management Associates, spoke to the group about Communicating in a Crisis. Kristin DiGirolamo, NEPPA’s Controller, presented the 2016 Association Budget and NEPPA’s new Executive Director, David F. White Esq., CAE, gave the audience a little bit of his background and informed the group about his future plans for NEPPA. Mike Kirkwood, NEPPA’s Treasurer, informed us of the activities occurring with the legislative committee, followed by Steve Kaminski giving his update on all issues related to power supply. To finish, Mike Cloutier gave a brief overview of how the 2015 NEPPA Rodeo did this past September.
Just prior to lunch, the affiliates who had elected to do so had the chance to stand up in front of the group and share what their companies do and what they can offer the utilities.
The following people stood up to represent their companies:
Afterward, everyone had lunch and visited with the affiliates!
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The Water’s Edge Resort was the site of the latest edition of PUMP and by all accounts was a success. Thirteen students participated in our oldest and most unique program. This fall NEPPA featured the following topics in two and a half days:
The PUMP program attempts to capture elements from eight core areas of management that would concern leaders in public power. The concentrations can be specific but also try to address a wide range of topics such as HR, technology, board relations and legislative issues.
This session, students were actively engaged in the learning process by way of exchanging ideas and networking. The relationships developed over the course of the sessions carry with them back to their utilities and are a valuable resource going forward.
There was a general consensus among the group that they were surprised and pleased how much they learned from one another, especially coming from so many different backgrounds and situations. Kevin Newton, of the Village of Morrisville Water & Light Department, remarked, "Being new to the industry and working for a small rural municipality, the PUMP program offered me great insight into the much larger world of public power but showed me that size doesn’t matter when it comes to tackling a lot of the day-to-day issues all utilities face."
The participants were unanimous in their anticipation of our April program, which will mean graduations for all; this session wrapped up with Bill Jackson of Peabody being the only graduate, as he had attended the first half the prior year.
Please watch your mail and our website for information on the spring program, April 27-29th at the Mount Washington Resort in Bretton Woods, N.H.!
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CALENDAR
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December 9 - 10, 2015 NEPPA Training Center Littleton, Mass. For more information or to register, please click here!  ##SHARELINKS##
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EDUCATION & TRAINING UPDATE
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On Thursday,October 29, 10 New York State lineworker fourth year apprentices received their certificates of completion from the Northeast Public Power Association and the Northwest Lineman's College at the Fairport, N.Y. training center.
The class had proved high marks in the class room evaluations and proficiency in the training yard performing transformer installations and banking, installations of PPE, and hot stick instruction and pole top rescue techniques. Graduates include: Chris Drzewiecki, Keith Bezon, Adam Folts, Eric Leet, Bryce Davis, Josh Short, Jonas Greenstein, Doug Keppel, Mike Sickler, and Brad Baer. Bill Hesson comments, "They are ready to return to their companies as assets, practicing what they have learned. These men are to be congratulated for a job well done." William F Hesson CUSP NEPPA
Lineman Consultant and Trainer
MEUA New York State
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LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
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In This Issue:
Energy Bill Heads for House Floor
The House is poised to consider H.R. 8, the "North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act," the week of Nov. 30. H.R. 8 contains a number of provisions of interest to NEPPA, including providing the Department of Energy (DOE) with authority to instruct utilities to protect the grid in emergencies and improving the hydropower relicensing process. However, NEPPA has focused on Sec. 1110, a study aimed at promoting baseload generation in capacity markets that would increase costs to consumers without reforming the worst parts of the markets.
A Manager’s Amendment makes a number of changes from the version that was reported by the Energy and Commerce Committee Sept. 30, including stripping several funding provisions from the bill, including hydropower production and efficiency incentives, modifying the disclosure provisions of grid security measures, and adding the text of H.R. 2358, the Vegetation Management bill reported by the House Natural Resources Committee. Sec. 1110 remains unchanged, although Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) has filed an amendment to add consideration of costs to consumers to the list of issues the report must consider.
Amendments have also been filed to modify the hydropower provisions. Over 200 water and environmental groups pulled out the stops in opposition to the bipartisan language advanced by Reps. Jerry McNerney (D-CA) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). The groups sent a strongly worded letter to all House Members on Nov. 12, calling it an "unprecedented assault on our nation's rivers and the people and wildlife that depend upon them."
The McNerney-McMorris Rodgers amendment, a result of months of negotiations, would direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to consult with agencies and tribes in developing a schedule for all federal approvals of non-federal hydropower applications. It would also encourage the use of existing relevant and reliable studies and information where appropriate, identifying best practices and existing relevant studies.
On Nov. 18, five national trade associations, including APPA and the National Hydropower Association (NHA) sent a letter to House leadership to dispel claims that the provisions would undercut environmental statutes. The trade associations’ letter expressed concern over the environmental allegations and outlined in a "white paper" why the charges are false:
In closing, the groups said that the hydropower improvements impose a timing element, but do not dictate how federal, state or tribal regulators should exercise their regulatory responsibilities or what they must advocate. NHA is circulating a second letter to House leaders from industry groups supporting the provisions. NEPPA has added its name to that effort, although it remains opposed to the underlying bill.
On Nov. 4, the House passed its version of the long-term transportation authorization bill, H.R. 22, with an amendment advanced by Energy and Commerce (E&C) Chair Fred Upton (R-MI) that includes five energy-related provisions from H.R. 8. Unlike the energy bill, the long-term transportation bill is considered a "must pass" bill expected to move forward before the end of the year.
The Upton amendment added the following provisions from H.R. 8 to H.R. 22:
It is uncertain whether the Upton amendment will remain attached to the transportation bill as the chambers move to resolve differences between H.R. 22 and the Senate-passed highway bill.
To read the complete legislative update including the following topics, click the links below: ##SHARELINKS##
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OPINIONS & EDITORIALS
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Gilbert J. Brown, a professor and director of the nuclear engineering program at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, talks about local and nationwide nuclear power plants that have or will be closing soon and how it will affect our consumers, energy security, and the environment. To read the article, please click here.
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