SPEAKER_02 0:11

And welcome, welcome everyone. You're listening to iTalk 1067 FM, the voice of the mountain. I'm your host, Janine Ford, and super happy to have Nick Myers with the Corporation Commission on today. How are you, Nick?

SPEAKER_00 0:24

I'm doing great. Thanks for uh having me having me back on the show. It's great to talk to you again.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

I know it's been a long time. It was the last time you were running for the Corporation Commission, I believe. You and Tom. Yeah. And so I I w uh catch us up. There's been so much going on for us up here in the White Mountains in Navajo and Apache County. Of course, we first got some of the good news about uh with TEP and SRP with the natural gas over there in uh you know in Apache County, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so you're talking about the the conversions of the the uh coal plants from Coronado and and Springerville, I believe. And yeah, we we approved that uh just a few months ago. Um they were you know they're scheduled uh originally just to shut down in the mid uh 2030s, and uh of course that would just decimate those communities over there because most of the work most of the community works at those plants. Right. Uh so we've been working on ways to to keep those online and uh unfortunately just recently coal prices have doubled or close to tripled. Um so that made it even harder to keep them online. But one thing we've done since the very beginning is try to bring more natural gas into the state. And and a uh a few months ago you you heard the the news about bringing that big old pipeline from Texas uh into Arizona, and what that's doing is is enabling us to allow those two or those plants to convert to natural gas, and that'll keep them open for you know the foreseeable future, certainly a couple of generations and maybe more.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

And see, that's the beautiful thing. And and then we just get word too about APS and it going natural gas with Choya, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Yeah, so Choya was an interesting one because um it shut down and then a few weeks later President Trump announced his his big beautiful coal bill or whatever that was and specifically named Choya. Right, right. That was you know, uh of course that kind of made us wet our pants, uh, you know, for obvious reasons. But uh exactly.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Did he just say Choi? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Right. That's exactly right. So it it was it's been an interesting time, but you know, we were trying to find ways to keep that plant open anyway because we need all the electrons and molecules we can get on our grid right now. Um but it just wasn't happening because the EPA wasn't you know set up to do that. Um, you know, the EPA rules were still difficult. So um, you know, now that that it's about a year later, we've got the new pipeline coming in. We s we kindled those discussions with the utilities, and sure enough, we were able to uh make it happen um uh as far as reopening Choya, but as a natural gas plant, not as a coal plant, which is just as good, if not better. Um it still keeps uh that workforce, you know, gets that workforce going again, and it uh brings more electrons to the grid that you know as Choya was shutting down, they were replacing those um that that generation with other sources of generation. Well now this is just an additive thing, so that really helps our our electric future.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

Yeah, and see that that's the thing is I've been saying all along, I'm like, we need a bridge. We just need a bridge to get us to nuclear power, you know, eventually, because that's probably because that's the best choice and the cleanest choice, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Oh, a hundred percent. Um, you know, I've I've been working for years. As a matter of fact, I was the uh the uh uh vice chairman of the national organization uh for uh the nuclear subcommittee. So um I did that for a number of years before we got Rene Lopez elected last cycle. He's an actual nuclear engineer, so I kind of turned the reins over to him. But uh you know, ultimately nuclear has been one of my passions since I got elected. We've been working very hard to bring that to fruition and try to get the tech companies to pay for the the first few nuclear plants because you know honestly we don't want our ratepayers paying for research and development costs. Um so we've been very successful in that. They are the the tech companies started investing, you know, a year or so ago in small modular reactors. Uh you got Amazon working with Xenergy, Google is working with Kairos, you even have Microsoft and Bill Gates investing in Constellation to open up the Three Mile Island uh generating station. So there's a lot of nuclear going on. There's a l a ton of nuclear development in the U.S. that's that's very positive for Arizona as a whole because those developments basically reduce the cost uh for the next few units, and now we can start looking at those for Arizona in a in a meaningful way.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Yeah, and and that's the thing. It's not intermittent. It's now now a lot of people in the White Mountains in Navajo and Apache have been uh really, really afraid of all the renewable stuff with you know, because our lands and and the big Coconino aquifer that you know rolls all under these lands, you know, with all the springs all over the place. We've been afraid of these big, gigantic wind turbines and solar fields. And so explain to me with bringing uh up APS online, um, is that going to kind of fill our lines as it is, like the like the renewables we have in place and the gas coming on, will that fill our lines enough to ki to back off these renewables by chance?

