Ellen Nowak with power lines and the ATC logo.
This week I won’t write about how college athletes should be paid for producing billions of dollars in revenue for everybody else nor will I blather on about how the Milwaukee Brewers’ owners are going to rip off taxpayers for their own stadium upgrades. (I reserve the right to write about either thing next time.) Instead, I’ll hop on my other hobby horse and write about the rapidly spinning revolving door at the Wisconsin Public Service Commission.
The latest egregious example of influence peddling is then-commissioner Ellen Nowak’s lobbying in favor of a utility-sponsored bill to limit competition in the construction of power lines, as reported in a recent Wisconsin State Journal story.
The bill, introduced in the last legislative session when Nowak was still a Scott Walker-appointed commissioner, would have given Wisconsin utilities a right of first refusal to build power lines. The ostensible argument is that it would keep that business here, but free market and consumer advocates beg to disagree. They say that it is designed to freeze out competition from out-of-state companies, ultimately resulting in higher costs that will hurt consumers.
“That’s one of the reasons that competitive bidding is being deployed — to help keep a lid on costs at a time when customers across the state and across the country are seeing extreme rate pressure and higher and higher bills every year,” Citizens Utility Board Director Tom Content said in another State Journal story. “This would eliminate the tool that is already being used around the country and the Midwest to contain costs.”
The American Association of Retired Persons also opposes the bill for the same reasons. And these pro-consumer groups have been joined by the conservative, free-market group Americans for Prosperity in their opposition.
But Nowak wrote emails to a select group of Republican legislators criticizing Americans for Prosperity and supporting the fence-me-in legislation favored by Wisconsin utilities. When her term on the PSC ended a short time later she joined the Wisconsin-based American Transmission Company (ATC) as an executive.
So, just to make it absolutely clear, here’s what happened. Ellen Nowak, a sitting commissioner on the PSC, essentially lobbied in favor of a bill supported by a company she regulated and which became her employer after she left the commission. She paid it forward.
The bill in question did not pass last session, despite Nowak’s lobbying, but it has been reintroduced this session. Its fate is uncertain, though the State Journal story may help kill it again. And even if it does pass, the same sort of legislation passed in Illinois but was vetoed by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker. So, perhaps this bill would find the same fate with our Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
But, on the other hand, Evers has shown his own glaring blind spot when it comes to this kind of double dealing. His own appointments to the PSC have been head-scratching. He appointed Rebecca Valq, a career utility lawyer, to chair the PSC. Then he followed that with Tyler Huebner, who had lobbied for the massive ATC Cardinal-Hickory Creek power line when he was at RENEW, an alternative energy advocacy group. Evers got the revolving door spinning even more furiously when he replaced Nowak with Summer Strand, who worked for a national engineering company that builds utility projects.
Valq, Huebner and Strand are all in mid-career. They’ll need new jobs when their terms end. Don’t be surprised if they follow Nowak to the other side of the regulatory fence. And don’t be surprised if they keep their career futures in mind as they make regulatory decisions that are supposed to be fair to consumers and utility investors alike.
Dave Cieslewicz is a Madison- and Upper Peninsula-based writer who served as mayor of Madison from 2003 to 2011. You can read more of his work at Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos.
