Long Island Power Authority's structure avoids patronage, requires accountability; don't make it a public utility

Long Islanders need to come to grips with the fact that a handful of Albany politicians are proposing to create yet another government bureaucracy that would be led by dozens of politically appointed trustees and entrusted by the state to keep our lights on.

A state commission has endorsed a plan to make the Long Island Power Authority responsible for the region's electrical network. This new layer of government supposedly would save as much as $80 million a year over the current structure where PSEG Long Island has a contract to maintain, repair, restore, and innovate our energy grid. LIPA’s new role will include 39 appointments, some of whom will get a starting stipend of $25,000 a year for the part-time position.

As one who served on the LIPA board, worked at the Long Island Rail Road and Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and was chief deputy Suffolk County executive, the idea that LIPA could be transformed from its current role of overseeing PSEG Long Island and managing the Shoreham debt into a government agency capable of saving tens of millions of dollars is a fiction worthy of the Twilight Zone.

The 2013 LIPA Reform Act has actually worked. It has allowed LIPA to successfully manage the $6 billion ratepayers still owe on the defunct nuclear plant and monitor the contractor that runs the grid. It provides LIPA with access to the best of a public-private structure, avoiding patronage, creating transparency and requiring accountability from PSEG. Why would Long Island want to give that up?

If LIPA was handed the keys to running the grid, every decision, big or small, would be subject to the pressures of politics, patronage, and parochial complaints. This prediction is not based on speculation but on personal observation. Consider one example.

I was stunned to discover that before my pre-Superstorm Sandy arrival on the LIPA board, the authority responded to multiple protests to its plan to trim trees that threatened overhead lines by eliminating many of its tree-trimming assignments. We would all pay the price as the sound of chain saws filled our neighborhoods for weeks after Sandy as we waited for power to be restored.

Every Long Islander should be concerned about the level of accountability a reinvented LIPA would owe to ratepayers. While PSEG now incurs serious financial penalties if it fails to meet performance criteria, how does one penalize a government authority when it proves to be inadequate, or even incompetent? When LIPA failed in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo sent his chief of staff to LIPA'S Uniondale office and fired the lot of them, ultimately handing management of the grid over to PSEG. Cuomo wanted a public-private contract to incentivize or penalize the company based on performance. That ability will end if LIPA is given back the job of running the grid.

The multiple hearings the LIPA Commission held to review this plan were attended by insiders, paid consultants, and advocates. Few, if any, of the hundreds of thousands of Long Islanders who will pay LIPA’s bill under this scenario are aware of what’s at stake. For this speculative saving of $80 million, or about $3 a month per ratepayer, we would lose accountability from those tasked with keeping the lights on and gain another patronage empire.

At the end of the day, Gov. Kathy Hochul will decide whether day-to-day management of Long Island's electrical grid should pass back to a government entity whose previous performance was defined by Superstorm Sandy. We can hope that she will see this for what it is: a political agenda pursued by a handful who will not be around to answer the question after the next superstorm: “When am I getting my power back?"

This guest essay reflects the views of Thomas McAteer, a former LIPA board member.