PHOENIX — Four candidates are vying for the two open seats on the Arizona Corporation Commission, which is the five-person board that sets rates for most utilities in Arizona. That includes hundreds of private water companies, which is how Republican ACC candidate Nick Myers was first introduced to the agency.
In 2016, Myers filed a formal complaint with the ACC after his water-hauling business had been cut off by the troubled water company Johnson Utilities.
After months of community and ACC intervention, service was restored.
Following the conclusion of that case, Myers was recruited to join Commissioner Justin Olson's staff as a policy advisor — a position he currently holds.
"Just having that experience is going to be a big benefit and a big feather in our cap, because we know the questions to ask, and we know when the utilities are going to be pulling the wool over our eyes," he said.
Still, he says he wants to make some changes starting with small water companies.
"We've had a couple of utilities that we've had...for a rate case, smaller ones, one of them had 25% water loss, the other had 45%. Those are...that's a big deal, especially in the drought," he told ABC15. "We regulate 300 of these. Some of these utilities haven't been in (to ACC) for 20 years."
When it comes to electric providers, he said he wants the Commission to be even more involved before utilities make investments that ratepayers will be on the hook for.
"And if they deviate from that, then we come back and we say, 'hey, wait a minute, you know, something's wrong here. We need to either correct it, or you know, maybe you don't get to take that from the ratepayers. Maybe you have to take that from your shareholders,'" he said.
But Myers said he's impartial to what type of investments are being made.
"That means we absolutely like solar and wind, and nuclear and hydro and hydrogen. You know, natural gas plays a very important role in that. We should not be excluding anything," he said.
ABC15 asked if his impartiality extended to a generation that negatively affects the environment.
"I believe it does because we are not tasked with environmental standards," he said. "That's more of an ADEQ (Arizona Department of Environmental Quality) thing. For example, what is an appropriate amount of carbon in the air? It cannot be zero because we exhale carbon. We would die. So what's the appropriate number? Until ADEQ figures that out, we don't have guidelines."
For Myers, the ACC's main task is to protect ratepayers and grid reliability.
"Everything else can be done. Should it be done as a whole different question? And I think the answer is, a lot of times, maybe it should not be done," he said.
Another thing he said shouldn't be done at the ACC: energy policy.
The ACC regulates most electric utilities excluding Salt River Project.
"Setting energy standards is a great example," he said of the policy that the ACC implemented to set deadlines for utilities to reduce fossil fuels for power generation. An update to that policy was voted down by the ACC in January 2022.
In recent legislative sessions, lawmakers have introduced several bills intended to curb ACC authority after the Johnson Utilities Arizona Supreme Court ruling held that the state constitution explicitly granted the Commission authority to set rates and permissive authority for other actions which can be limited by legislative action.
Current ACC members have been divided on how to respond.
"I don't think that should be done at the Corporation Commission. And it should be done at the legislature because it affects everybody in the state, not just the ratepayers that fall under our jurisdiction."
