Final report on fully public LIPA will be issued by April, official says
Councilman Rory Lancman speaks during a hearing on the NYPD budget and public safety in the City Council chamber at City Hall, Wednesday, May 15, 2019. Credit: Jeff Bachner
A state legislative commission formed to lay the groundwork for a fully public LIPA missed its first scheduled public hearing Sept. 30, but its newly appointed executive director says he plans to keep an aggressive work schedule to issue a final report by next April.
Rory Lancman, a former state Assemblyman from Great Neck who served as special counsel for ratepayer protection for the state Department of Public Service, said his plan is to keep the commission’s work schedule, including issuing a draft report by December, on track.
“We are going to move at a very quick pace,” said Lancman. “Our goal is to get the legislature what it wants out of the commission for it to act in this fashion.” A public hearing could take place in November, he said.
State Sen. Kevin Thomas (D-Levittown), who co-chairs the new commission, on Friday said he was expecting the draft report to be ready early next year.
“Given that we are already behind schedule, there might be some changes in January and we may change certain deadlines from the bill’s original text,” he said. “I’m looking forward to everything starting up and going from there.”
The commission has received “a number of suggestions” to fill an outside advisory council to advise the committee, Thomas said, but it has yet to appoint council members. All legislative commission members, including co-chairman Assemb. Fred Thiele (D-Sag Harbor), are now “on board, and they have their teams briefed.”
Lancman, who in his administration role was involved in recent LIPA-PSEG contract negotiations, said the commission will examine and recommend more than just the prospect of PSEG “handing the [operational] keys to LIPA.”
“Part of the road map is a restructuring of LIPA and its governance and accountability models so the public is confident a new LIPA can handle this responsibility,” Lancman said.
Legislation signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul this year calls for the commission to determine “specific actions, legislation and timeline necessary to restructure LIPA into a true publicly owned power authority.”
Thiele said the commission, with a $2 million budget, may find that changes to the existing LIPA statute may be needed for the authority to take over day to day options, if that’s what’s needed.
Lancman noted the existence of several reports on LIPA future structure, including one done in the aftermath of PSEG failures following Tropical Storm Isaias, with an emphasis on shifting to fully public status.
“We are beyond the mere feasibility studying phase,” he said.
Lancman served under former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo as the state Department of Public Service eyed options for potential rate relief through a property tax exemption as part of a plan to take public all or part of the former New York American Water. Opposition from the Assembly ultimately torpedoed a direct state-backed rate relief plan. But the subsequent sale of the company to Liberty Utilities included state-mandated options for various municipalities to pursue piecemeal municipalization of parts of the water service area, and new authorities were created on the north and south shores to do so.
Lancman noted his efforts for LIPA are “a little different from the feasibility study I led on NY American Water, where feasibility was the question to be answered. Here, the question to be answered is what steps the legislature needs to take to effectuate a public-power model.”
He said he’ll “look forward to anyone’s testimony or report that analyzes different options for LIPA,” after some have called for continuing with PSEG, others called for selling off LIPA to a private company.
Thomas said he’s confident Lancman and the state can have greater success in their LIPA efforts.
“We’ve got a different governor and a different team here,” he said. Lancman “understands the work at hand.” The committee “doesn’t have the same issues that the past administration had.”
Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.