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Um I don't have specific numbers for you, but I do know that that is you know, those lines, um, as I mentioned, uh you know, the generation has been backfilling for um Choya since it was scheduled to start shutting down. So um a lot of that generation has been you know replaced already, and now you're adding Choya to it. We've got a a ton of power that goes through that Choya substation uh or or uh uh generating station just because it comes in from the east and and some from the north, and there's just a whole lot of power at that that location. So it doesn't surprise me that it it actually is getting fairly full as far as capacity goes. Um now that also means that there's going to have to be some infrastructure upgrades and whatnot eventually. Um is it enough to stop new development of those resources? I don't know the answer to that, and honestly, it um you know that's a tough one because um you know a lot of that has to do with local planning and zoning or state trust land. So, you know, organizations like us don't really have a say as to whether it um comes online or not. We only have a say as to whether it connects you know to the grid or not, and even that is very limited in the sense that we can um, you know, there's only certain like nine or ten check boxes that if they check them, we don't have a choice really but to approve it legally. Um so there's a lot of discussion on that. It but it certainly wouldn't surprise me a bit if it slows down that progress, and by that time maybe there's new technologies in, like nuclear. So that it certainly is going to have an impact on it in some fashion. I just can't tell you, you know, uh uh every single scenario.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

Every single thing, yeah. And uh and quite frankly, we've known that you know Hobbes is a real big proponent of just you know signing these hundred-year leases uh on our state trust lands. And I I'm just saying me personally, if we can get her out of there, you know, she th those state trust lands and our ranchers might not be going down the drain as fast. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Oh, 100 percent. And honestly, I I believe that uh she's using that to s subvert the will of the people because she knows that it's tough for counties to deny something like that um, you know, when when it's on state trust land. So if you stop doing that and allow the counties and the local governments to do their planning and zoning like they're supposed to, now all of a sudden you have some control over it again. So I totally agree with you. Getting Hobbs out of there, there's many benefits to doing that.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Yes, exactly. She's you know, it's I mean, hundred-year laces with these gigantic solar fields and stuff are just scary. Um, the the um other thing I wanted to ask you about um just yesterday you did a tour of the biomass plant. How was that for you? What'd you think of that?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

That was actually very cool. Um there's only one in the state, and I've never toured that particular plant before. And um, you know, it was what was I guess the biggest eye-opener for me during that tour was that it's not really about the electricity. Um yes, the electricity sales are what actually um you know provide the the capital for that plant to run, but the the mission largely is focused on forest uh restoration.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

And that is is a huge deal. You know, they they it's only a twenty-seven or twenty-eight megawatt uh generating station, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the 8,700 megawatts that APS's territory is. So it's it's a small fraction of it, but it it allows the restoration of uh thousands and thousands of acres of our forest land. So um and and it only would take another one of those plants, maybe over on the other side of Flagstaff or something, um, to cover the m you know the vast majority of the uh um forests in Arizona. And um they've had a massive impact on uh major wildfires. So I think the last major one was the willow fire, and it was like 15 years ago. And it's because they're doing this forest thinning and clearing in different in various pockets that are actually protecting the the properties and the the forests um around it. So it's uh it's a very good tool for wildfire, and and as you uh you probably know, I've been hosting wildfire workshops for all of our utilities and whatnot that brings in forest service and and emergency response crews and and the public and everybody. I do that once a year because it's an important topic. Um, you know, our our utilities end up getting blamed for a lot of the the forest stuff that you know that goes on as far as f wildfires. That was proven in California, Hawaii, Texas, and it's causing insurance rates to go up. Anything we can do to stop wildfires will help that process that problem.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

Oh my gosh, I am so glad you mentioned that. That is so true. And for the forest help, that's what I love about the biomass. But on that note, that's the other issue that there's a tons of fire people, uh like fire fire prevention people that have talked about the huge concern because we have such fire danger here in the White Mountains, right? That like one wind turbine falling over with its you know almost 200 gallons of crude oil inside of it when if one gets hit by lightning or one topples over into our situation, how dry and how we've always been with wildfires and our high winds. Okay. If one does that or solar field or anything, uh what they've described it to me, fire experts, is it's like a putting a bomb in the middle of our fire danger. And the insurance companies then will probably more insurance companies will pull out of the White Mountains. And so that's the big thing is I think about with the renewables specifically. When people think about how self-contained and amazing, the nuclear is, the the, you know, you're you're you've got a small footprint where the renewables have this giant uh footprint and it can take hazmat, which we don't have hazmat teams. We don't have you know what I mean? And you've and so that's the bigger, I just think who's responsible if it uh it kicks off a gigantic wildfire and just burns through Sholo, Arizona. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Oh yes, that's you're a hundred percent correct. And and you know, up in those your neck of the woods, insurance rates uh for the the residents there and their their cabins out in the woods, things of that nature have gone up from like $2,000 a year to $10,000 a year recently. And it's all because of wildfires and whatnot. So anything we can do to mitigate that that liability is is a huge thing in Arizona. And and so far Arizona is doing a pretty good job at going down the right path. Um and this biomass plant is one of those ways that we we deal with that.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

