December’s Focus Became Legislative and Regulatory

December’s focus became legislative and regulatory. Your Legislative Affairs Committee, Morgan Meguire and I found ourselves fixated on government when traditionally we would have been wondering what the new year and leadership would bring.

While the fiscal cliff discussions were happening, one of the major concerns for NEPPA members became protection of tax-exempt financing. Either by executive order or last-minute legislation, many of us were concerned with what tax measures were not either party’s primary focus. Tax-exempt financing was one that neither side seemed to be drawing a line in the sand over. Taking away this essential source for financing growth, maintenance or capital improvement could potentially cripple any municipal department. Because of this, we began monitoring this important asset the minute the November elections concluded. When it became clear that no early deal was to be struck, our concern turned to the potential impact of an Executive Order.

In December, APPA reached out with two initiatives to protect this important funding source. NEPPA supported and participated in both efforts. First, was a get out alert campaign, where we asked members to reach out to their local leader (town manager or mayor). Using the information and our contact sources at APPA, the goal was to get other local leaders to understand the threat and begin to communicate their concerns to elected officials.

The second program was to ask members to reach out directly to elected leaders and inform them of the potential harm to their constituents. If you need sample letters for this activity, please contact our offices, as we do have draft templates. At the date of this writing there is no agreement so I can’t comment on the effectiveness of these two programs or any budget movement and the impact on our utilities.

The second focus that recently occupied our attention is the December 3rd filing with FERC by ISO New England. The effects of the filing, if accepted, would have extremely detrimental impacts on municipal electric providers in the Forward Capacity Market. APPA was also concerned with the potential impacts and we collaborated on a pleading for Docket No. ER12-953-001. Sue Kelly of APPA drafted the document and was able to get NRECA to collaborate and sign on. NEPPA also discussed the pleading with MMWEC and CMEEC who have also filed pleadings.

We now turn our attention to our upcoming March hill visits. The APPA Rally is March 11-13 and NEPPA will be doing hill and regulatory meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday of that week. If you are planning to or would like to participate please let me know. This will allow us to ensure we schedule meetings with your elected leaders. For more information, click here to access APPA’s Rally website. We will be scheduling a briefing call in late February for attendees to go over the talking points and leave behinds. We will also host a breakfast on the 12th for NEPPA members to review points and meetings schedules.

It is extremely important that New England represent its members and issues with a strong constituency, so I ask you to seriously consider attending. We have an experienced group of leaders to ensure that all of our meetings will have capable representation, but nothing impresses like numbers.