Is it possible to change the culture of a regulatory agency by enacting a new law?
“I can’t tell you I know that it can be definitively done,” state Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) acknowledged in a recent interview with KQED. “But we’ve got to start somewhere.”
Leno’s starting with Senate Bill 660, legislation he co-sponsored to restructure the way business is handled at the California Public Utilities Commission.
“They have lost their way – seriously lost their way,” Leno said of the agency, which oversees safety and enforcement in utility operations and has come under close scrutiny in the years since the fatal 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion. “And so it’s time for reform.”
CPUC President Michael Picker agreed that the agency needs to change the way it does business. Picker said that the CPUC is currently examining how other states handle ex parte communications.
“You don’t overcome 20 years of erosion overnight,” he said. “We’re going to have to consciously rebuild that.”
Deborah Behles, a law professor at Golden Gate University, said she was surprised to discover how lax California’s ex parte communication laws are in comparison with that of other states.
“California is an anomaly,” Behles said. “There are only a few other places that have such a broad allowance for ex parte contacts, and especially in a rate-making setting.”