Check out this breaking WSJ story on the two CPUC (California Public Utilities Commission) appointments made this afternoon. Both are strong reform candidates vouched for by the tireless watchdogs at TURN (The Utility Reform Network). While CCA’ers (us Community Choice Aggregation folks) should be sure to lean in and start advocating deep CCA understanding and support among these new players, at least we know we’re heading in the reform direction, and away from that anemic “captured agency” look of the past.

Appointed today are longtime senior TURN attorney Mike Florio, and the telecom expert & associate professor Catherine Sandoval, whom I had the real pleasure of meeting with TURN’s Mark Toney last month. Not only that: I know little, but have heard nothing but grand things about the two people named today at the CEC (California Energy Commission), Bob Weisenmiller and Carla Peterman. Governor Brown reappointed Weisenmiller and made him Chairman, and appointed Peterman, a TURN board member.

This all should signal a brand spanking new day for PG&E. I take it back, Nancy McFadden! Welcome home to the public sector, and I hope you have a fine time reining in your old boss Darbee in the years ahead. Now, who’s it going to be in that third sweet spot?

JANUARY 25, 2011, 2:16 P.M. PST By Cassandra Sweet Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones)–California Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday appointed a consumer advocate and a law professor to the state’s utilities commission in two of three closely watched appointments that could affect utilities and other companies regulated by the state.

Brown also appointed two people to the state’s energy commission.

The governor appointed to the California Public Utilities Commission Mike Florio, a long-time senior attorney for consumer advocate The Utility Reform Network and a former board member of grid operator the California Independent Operator; and Catherine Sandoval, an associate professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law.

The appointments allow the commission to convene and make decisions during a regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday. Brown also is expected to appoint a third person to fill a remaining vacancy on the CPUC.

With the authority to approve or reject billions of dollars a year in utility contracts, energy projects, and utility rates and tariffs, CPUC is one of the nation’s most powerful energy regulators. The agency oversees most of the activities and spending of California’s three largest utilities, owned by PG&E Corp. (PCG), Edison International (EIX) and Sempra Energy (SRE), and also regulates telecommunications companies, railroads, moving companies, passenger carriers, water utilities and operators of in-state pipelines.

Edison spokesman Gil Alexander declined to comment on the CPUC appointment process, saying it would be “inappropriate” for the utility to comment “on a body that regulates us.”

Telephone calls to Brown’s office and to PG&E and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. were not immediately returned.

The CPUC has been investigating, with its federal counterparts, the fatal explosion last September of a PG&E natural gas pipeline in San Bruno, Calif. The state agency has also said it is considering fines for PG&E over a separate 2008 gas pipeline explosion in Rancho Cordova, Calif., that killed one person and injured five others.

The CPUC’s two existing commissioners include President Michael Peevey, a former Edison International executive appointed in 2002 by then-Gov. Gray Davis; and Timothy Simon, a former staffer of former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, appointed in 2007.

Two CPUC seats became vacant Jan. 1 after two commissioners reached the end of their terms, and last Thursday Nancy Ryan resigned from the commission. On Friday, Brown appointed Ryan to deputy executive director of the CPUC, a job she held before Schwarzenegger appointed her to the commission in 2009.

Brown also appointed two people to the California Energy Commission, which issues permits for power generating facilities and plays a key role in setting state energy policies.

Brown reappointed CEC Commissioner Robert Weisenmiller and made him chairman, and also appointed Carla Peterman, a board member of The Utility Reform Network, to the commission. Weisenmiller’s term had expired Jan. 1.

Existing CEC members include former Chair Karen Douglas, Vice Chair James Boyd and Jeffrey Byron.

NEW SHORTEST HOPE HONEYMOON EVER
So could Jerry not get Darbee himself to sign on? The sickening news that our new governor just appointed PG&E’s Senior VP Nancy McFadden as his, essentially, Chief of Staff, is one of those headshaker moments for any of us who fought the $50M “worst ballot initiative ever” that McFadden created, Prop 16.

