HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Sen. William Parkinson has introduced legislation proposing to abolish the elected Consolidated Commission on Utilities and replace it with an appointed board, a measure proposed earlier by Attorney General Douglas Moylan.
The AG published an opinion in October stating that the governor, not the elected CCU, should be directly responsible for the function of the Guam Power Authority and Guam Waterworks Authority, as per the Organic Act of Guam.
“The election of the part-time commissioners deprives the governor of Guam, who is elected by the people, of the governor’s Organic Act authority to supervise the government and to appoint the heads of executive branch agencies as part of the governor’s cabinet,” the opinion stated.
Moylan has called the CCU “ineffective” in the past, and prior to the opinion, had pushed for hearings to eliminate the commission.
Parkinson’s Bill 203-37 does as Moylan proposes and repeals the creation of the CCU, directing the general management of the power and water utilities to appointees nominated by the governor.
The Public Utilities Commission, the rate-setting body on Guam with membership already dictated through appointment, will continue to have regulatory authority over GPA and GWA rate matters under Bill 203.
“The attorney general has opined the Consolidated Commission on Utilities runs contrary to the Organic Act. The work of the Legislature is accomplished through legislation, and with this bill, we will resolve the cloud hanging over CCU since this AG’s opinion. Moreover, this is a vote of no confidence in the ability of the CCU to effectively maintain adequate power generation as plainly evidenced by load shedding,” Parkinson stated in a release.
The release states that the Guam Education Board, the partly elected body overseeing the Guam Department of Education, “had to be included in the Organic Act to effectuate the elected board,” adding that the CCU was not.
Despite proposing the measure, Parkinson also expressed reservation about granting the governor power over the utilities.
“I do not think the governor’s office is the best place to house these powers, but the validity of decisions the CCU makes are now also in question since the attorney general, the chief legal officer of the government of Guam, has opined the creation of the CCU was a violation of the Organic Act,” Parkinson stated.
