PUC Diversity Efforts Limited by Curtailed Authority

LOUISVILLE -- As state commissions make diversity a focus, regulators from both political parties noted during NARUC's gathering this week their ability to set mandates is limited by authority constraints that include less purview over telecom companies than over electric and other utilities. The public utility commissioners said they and their agencies focus on having a diverse staff and on encouraging companies to pay attention to workforce and supplier diversity. In interviews here, the officials also cited the association's continuing focus on broadening the ranks of regulators and their staffers.

Like organizations of all types, NARUC paid increased attention to the issue last year, elevating a diversity subpanel to a full committee, which met Sunday. Now called the Regulatory and Industry Diversity Select Committee, it "continues to build on its original foundation of focusing on supplier diversity to looking at the utility and energy industries more broadly and critically," the association's spokeswoman emailed Monday: "We are looking at more questions about inclusion and diversity." The representative cited the association's backing of the National Utilities Diversity Council's diversity toolkit.

NUDC data last year showed people of color were 16% of all 203 state commissioners, with women at 36%, our analysis found for a 2020 Communications Daily Special Report on industry diversity. The organization didn't comment Tuesday.

Some state agencies have initiatives in place, while others don't have a particular program, diversity committee members, other state commissioners and their agencies told us. The Arizona Corporation Commission, run by the first Latina in any statewide seat in Arizona, plans a first-of-a-kind event soon. ACC Chairwoman Lea Marquez Peterson (R) said she and her colleagues voted 5-0 earlier this year to initiate a supplier diversity summit.

"I knew that a mandate wasn’t going to work" in her state, said Marquez Peterson on the sidelines of NARUC's Sunday-Wednesday conference: So "we focused on awareness and education." She was the only diversity panel member to speak with us. Other commissioners said they paid attention to the committee and some reported attending such meetings.

Upping the subpanel to a full panel showed "NARUC’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion," wrote the association's spokeswoman about what's known as DEI. "Organizations know that diversity and inclusion can't happen without putting in the work and perhaps asking some uncomfortable questions -- and the Select Committee is keeping us in step with that charge." NARUC's president is required to belong to the committee, she noted. "This group has moved from hosting well-attended small -- but important -- subcommittee meetings to being a main-stage General Session attraction at NARUC meetings."

Varied Approaches

Approaches vary among states whose commissioners spoke with us. None reported new mandates, and most said they were monitoring the issue, particularly at regulated companies.

By increasing awareness of the importance of having diverse vendors, the workshop and other ACC efforts "will help educate a lot of businesses in Arizona," said Marquez Peterson. She said the focus is on helping boost women-, veteran- and minority-owned suppliers: "Next is how do we continue to have workshops." The ACC chief hopes to have partnerships that can "help promote this through" industry. She wants efforts to broaden the base of suppliers to become "a higher priority for the utilities we regulate."

Like some commissions, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has some wider representation. There are two white female commissioners, two white male commissioners and a male Asian American, said the last, BPU member Upendra Chivukula. He noted the BPU previously passed a diverse supplier resolution, with power utilities the biggest participants. Of telecom participation, he said it's "not that apparent." State bodies in the U.S. generally "are trying" to make headway on diversity issues, Chivukula said. He thinks more progress is likely. Like many others, he said staff at his agency is increasingly diverse.

Another approach is for officials to ask representatives of utilities and telecom companies, when they meet, what they're doing on diversity. That's the case in her state, said Indiana Utility Regulatory Commissioner Sarah Freeman. Diversity "is a recurring topic of discussion whenever we meet with our regulated" companies, to find out how they're "approaching the issue" and what’s working, she said. "The hard part there is the follow-up and evaluating the success rates of different approaches to increasing diversity and representation." Freeman said diversity appears to be "at the forefront of everybody’s mind."

"We need to as a group to look like our city, to look like our state," Freeman said, noting all URC commissioners are white. Some 61% of residents in Indianapolis were white, compared with 85% of the state, as of July 2019. Freeman has heard of successful programs at utilities but not at telcos, she said. "We rarely if ever meet as a commission with the telecom service providers, simply because our regulatory authority is nil." She recalled a recent meeting with AES Indiana in which the utility shared ways it focuses training and other practices, so it's not just looking for minority and female external job candidates but also aligning current workers' skills with management positions.

"Historically, the Commission has engaged directly with utilities about their accomplishments related to supplier diversity, workforce diversity, and community involvement and investment through informal means, such as regularly occurring meetings," emailed the Indiana URC's spokeswoman.

AES Indiana's “Workforce of the Future” deals with culture, DEI, new skills and what it called "workforce planning." In a three-page summary of the program prepared for this report, the power provider said "new technologies" will "change every aspect of our work in the coming years" and it seeks "new ideas and diverse perspectives." With "transforming many aspects of our business," there are "re-skilling opportunities" where the company plans to work with community colleges on curriculum. The company takes part in an apprenticeship program with Indianapolis high schools and separately lets trainees get "six-month rotations in different areas" of the business during a two-year period.

Policies

Some utility commissions don't have specific diversity policies and the state oversees their hiring, we were told. They said the bottom line is that these agencies want the best qualified job applicants, and it's in their commissions' best interest to have a wide pool of employees.

"We’re just looking for good-quality people, and we got them from all walks of life" at the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, said PURA Commissioner Michael Caron. "I think we have a pretty well-diversified staff, a lot of women," he said. "We don’t crow about it. But like everyone, we want to get the best qualified candidates that bring value to the position and the organization." Caron was just elected NARUC first vice president.

A workforce shortage in Nebraska, with the lowest unemployment rate among states (see 2111080051), makes it challenging for the commission and telecom industry alike to find employees to fill positions, said Nebraska Public Service Commissioner Tim Schram. "When we post a job, we’re not getting near the applications that we were getting" in years past, he said: "If they have a good expertise, set of skills, we have to compete with the private sector to get those employees" and that's difficult to do.

The Oregon Public Utility Commission's DEI focus has expanded "nationally and with new community and advocate groups," it said in a statement for this report. The agency hired a DEI director in January, under which the commission included DEI in dockets, among them UM 2114 on investigating "effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on utility customers." The director is "working to address the culture of the agency related to DEI" and has spoken to organizations including the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board, the commission said.

The Utah Public Service Commission leaves diversity issues for expert agencies, said PSC Chair Thad LeVar. "We leave that to our Labor Commission and other agencies," he said. "We operate within our statutory authority, and in my view we have not been given statutory authority to review the diversity of hires within the utilities that we regulate." He said diversity is important, but "we don’t go there with the utilities we regulate."

As in many states, Utah's governor appoints PSC members, all of whom are currently white men. LeVar said the commissioners "have diversity of background and point of view and experience." On the agency's staff of 14 (in addition to commissioners), six are women and two are racial minorities, the chair said. While that's "a low percentage for racial" diversity, LeVar pointed to Salt Lake City's demographics. As of July 2019, that population was 72.8% white, compared with 90.6% for the state. Overall on diversity, "NARUC is playing an appropriate role," including with the tools that it promotes, he said. "Especially considering they are an organization of commissions from around the country."