Opening the Door on Open Records Requests

With an increased trend for transparency and information sharing from state, local, and federal governments come an ever-increasing number of Freedom of Information Act requests. Although the Act itself pertains to federal government, there are related guidelines or statutes in place for each state. This session is designed to help states better understand and manage these requests and decrease the chilling effect associated with communicating internally and externally. Attendees will learn more about the rules of FOIA and open records requests, share and hear best practices for effective responses, understand the exemptions and, understand how State regulations on releasing public records differ from federal law.

Moderator: Hon. Lamar Davis, Arkansas

Participants:
Kelly Speakes-Backman, Alliance to Save Energy, Commissioner Emeritus Maryland PSC

Rich Heidorn Jr., Editor-in-Chief & Co-Publisher, RTO Insider LLC

Jennifer Murphy, Assistant General Counsel, NARUC

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Resources:
What is FOIA? (video)

A Square-Off on Nuclear Policy

The Headlines tell the story:

These Two Huge States Are Both Going Green, But Only One Is Trying to Save Nuclear Energy; Nuclear's Decline Will Raise Clean Power Plan Compliance Costs; Climate Scientists Urge California to Reconsider Diablo Canyon Closure Plans; Current Plant Closures Expected to Increase U.S. Carbon Emissions by 46 Million Metric Tons.

The debate on this issue will unfold live at NARUC! New York and California have taken different policy paths—each with merit. Ralph Cavanagh of NRDC and others will argue which State took the better alternative and why. Commissions and stakeholders will hear varying views on the most efficient way to migrate to a reduced carbon generation portfolio, including how to handle nuclear generation going forward. This problem is front and center before a large number of State Commissions and of interest to all stakeholders in the energy sector.

Moderator: Hon. Travis Kavulla, NARUC President, Montana

Participants:
Ralph Cavanagh, Co-Director Energy Policy, NRDC

Michael Shellenberger, President, Environmental Progress, Co-founder and Senior Fellow at The Breakthrough Institute

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The Rate is Right?

and NARUC Annual Business Meeting

The General Session will begin with the NARUC Annual Business Meeting. Commissioners are requested to take seats in the front of the meeting room. 

This session will review how the distributed energy resources compensation manual can be most useful to both new and seasoned commissioners and their staff. Attendees will be able to interact with the authors of the manual as they go through a guided case study showing the use and application of the DER Compensation Manual.  Attendees learn the primary purposes of the manual and what implementation should look like. At the conclusion, attendees will know: how a State can identify the impacts of DER on its system, what types of questions a regulator should be asking, and what type of information a regulator should be collecting. The authors will also discuss when revisiting your DER policy is appropriate and what policy techniques are most useful at that time.

Facilitator: Christopher Villareal, Minnesota

Participants:

Jamie Barber, Georgia 

Ann-Marie Cuneo, Nevada 

Jeff Orcutt, Illinois