LANSING – After some additional questioning Thursday, the Michigan Senate Energy Policy and Public Utilities Committee unanimously recommended that the full chamber approve the appointment of Orjiakor Isiogu as chair of the Public Service Commission.
A key question from committee members Thursday, and touched on briefly during a prior hearing, was why Isiogu had been appointed to this post after having been overlooked in his prior applications to sit on the commission.
“I can’t say other than the law of averages that my time was up,” he said of his appointment.
Isiogu approached the questioning on his qualifications with some modicum of modesty. “I consider myself the best qualified chair the commission’s had in quite some time,” he said, tongue firmly in cheek.
But he again said there were areas where the Legislature needed to step in to give the commission more guidance. He argued, for instance, that though legislation restructuring the electric industry in 2001 called for the commission to ensure that rates for each customer class matched the costs for providing services to that class, such de-skewing had not yet truly happened.
“It would be useful for the Legislature to make an examination of whether or not we’re de-skewed,” he said. Among the issues to address, he said, is whether utilities providing discounts to commercial and industrial customers to attract economic development constitutes passing excessive costs to residential customers.
And he said promoting renewable energy and energy conservation programs was important for the environment, but they also need to be subjected to a cost/benefit analysis before implementing them. Part of that analysis, he said, should include jobs created by new technology.
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