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To nobody’s surprise, the Gov. Scott Walker appointees on the state Public Service Commission (PSC) are not serving the public’s best interests. The two members Walker selected on the three-member panel—former state Rep. Phil Montgomery and ex-voucher school lobbyist Ellen Nowak—have shown that they will go to any length to prop up the state’s outdated fossil fuel-based utilities and stymie the growth of clean, renewable energy in the state, even when they don’t have the facts to support their conclusions.
Fortunately, environmental advocates are pushing back on the Walker-dominated PSC’s terrible decisions. This week, Renew Wisconsin won a significant victory in state court, where a judge determined that when the PSC made an anti-solar, pro-Madison-utility decision in 2013, it had insufficient facts to support its decision. That’s the second time in a year that this judge sent anti-renewable energy decisions back to the PSC for more fact-gathering.
Renew Wisconsin and The Alliance for Solar Choice are also fighting the PSC’s decision last November to allow We Energies to slap a new tax on customers who have installed solar systems on their own homes. Their challenge also claims that the PSC had no data to support its decision that We Energies would be harmed by solar users. In fact, as the Shepherd reported exclusively last October, a We Energies-funded study showed that solar users actually benefit We Energies. But the PSC ignored that study and let We Energies punish their solar customers.
We applaud the environmental advocates’ challenges to the Walker appointees on the state PSC. The members of the state Public Service Commission should issue non-ideological decisions for the public good, not corrupt orders to support coal-burning power plants at all costs.