Right. I love the biomass for the forest health and wildfire prevention. I hope we can expand it. And it's also good for jobs up here, because with the biomass and moving that material, tons of material and and with our drought situation. You look at the all the tons of juniper just for miles that are tur turned red and brown because of the you know, and and when you take those out at the pasture space, it's unreal because uh tons of these dead junipers and the junipers suck up all the water. So and they're not native, which is I mean, they're very invasive, is what I'm trying to say. But so a lot of that stuff, yeah, the wild fire prevention, the power the little bit of power production you mentioned, but then the local jobs. I mean, I I'm just waiting if they expand biomass, there should be some companies that are just jump up and say, okay, we're we're removing the dead juniper, you know, that's our business. Or is it a dead juniper removal or something or you know, but uh it would help so much in our fire prevention and then also keeping the as the fire fighting force calls it, the you know, the bombs, the the big, you know, because we are such a tender-dry area and you know, fire races across this land is going to be really, really scary with the you know, wind if it's wind turbines or solar fields. Right. So that's something.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

You bring up a very good point um about you know the employment and whatnot. One of the things I took away from yesterday was just how important having the a place to put the uh the the scraps, if you will, from the forestry and from other companies. Right? There's there's pellet manufacturing companies that can only use certain parts of the tree, for example. The rest of it is trash to them. Where do they put it? Well, if that biomass plant is full or shuts down, that means they shut down their process as well. Um, you know, there's there's all kinds of timber companies and things like that that if they can't dispose dispose of their product, they you know, it it brings their their economy to a halt as well. So it's not just the plant that has the employment uh benefit benefits, it's what the plant does for other businesses that also has a major impact on the economy up there.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Yeah, yeah, that's it, I mean it's huge. It's just absolutely huge. So I hope we can move in that direction with the biomass. That would be incredible. And like you say, over by Flagstaff, that would be a really good location too, you know, to get get all this dry material moved off and help save our forests. That would be wonderful. Um so I also wanted to ask you about the rate increases, and you've got this big one that months and months and months and months. Uh so what's going on and what has gone on with our rate increases?

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Yeah, sure. Um, you know, I I'll you know, I wish we had um you know hours to talk about it, but um I'll just say that you know the Constitution of Arizona does not allow the commission to just simply say no to a rate increase. I want to make that perfectly clear that you know our constitutional authority is that we must set just and reasonable rates. That that's our uh our um what our charter says. So with that said, just and reasonable means just and reasonable for the company as well as the ratepayers. So we have to find the happy middle. And the way we do it is with a uh it's like a 12 to 18 month process in the in the case of an APS size rate case. Those are massive. Um and uh, you know, I I will tell you, you know, I got to be careful about what I say because of expertise and pre-judging and things like that, but I will tell you that a utility is allowed to come in and ask for whatever they want. That doesn't mean they're gonna get it, and I've never seen them get everything they want. So they come in, they're gonna ask for the moon, and we're gonna go in and pair that down to something that is reasonable for both sides, and um that's exactly where we are currently. You know, they're they're asking for a whatever it is, 13, 14 percent rate increase. But um the the reality is we're in the middle of that process now where we're wrapping up the hearing phase of this process. Um so the hearing phase is just like a normal court case, right? You have you you can do discovery, you can call witnesses, you can cross-examine the witnesses, all of that before a judge, the administrative law judge who you know is our i i employee. Um, and then we that judge ultimately creates a recommended opinion in order and then gives it to us where that we can then go in and make amendments. So um that part of the the uh process won't happen until probably closer to the end of the year, maybe even the beginning of next year, um, where we get to see that. But um that's where we are in the process, and that's kind of a uh real quick how the how the process works.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Yeah, so that'll be after the first of the year, you're saying, right? And also now you're and you're running for re-election on the Corporation Commission, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Okay, and what how can people find out more about your run, uh Nick Myers, and you know, your website and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Sure. Um we i we actually have a couple of websites. I say we because Kevin Thompson and I are running as a team. We are we've made a great team on the commission for the last four years, and we wanna we wanna continue that. So we are still can running as a team. Uh the joint website is um U-R A Z C C dotteam.gov. So U R A Z C C T E A M dot com. I'm sorry. Um so to put that uh in verbiage, it's your A Z C C team.com. Um that will take you to links to both of our websites, but uh mine is just nickmeyers.us, so it's n-i-c-k-m-y-er-s.us. Um and again the joint website is u-ra-a-z-cc-e-a-m.com.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Okay. And and and the the thing about the Corporation Commission is that you guys are supposed to watch and help with those rate increases for you know the people of Arizona because you know, our our basically our power rates have gone through the roof. Um sometimes some of the writings online, you know, you'll go to the Corporation W Commission website and sometimes and I'm just saying so I wanted you to refute this or talk about it, but sometimes some of the writings sound like um some of the corporation commissioners are lobbyists for the power companies. What do you have to say to that?

