Assemb. Fred Thiele: Campaign for fully public LIPA has 'lost all momentum'
Assemb. Fred Thiele Jr. (D-Sag Harbor) listens during a hearing examining the role and effectiveness of industrial development agencies during a hearing on Nov. 22, 2019, in Manhattan. Credit: Craig Ruttle
A bill in the State Legislature that would have transitioned LIPA to a fully public utility has “lost all momentum” in the waning days of the session, its chief backer acknowledged this week, even as its energy-activist supporters tried a late bid to keep it alive.
The bill’s author, Assemb. Fred Thiele Jr. (D-Sag Harbor), who is not seeking reelection this fall, acknowledged in an email the legislation had lost steam as the legislature goes back into session next week to consider non-budget items.
“There is still no Senate sponsor,” Thiele noted, “nor is there the prospect of one on the horizon.” Some former Assembly sponsors also have dropped off, he added.
Groups that support the bill, led by the Long Island Progressive Coalition, gathered Tuesday at the Garden City office of State Sen. Kevin Thomas (D-Levittown), who co-chaired the committee for a fully public LIPA, and submitted about 4,000 signed petitions from Long Islanders seeking public power.
WHAT TO KNOW
- A bill in the State Legislature that would have transitioned LIPA to a fully public utility has “lost all momentum,” its chief backer has acknowledged.
- Assemb. Fred Thiele noted the bill still has no Senate sponsor as the legislature heads into the final weeks of the session.
- Groups that support the legislation gathered at the office of State Sen. Kevin Thomas on Tuesday in hopes of persuading him to sponsor a bill.
The groups said their aim was to persuade Thomas to sponsor a bill in the remaining weeks of the legislative session. Thomas was not at his office Tuesday, and representatives didn’t respond to Newsday questions.
Time is of the essence because PSEG Long Island’s contract to operate the system for LIPA expires at the end of next year, and LIPA must make a decision about how the grid will be managed. The Thiele bill contemplated that LIPA itself would beef up its executive suite and operate the grid itself, saving upward of $80 million a year that LIPA paid to PSEG for a team of fewer than 20 managers.
PSEG, which has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying against the bill, says the current model of a private utility operating the grid for public LIPA is best for ratepayers, though a recent state audit found numerous problems with the current relationship and PSEG's performance.
Thiele said it wasn’t just the lack of a Senate sponsor that appears to have doomed the bill.
“PSEG spent a lot of money,” he said, calling that “clearly a factor.”
In addition, he noted, “We have lost several Assembly sponsors in recent weeks,” with only three sponsors left in the LIPA territory, of a total 24 Long Island and Rockaways Assembly members.
Thiele also has cited the resignation of former LIPA chief executive Tom Falcone as another reason the bill hasn’t advanced. Thiele said in March that Falcone's “resignation is a loss for Long Island and brings into question the future direction of LIPA,” as he’d been supportive of the committee’s efforts to transition LIPA to a fully public model.
LIPA has been moving to replace top officials, including naming John Rhodes, former Public Service Commission chairman and former chief of its Department of Public Service, as interim CEO.
Despite opponents' claims that the bill amounted to a “government takeover of LIPA” by Albany, the LIPA bill would have shifted power to Long Island, taking away three trustees from Gov. Kathy Hochul’s current five appointees, which gives her control of the board, while for the first time giving Nassau and Suffolk County executives the authority to appoint two board members each. The New York City mayor would get one board appointment, for the Rockaways.
Hochul, whose campaign received $5,000 from a PSEG-funded political action committee in 2022, has said she’d review the bill if it makes it to her desk.
IBEW Local 1049, which represents just under 1,500 PSEG unionized workers, also would have gained its first seat on the expanded 130-member LIPA board had the legislation been approved. But the IBEW has publicly opposed the legislation.
Even as he acknowledged near impossible odds of passing the LIPA bill, Thiele noted, “Ironically, no one has been able to successfully challenge the merits of public power regarding savings, increased oversight and local governance.”
Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.
