If you would have asked me, back in the fall of 2013, if I thought I would be spending most of the next three years on a regulatory proceeding in New York, I would have answered “no.” Yet here I am, in the fall of 2016, still actively engaged in the Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) proceeding. Although REV didn’t officially begin until the spring of 2014, we at AEE were already working with our member companies and New York’s utilities to articulate a collective vision for what a 21st century electricity system might look like in New York state, so it’s been a full three years for me and my colleagues Lisa Frantzis and Danny Waggoner. One question to ask is, has all that time been worth it? For me, the answer is an unequivocal “yes.” Not only have I reached Select status on Amtrak again this year, but REV remains the most significant proceeding (set of proceedings, really) in the country addressing utility regulatory and business model reform. Our participation has enabled us to bring the business voice to the conversation and, we believe, has contributed to positive outcomes already—with, we hope, many more to come.