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Well, I can tell you that um our job is to provide that check and balance, you know, to a monopoly company. That's the whole reason we exist. Um you know, uh to say that we are beholden to the utility companies is is quite laughable because our ethics rules, first off, they they basically force us to run a clean elections campaign. So we can't even take campaign dollars from them um in any you know meaningful way, right? The funding comes from public funding, which is generated from speeding tickets and DUIs. Um we're not saying go out and speed and drive, but if you do, thank you for contributing to our campaign. Um and uh you know, so the the process is very, very stringent. It puts all of us on a level playing field, it takes all corporations out of the picture, meaning we can't take money from any type of corporation or or uh PAC or anything like that. There's just the it's just not allowed. So um and and we don't um, you know, we w yes, we have a relationship with utilities. We have to because we're regulating them. That's just you know logical, right? Um but we you know, we've cut out over a billion dollars out of their rate cases since we were elected the last time. Do you think they're gonna be happy about that? Or you think they are happy about that? Probably not. Um, you know, a billion dollars is a lot of zeros at the end there. Um so we've been doing a lot of things that that do not make them happy. We cut out board of director fees, right? Those are that's something that's been allowed to be recovered from the ratepayers for a hundred years since we became a state. And we cut it out because it doesn't benefit the ratepayer. So um we're definitely doing things that are are a hundred percent not in the favor of the utilities, and to say that we're lobbying for the utilities is almost laughable in that sense.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Well, that's just what some people have, you know, what I've had some messages and different things, and they just sound like welcome to politics. Yeah, exactly. And so um, but yeah, and and that, you know, that's good to know. And it's and I know it's you know, everything has gone up in cost, everything and the cost of everything, but I'm I'm sure the utilities are doing just fine.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

You know, but and a couple of stats for you if you've got some time. Yes, yes. So the the um you know during the Obama and Biden administration, we saw inflation rise about thirty percent was the the general number. Um we're starting to see that hit uh rate ratepayers now because like I said, it takes a number of years before the costs that they spend actually get put into rates. Um just just the rate making process takes over a year, as I just described. Um so you know, we're keeping those rates down to to you know less than 10%, those increases as a general ruble. Um so we're doing much better than the inflationary costs. The EIA just came out with another round of studies. This is the second one, second one since we've been in office. And uh this last year, uh from I think it was April to April, they had a uh um they did a study of the overall electric prices across the U.S. have gone up something. like 7.6%. And in Arizona, believe it or not, the overall cost actually went down by 1.2%.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

That's an incredible number considering the number of increases we've had to give, but it has to do with bringing in growth and everything, economic growth and all this other stuff. So it's not a simplistic number. But the last study, which was for the year before that, overall growth was 3.6, 3.7%. Arizona was only at one point 1.5%. So even the year before it was a quarter of what the rest of the nation did. So good Republican values in Arizona are are what are keeping our rates some of the lowest in you know in the lower half of the the rates across the nation. We are well below the national average and we have been and and we continue to lower that.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

Well and and I do know yeah across the country I have some friends that they pay far more far more. And so we have to be thankful for that. That's that's for sure. Yes. Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

And be I don't want to minimize the impact to ratepayers. I know that nobody likes a rate increase ever and neither do we. We're subject to the same things but we do do our best to keep those as low as possible.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

Yeah and they probably and probably you know big energy asks for a thirteen or fourteen percent increase knowing that they really have to have like eight or something, you know, that they're going to have that they're going to get less but they probably ask for more you know it's the whole n normal you know uh push and pull kind of a game but that's that's a good thing. And I and I myself personally will be willing to pay a little bit more if we can keep the renewables out of it. You know, or not totally out of it but mostly out of it. Ruining you know go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

I tell you the best thing you can do to to help keep renewables under control is to get a new governor in there. We've ran bills the last couple of cycles that would allow the Corporation commission regulatory authority over renewables because currently it's ARS sta uh ARS 40 which is um something the legislature does or you know the statute the legisl legislature makes, it currently says that we have control over thermal generation. We've been trying to put in a comma and non-thermal for the last two sessions and it made it through the House and it made it through the Senate but it was vetoed by Hobbes. So um that's one of those things that we can do to try to gain some control over that but um we're going to have to have a new governor to do it.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Yeah she's yeah exactly veto queen veto queen yeah exactly all righty well thank you so much it's been awesome talking to you Nick Myers with the Corporation Commission getting the lowdown and all the news on up here in the White Mountains and and the good news for APS getting natural gas going there which will be a great thing for us. And uh and and please let us know anything else that's coming up and uh what's going on okay we super appreciate you keeping an eye on us up here in the White Mountains and all of Arizona. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Absolutely if you ever have any questions feel free to reach out.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

Okay Nick Myers of the Corporation Commission thank you so much. All righty everybody keep it right here iTalk1067FM the voice of the mountain