Testimony of Assemblymember Shelley Mayer Before the Moreland Commission

January 24, 2013

Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to address you tonight.

I am pleased that the Moreland Commission has convened this meeting in Westchester. I requested this opportunity for my constituents to have their voices heard about their experiences, and I appreciate that I, on their behalf, and they personally will have the opportunity to address you here in our County.

Superstorm Sandy exposed deep holes in our preparation for severe storms and flooding brought about by climate change. I applaud the Governor for his creation of this Commission, providing for a thorough evaluation of our preparedness for these kinds of weather events. Here in Westchester, Sandy had a devastating impact on both consumers and businesses. The combination of downed trees and power lines complicated the situation, and created a unique challenge to Con Ed, which provides service to my district in the city of Yonkers. Unfortunately, I do not believe they met this challenge at the level the ratepayers deserve.

In Yonkers at least 20,000 customers, both residential and commercial, were without power, some for quite a while, some for more than two weeks. We all understood that this was a serious storm, and exercised enormous patience. However, the inadequate preparation for this storm, the delayed response to outages and the communication failures that followed deserves your attention and recommendations for reform.

First, it appears that Con Ed was not fully prepared for a storm of this magnitude in Westchester, and I am not confident they moved as quickly as they could to restore power to all those affected. Specifically, it is my belief that Con Ed did not aggressively trigger their mutual aid agreements for Westchester until several days after the storm – frankly too late. Good planning and weather forecasting should have made it more than obvious that Con Ed needed out of state above ground crews for Westchester as soon as the storm hit. Yet, based on my observation, it appears that they had not arranged to bring in these crews until three or four days later. According to Con Ed, since the Northeast area was hit so hard, locally based crews were not available. Frankly, crews from Ontario and the Midwest should have been on call once the storm was forecast, and should have been here the following day. On top of this, Con Ed officials were not forthright about this issue and our demands for quicker service, pushing off our complaints and claiming delays were attributable to assessment of the scope of outages, time for ordering of crews, and then crew transportation and training.

Second, communication with Con Ed was seriously deficient – with consumers, municipalities, and with elected officials. We could not get accurate, timely information to share with our constituents, and our city officials were not kept fully informed to maximize coordination of efforts. Proactive, accurate and timely information would have alleviated misunderstandings and additional consumer burden. In my case, representing the City of Yonkers, the fourth largest city in the State, I could not get any real time information about when crews would restore whole buildings or whole neighborhoods. In fact, we were expressly asked NOT to name specific locations without power, and to defer exclusively to Con Ed’s online system. This is not an acceptable or effective way to communicate with elected officials, large cities, or ratepayers.

In response to these issues – lack of preparedness, timeliness of restoration and inadequate communication, I propose the following.

First, the public service commission must establish performance benchmark and incentive standards for each utility company when the outages in the region reach a particular threshold. I will shortly be introducing a bill that mirrors legislation enacted in the State of Connecticut, which imposes real standards and incentives when power is out for more than 10% of the customers of the utility for a period exceeding 48 hours. These standards and incentives will pertain to staffing levels, targets for restoration, maintenance and investment and will be based on information provided by the utility companies themselves. Failure to meet the standards would result in the imposition of civil penalties. Not only will these standards help consumers, but they will also incentivize investment in infrastructure. Frankly, I believe that we need economic incentives that force utilities like Con Ed to bring their preparedness and responsiveness into the 21st century.

Second, I urge that the Commission push for greater public disclosure by utility companies in anticipation and preparation for serious weather emergencies. The PSC should mandate – and utilities should provide - information about current staffing levels, tree-cutting activity, and storm staffing plans such that consumers can review this information, provide comments, and become active participants in shaping storm readiness.

Third, I suggest that regulations be adopted that require utility companies to adhere to modern communication standards, including timely and accurate response times. For example, once work is done at a particular site and power is restored after a serious outage, crews should be required to provide text messages to the municipal liaison so that they can promptly notify municipal officials when coordination is required and notify consumers when their power is back on.

Fourth, I believe the PSC needs to get out of Albany and hear from the ratepayers about their experiences with the regulated utility companies. In my case, after power was restored, I requested the PSC to come to Yonkers and hear from my constituents about their experiences with Con Ed. The PSC refused to do so. To remedy this, I am introducing legislation requiring annual public hearings of the Commission within the service areas of the regulated utility companies throughout the state. The Chair and a majority of the PSC members would be required to attend such hearings, which will solicit testimony from residential and commercial customers about a range of operational and service delivery issues.

Finally, I urge that this Commission recommend that an independent study be commissioned to examine the value and cost of moving power lines in Westchester underground. Internal studies by Con Ed or other utilities may be valuable, but we need an independent assessment of the benefits of such an effort, so that we can determine whether this investment is merited and if so, where. I urge that the study examine this issue on a municipality-by-municipality basis.

All of Westchester County and many of my constituents were subject to very difficult hardships as a result of Sandy. I am convinced that if we take the lessons learned in Westchester and apply them to the future, we can create a stronger, more responsive utility infrastructure and communication system that can do a better job of managing future weather challenges.

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