Whatever she is in other circles, PG&E’s Nancy McFadden is the mother of Prop 16. She is more responsible than anyone apart from Darbee for this measure, according to his own statements to investment analysts last year. And after the overall year PG&E had with McFadden in a senior exec position (San Bruno, smart meters, Prop 16, CPUC rebukes, cybersnooping the grassroots, more), this makes you wonder if Jerry was so busy campaigning he forgot to read the news. This bizarre out-of-the-gates decision by Brown bodes ill for so many ho ho hopes, including reform CPUC appointments and any amendments to the Community Choice Aggregation law.

McFadden’s Prop 16 is the antithesis of local generation and community-based solutions–and a big smear of corporate money across the California ballot. 16 was titled by Attorney General Brown’s own office “The New 2/3 Vote Requirement on Local Public Electricity Providers.” He doesn’t remember this? Was he there? 16 was built to kill exactly the local clean energy goals the Governor outlined in his climate and clean energy jobs plan.

McFadden’s Prop 16 was designed, according to Darbee’s statements, to squash (he said “diminish”) the ability of local communities to develop accelerated GHG-reduction and renewables programs (like www.marinenergyauthority.com). Prop 16 was designed to squash (“diminish”) the ability of local communities to expand cheaper municipal power service in any way, as SMUD and Yolo County attempted to do over PG&E’s ($13M) objections in 2006.

With blistering coverage, McFaddens Prop 16 was opposed by just about every paper in the state, numbering over 60 in the final count. Resolutions against 16 were voted on and approved by more than 80 local governments & agencies, and just about every green, labor, justice and civic organization you can think of. Governor Brown’s own party saw a unanimous vote against Prop 16 in the California Democratic Party’s Resolutions Committee vote in April of 2010, and resolutions against in Central Committees throughout the state.

Though McFadden and crew at PG&E outspent the opposition 500-1, Prop 16 went down hard, particularly in PG&E customer territory. Now the Governor needs to hear a cannon round of dismay from the alliance of Prop 16 opponents over this appointment, so he doesn’t take even one more step in this crappy corporate direction.

Jerry Brown should balance this bum pick with every other energy appointment he makes. His rumored short list includes the kind of vigorous, forward-thinking reformers we need at the California Public Utilities Commission, the California Energy Commission, and on his own Energy staff. Pick them. Make up for McFadden with every other move, Jerry. You can’t talk local clean energy and community, and then do big money monopoly politicos.

Yes, we’ve heard the schtick that Darbee hung 16 on McFadden. But she was a Senior VP with a serious career behind her, a real grownup. And Darbee was specific in his statements about her role. Would he really make it up, without a peep of protest or distancing on her part? And Nancy McFadden already had a solid history of active combat against local clean energy efforts on PG&E’s behalf. McFadden sat at the table and made PG&E’s final refusal to give Marin a renewables proposal and avert the Marin Clean Energy showdown. McFadden met face-to-face threatening local electeds in advance of the votes on Marin Clean Energy, reportedly saying to one Supervisor, “It will be cheaper to bury you in marketing than in litigation.” And so they did. Almost. This is her record–did Jerry think we wouldn’t know or care?

NOW what? Here are a few immediates:

1. Write press releases, letters-to-the-editor and blogs all over the place to make sure everyone hears a noisy rejection of this appointment
2. Ask that Nancy McFadden issue a statement that repudiates Prop 16, and makes nice to munis, to Community Choice Aggregation, and to local governments everywhere
3. Ask that Jerry Brown walk the walk on every other energy appointment, with a new reform President at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC); and smart and courageous appointments to both the CPUC and the California Energy Commission.

Contact:
Governor Jerry Brown, State Capitol, Sacramento, CA, 95814
By phone: 916-445-2841

And email through: http://gov.ca.gov/m_contact.php

What else? Send word. Good grief.