Candidates File For Public Service Commission Positions
Seven Republicans and two Democrats have filed to campaign for the two seats coming open on Montana’s Public Service Commission, the five-member body that regulates investor-owned utility companies with captive customer bases.
Two Republicans, K. Webb Galbreath of Browning and Arlo Christianson of Great Falls, filed to run against District 1 incumbent commissioner Randy Pinocci, a Republican from Sun River whose district spans 22 counties. Republicans Derek Skees, Joe Dooling, Ann Bukacek and Dean Crabb, and Democrats Kevin Hamm and John Repke are running in District 5, which includes Lewis and Clark, Flathead, Lake and Teton counties.
The 2022 election comes on the heels of a five-year streak of scandals that have put the PSC under a microscope. Those incidents include an email-leaking scandal between current and former commissioners and staffers that has since boiled over into a $2.25 million lawsuit, and a scathing legislative audit that described the body as having “an unhealthy organizational culture and ineffective leadership” that permitted falsification of documents and lack of adherence to state policy. Also of note is a 2020 state Supreme Court ruling that found the all-Republican commission unlawfully disadvantaged small solar projects by setting unfavorable contract terms.
The election also comes after current commission chair James Brown responded to the audit by pledging to address cultural, organizational and policy issues at the PSC. Brown was elected to the commission alongside former Montana lawmaker Jennifer Fielder in the fall of 2020.
Last year Brown told lawmakers he would take disciplinary action and implement training to address shortcomings highlighted in the audit, which was “disclaimed” by auditors, a rare judgment reflecting auditors’ lack of faith in the accuracy of the commission’s books for fiscal years 2019 and 2020. The PSC recently made staffing changes, too, hiring an executive director to help implement the changes. At least two administrative staffers implicated in recent scandals have left the agency in the past two years.
Brown might not be at the commission for his full fouryear term, though: He recently announced that he’s running for a seat this year on the Montana Supreme Court.
District 1 Candidates
Two Republicans will challenge incumbent commissioner Randy Pinocci in the primary for District 1, which covers a broad swath of rural Montana from Glendive to Glacier County. No Democrats filed for the seat.
Pinocci, who was elected to the seat in 2018, touted his experience on the commission and his prior experience as a state representative who served on the Legislature’s Federal Relations, Energy and Telecommunications Committee, since renamed the Energy, Technology and Federal Relations Committee. He said he’s put in plenty of miles, often on his own dime, to become familiar with the issues important to his constituents. He also described himself as a careful steward of agency finances who scrupulously follows expenditure procedures.
Pinocci identified expanding oil and gas drilling to lower ratepayers’ energy bills as being top-of-mind for the commission in the next four years. The PSC is deeply involved in setting rates for electricity and natural gas, but has no oversight of oil and gas drilling decisions, which involve other government agencies like the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and the Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conservation.
Pinocci has been implicated in one of the commission’s recent scandals: accusations that former Commissioner Roger Koopman’s emails were leaked to a conservative media outlet. That allegation is at the heart of a lawsuit Koopman filed against the state and the PSC. Pinocci and outgoing Commissioner Johnson are also named in the lawsuit, as are two former PSC staffers. Pinocci said the “lawsuit is going nowhere” and described Koopman’s statement in legal filings as “manufactured.”
Asked about his understanding of climate change and his role as a commissioner, Pinocci described it as a “natural process that’s happened for millions of years” and said he “absolutely” cares about the environment. He cited nuclear energy and a carbon capture unit for a coal-fired plant — ideally one that could pump carbon dioxide into a medical marijuana greenhouse to optimize plant growth — as technologies meriting a closer look.
K. Webb Galbreath, a Marine Corps veteran and the Blackfeet Tribe’s operations manager, will compete in the Republican primary against Pinocci.
Galbreath said he was motivated to run for the seat after reading about the PSC’s recent audit and its finding that several of the issues it raised were persistent, having been flagged in the agency’s prior audit.
“I had a hard time swallowing that,” he said. “I think we really need leadership in the Public Service Commission, and I feel the employees are a direct reflection of leadership.”
Galbreath, a rancher and enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe, said he thinks rural customers are “held hostage” by virtue of having few options to purchase power and natural gas. He also noted that more than half of the Indian reservations in Montana are in District 1.
Galbreath said that river- constricting drought worries him, particularly given how much hydroelectric power is generated in the state.
