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Complete July 8 Edition of the Newspaper (PDF) Recent Articles Peace or War, Renewables or Nukes
and Coal Stopping by the
Commission: PNM Seeks to Raise Rates While PRC Hampers Ratepayer Investigation,
Fixed and Low Income Citizens Could Be Pushed Over the Edge The Two Faces of Bill Richardson,
The "Clean Energy" Governor's Nuclear Ties The Corporate Prison
Boom, Immigration and The Law What is a Culture of Peace? Diplomacy the Watchword, Gary
King: "We Are All Constituents" Holocaust or Hoax, The Global Warming
Debate Heats Up The Hunting Fallacy Impeachment Limerick “Powerbrokers” (Legislative
Leadership and Lobbyists) in Control of Conference Committee NM Senate Joint Memorial
to Begin Process of Prohibiting Production of New Nuclear Weapons in
New Mexico Legislature is a “Brain
Trust” to Accomplish All We Need in New Mexico |
Stopping
by the Commission
This is where I seriously began to worry. How can commissioners, the ratepayer advocates of the Attorney General’s office, or the staff of the commission access information? After a long discussion, both Mr. Montoya and Mr. Cisneros admitted that no one charged with protecting the rate payers of New Mexico, including the commissioners themselves, could do a text search of the thousands of pages of documents in this and the precedent rate case, consisting of seven full file boxes in the basement only available by special request. I found it unbelievable, since protecting the ratepayer requires the legal equivalent of searching for a needle in a haystack, that no text search capability existed. Mr. Montoya explained that hearing examiners and other staff had complained about the lack of search capability. Both Mr. Cisneros and Mr. Montoya said they have complained often about the lack of this capability. During my visit, legal counsel Sydney Beadles walked up to the records counter and said, “I can’t get anything out of InfoShare (ironically the name of the PRC software system). Can someone help me find hard copies?” Dahl Harris, another legal staffer, stopped by and also made comments to me about the number of times he had complained vigorously about the lack of text search capability. I was later shocked to find out that the General Counsel of the Commission - who didn’t slam on the brakes until the legal staff have this capability - is Carol Smith Rising, previously a regulatory attorney for PNM. This is strange because PNM’s standard practice for employees, like attorneys, requires ironclad non-disclosure agreements that prevent employees from knowing anything they ever learned at PNM when they leave PNM. Ms. Rising would have had to sign this agreement. As an attorney for PNM she would have been briefed on all the issues and PNM’s strategy for dealing with each one thereby knowing everything. After her employment she would, in effect, be under contract to know nothing about PNM’s regulatory affairs, which covers everything. Why would the Commission hire someone to be their regulatory expert if she is under contract with PNM to know nothing. I remembered that the commission used to have limited text search capability. The public used to have access to a computer in a closet that had text search capability. My long ago use of that computer during my lunch hours was terminated when the computer was ripped out and the records office ordered closed during lunch. At that time, I was researching how PNM got the authority to give free power and gas to whomever they wanted with no disclosure to the Commission. Anyway, I asked Mr. Cisneros some questions about how the commission had gone from the system that had text search capability to a system that could not. Although the switch had been made before he worked at the commission, he explained that the State information officer would have had to review and approve the new system. Unbelievably, the State Information Officer at that time was Moira Gerety, appointed by Governor Richardson, and previously, the chief information officer of PNM. I remembered a fiasco that happened at PNM, while Ms. Gerety was their chief information officer. PNM’s computer system had crashed losing all customer records, while I was working to get the Attorney General or the Commission to investigate to whom PNM had given free power or gas. I had spoken to Ms. Gerety at PNM on the phone after the crash, trying [with customer permission] to retrieve a customer’s record. She explained that it could be possible to access the data backup tapes that may contain the record but that there was no search capability. I would have to pay a technician to go through the tapes bit by byte and it could cost between five and $10,000 to possibly locate that customer’s record. Even more frightening, Mr. Cisneros explained that although the unsearchable system of the PRC is hosted on PRC servers, all Commission communications and e-mails are hosted on State Government servers (at the State’s request), and that the Chief Information Officer of the state would have text search capability of all PRC emails and communications. Wow, an ex officer of PNM with search access to the regulators’ communications is a little scary. She would also have the ability to search of the communications of state legislators, the attorney general, the energy office and anyone else whose duties to the people of New Mexico could affect the profits of PNM. The saddest part of the day was a review of the comments file in the rate case. It was a large stack of handwritten letters from poor ratepayers worrying about how they could financially survive a rate increase and begging the Commission to save them by denying the increase. Each told the story of their current suffering and how they could be pushed over the edge by a rate increase. There were all fixed income people, handicapped, Seniors, people on very electricity-hungry oxygen concentrators and many others in dire financial situations. I almost cried, well, actually, come on tough guy, I did cry. Since my trip to the Commission, Ben Luce of Break the Grip made public comments in a PRC open meeting about the dire record access situation. PRC Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, son of House Speaker Ben Lujan - toasted by PNM every year at the fabulously opulent Speaker’s dinner paid for by PNM - explained that a budget issue is preventing the people who are supposed to protect us from having the tools they need. I commented after the Chairman’s explanation that PNM has all documents of the Commission in a searchable database at their headquarters, spinning on the best software money can buy, manned by an army of $200 an hour lawyer’s in fancy suits all paid for by us, the ratepayers, through rates. If we, as ratepayers, are going to pay for the multi-millon dollar gold-plated legal stick they beat us with, the Commission should give us a stick too, or stop the beating. Bill Althouse can be reached at (505) 469-7480 or althouse (at) earthlink.net |
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On
June 25, I went to the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC)
like any ratepayer concerned about PNM’s proposed increase in rates.
At the information desk I asked to see the PNM rate case. The person
at the counter asked for the case number. Apparently information is
not available, unless you know, the case number. I had already completely
searched the New Mexico Public Regulation Commissions web site and found
no mention of a rate case or its case number. It was almost lunchtime,
and I was hoping that even though the records office is closed during
lunch that I would be able to sit and read during lunch. The records
people said I couldn’t have the records during lunch. After insisting
that I shouldn’t have to take off work to see a public file and I wanted
to review it at lunch, they asked Ronald Montoya, the Records Bureau
Chief for permission to let me view records during lunch Mr. Montoya
was very nice and helpful, and we began a conversation. I asked him
why no information was available on the web. Mr. Montoya thought some
information should be available on the web. I told him I hadn’t had
any luck with that, and asked if he could show me how to retrieve some
documents about the rate case. After trying for over an hour, Mr. Montoya
had not been able to retrieve a single document. Mr. Montoya then contacted
PRC Information Technology Chief, Gabe Cisneros to come over and lend
assistance in accessing electronic documents about the rate case. Mr.
Cisneros was helpful and attempted to retrieve some documents, but after
over another hour, he was also unsuccessful.