State Utility Regulators Read Tea Leaves After Trump Election
LA QUINTA, California -- NARUC attendees this week buzzed about the surprising election of Donald Trump. While speakers at the state commissioner association’s annual meeting stressed the uncertainty about what a President Trump means for telecom policy, some predicted an increased role for state utility regulators under a GOP-controlled presidency and Congress. Meanwhile, the National Governors Association (NGA) predicts little impact to the deployment timeline for the FirstNet public safety network even with a new administration and more than 10 new governors to educate, NGA Center for Best Practice's Homeland Security and Public Safety Division Director Jeffrey McLeod said in a phone interview Wednesday. “Timelines are in place and things will continue to move.”
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Great uncertainty exists on what Trump means for telecom, but there are some early clues, said Wilkinson Barker attorney Raymond Gifford, who works on telecom and energy issues and was chairman of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission from 1999 to 2003. “Right now, ain’t nobody knows nothing,” Gifford cautioned on a post-election panel Tuesday moderated by outgoing NARUC President Travis Kavulla. “There is rank speculation going on, rank office-seeking going on, rank disconsolate Democrats running around, but nothing has settled, and it’s probably not going to settle for a little while.”
One question is whether Congress reemerges to take back power from administrative agencies, Gifford said. On telecom, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s policy on “net neutrality is going to be undone,” he said, predicting it will be a policy priority for existing and new Republican commissioners on the FCC. “It’s not going to get undone overnight, but it will be undone.” Also, House Republicans have laid the groundwork for a Communications Act rewrite, he said. The Communications Subcommittee “has been doing pretty serious, studious work up through the House Commerce Committee,” he said. “There’s a lot of clay on the table” and “a sudden burst of enthusiasm” in Washington, he said. The rewrite may include an FCC overhaul that would change the agency to a more FTC-like model that adjudicates more than it makes policies, he said.
A question raised more than once at the NARUC meeting is whether the role of states changes under the new administration. In a keynote speech Monday, former Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Tony Clark told NARUC that Republicans tend to be more receptive to federalism, allowing states to play a strong role. Clark recently joined Wilkinson Barker as a senior adviser (see 1611140023). “One thing I’ve noticed over 27 years in public service is that whoever’s in the minority all of a sudden becomes the champion of federalism,” he said. Clark cautioned that the federal government has taken a commanding position in telecom. Gifford said federal government seems more likely to cede authority to states on energy than telecom: “The economies of scale in telecommunications is national. Federal pre-emption has made sense given the way those networks work.”
On FirstNet, state officials are “hopeful that the process moves ahead and doesn’t get delayed,” McLeod told us. “The states are eager to see things move ahead.” To keep the process on track, FirstNet should engage newly elected governors “early and often,” he said. “They’ve got a big decision to make this next year, and they need to make sure that’s a well-informed decision.” McLeod said he didn’t know how familiar Trump is with FirstNet, but NGA plans to engage the Homeland Security and Commerce departments and other agencies as the buildout moves ahead.
Less than a year after governors’ January inaugurations, the freshman executives will decide whether to opt out of FirstNet radio access network plans. Eleven or 12 governors will be new in 2017, depending on the too-close-to-call election in North Carolina, where Democratic challenger Roy Cooper declared victory but incumbent Gov. Pat McCrory has yet to concede (see 1611090024). Other state and industry officials said last week they didn’t expect FirstNet would be slowed by the transition to Trump and several new state governors (see 1611100049).
During gubernatorial transitions, the new governor will need to choose a homeland security adviser and some might choose a new FirstNet single point of contact, McLeod said. The SPOC role might not get filled as soon as other positions and a change likely wouldn’t occur until the governor became more familiar with the issues, he said. NGA plans to host a seminar for new governors at the end of this month in which incumbent governors will provide insights about their roles to the newly elected, and it’s possible FirstNet will come up in the discussion, he said.
NGA sent recommendations last week to the public safety authority on how it can improve state engagement, McLeod said. Of the suggestions in the Nov. 7 memo, the NGA official highlighted a recommendation to keep state SPOCs and other relevant state officials “in the loop” when FirstNet contacts a governor or travels to a state, he said. The association also suggested holding regional meetings for states to share ideas once they receive their plans and to ensure states are closely involved in the development of radio access network plans, he said.
NARUC Notebook
Legislatures should consider state programs to fight robocalls, Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley said on a panel Tuesday. That PSC has made significant progress stopping robocalls thanks to a statutory program, Presley said. The state do-not-call law “gives the commission wide powers” to investigate and enforce against violations, and it’s helping consumers, he said. It’s also enabled the commission to provide better information to federal agencies, he said. The PSC this year received 8,639 complaints related to robocalls, he said. “This is a scourge on consumers.”