New PSC chief: State set for summer power demands

By Brian Clark
WisBusiness.com

Thanks to the building surge of new power plants and transmission lines during the past few years, Wisconsin should have plenty of power for the steamy days of summer.

That’s the assessment of Eric Callisto, the new head of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, the agency that regulates water, power and telecommunications utilities in the state. He replaced Dan Ebert, who resigned last month to look for a new job.

“Ten years ago, we were facing brownouts and potential blackouts,” he told WisBusiness.com recently. “But we have built the facilities we needed to build. Wisconsin is in a good place. And we also can rely on the regional transmission grid if things get really tight.

“But I take great comfort that this commission has approved needed infrastructure investment that will take us through the hot days of July and August,” he said.

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Callisto, a lawyer, was Ebert’s executive assistant. His previous state government positions include assistant legal counsel to Gov. Jim Doyle and administrator of the Division of Enforcement at the Department of Regulation. From 1997 through 2003, he was an assistant attorney general at the state DOJ in both the environmental protection and civil litigation units. He also worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C.

Callisto said climate change will dominate the debate in years to come.

“It’s a theme that winds its way through all the topics that the commission is facing,” he said, predicting that the Governor’s Global Warming Task Force will have its final recommendations finished within four to six weeks.

Callisto said the PSC is already working on interim recommendations to stimulate conservation and efficiency — which he said are two of the easiest ways to save energy and cut carbon dioxide emissions.

One of the changes that may be coming, he said, is altering utilities’ rate structure to make the cost of power more expensive at higher consumption levels to encourage conservation.

In addition, the agency is studying wind power on lakes Michigan and Superior, carbon sequestration to prevent carbon dioxide from escaping into the atmosphere and increased use of renewable energy resources.

But he declined to predict what — if any — recommendations the task force would make on increasing nuclear power production in the state. And he said this state probably will be dependent on coal to produce the majority of its electricity for many years to come.

He said the PSC is also now doing a review of the state’s telecom rules, which haven’t been revised for nearly a decade.

“This is a broad brush look at where this state stands vis-à-vis its own regulatory structure, as well as the structure under federal law for current and next-step authority,” he said.

“Clearly this country … has moved toward more deregulation of the telecommunications industry, and I think the state has supported that. But what we have now is something of a fractured set of obligations and requirements for telecom utilities.

“What we want to do is get everyone at the table and look at where we should go – if anywhere – on future changes in the regulations,” he said, noting that the PSC wants to get high-speed internet to parts of the state that don’t have it.