By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

The invaluable Ryan Randazzo at AZCentral.com revealed today that the executive director of the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), which oversees public utilities in the state, has had to resign because his wife worked for the lobbying firm that represents – wait for it – the state’s largest utility, Arizona Public Service.

Although there is no evidence of direct influence, the scent of conflicted interests surrounding Executive Director Tom Vogt was so strong that he resigned ahead of an emergency meeting the commissioners had called to discuss whether he had in fact violated state law by not disclosing his wife’s job.

Vogt was a strange choice as executive director when he joined the commission in January 2017. As I wrote at the time for pv magazine, his resume was pretty thin:

Vogt’s resume is longer, but his energy experience is even thinner than Forese’s. After a five-year career as an investment banker, Vogt entered the Air Force as an intelligence officer and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He then joined then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s staff as a daily intelligence briefer.

Vogt served three years as an Arizona representative and led the state’s Department of Veterans’ Services before Monday’s appointment. His most notable legislative achievements focused on veterans’ issues and not on energy. He is also a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative policy shop whose anti-solar stances are legendary.

Given the information Randazzo uncovered, is it really any surprise that the solar industry in, mind you, a state with the highest insolation rates in the country is struggling? Vogt is not the first commissioner to have ties to APS, and APS has not been shy about spreading its money around in commissioner races in the past. It’s nice to see some accountability finally being put in place for these conflicts, but Vogt isn’t the only compromised member of the commission. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the long run.

It should also be noted that Vogt’s resignation comes shortly after Commissioner Andy Tobin put forth a proposal to raise Arizona’s RPS to 80% by 2050 to counter a proposal by progressive billionaire Tom Steyer to raise the RPS to 50% by 2030.

The difference between the two proposals is that Tobin’s is significantly more friendly to APS than Steyer’s plan, in that it considers nuclear power to be “clean energy.” APS currently owns two nuclear plants in the state and is the only utility to do so.

More:

Solar neophytes join ACC as its new leaders

Arizona Regulator Wants To Get Ahead Of The Voters (And That May Be OK)

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

There’s always a creative tension about covering the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a solar reporter. On the one hand, they don’t have anything directly to do with energy policy, so some solar reporters feel it’s not worth covering.

On the other hand, as a solar reporter, it’s impossible to completely separate the environment and the Solar Revolution, since one of solar’s biggest selling points is that it helps reduce greenhouse gases and thereby helps the environment. Therefore, policy set by the EPA can have an indirect effect on the solar industry whether it wants it to or not.

But sometimes there’s a news story so big you have to cover it no matter what, and such is this afternoon’s news that the scandal-plagued EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has resigned one step ahead of the law. And his replacement at the agency, on at least an interim basis, is former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler.

This, as you might imagine, is not good news.

As the Department of Energy hatches plans to bailout failing coal and nuclear plants, it’s not out of the realm of possibility to see Wheeler finish the job Pruitt so clearly had started. Both men savor the idea of eviscerating any environmental protection regulations currently in place, and Wheeler may have an added incentive – in the form of his former coal colleagues calling him on the phone – to finish slashing regulations on coal mines faster than ever before.

Here’s where things get particularly ugly for the solar industry: Though Wheeler is only the interim EPA chief, he can hold the post for up to seven months under the Vacancies Reform Act because his appointment to the agency has already been confirmed by the Senate. And 210 days is plenty of time for Wheeler to work in concert with Secretary of Energy to finish the coal/nuclear bailout plan and give coal its time in the … sun … again.

Oy vey.