Forum Planned On Public Electric Utility Company For Long Island

LONG ISLAND, NY — A public forum — featuring scholars and environmental advocates — has been organized for Monday to discuss the possibility of a publicly-operated electric utility on Long Island, according to a news release from the Long Island Progressive Coalition.

The forum, which is titled “LIPA Reimagined: Building the Public Utility Long Island Deserves,” will feature speakers “making the case” that a municipal electric utility system would be “best equipped to meet high standards for accountability, equity, resilience and democracy in Long Island’s energy future,” the release stated.

The forum will cover the history of the Long Island Power Authority, the benefits of public power, and “concrete proposals for more participatory structures of governance for the utility,” according to the Zoom registration page for the event. It will be followed by a question and answer period.

Organizers said Long Island now faces a pivotal moment in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Isaias, which left hundred of thousands of residents without power over the summer. LIPA sued Public Service Enterprise Group for $70 million over its storm response in December.

A statement to Patch from PSEG at the time said the utility company believes a “public-private partnership is the best option for Long Island customers.”

LIPA’s board will decide whether to end its contract with PSEG or change to a public system by the end of March, Newsday reported.

“The time has come for the Long Island Power Authority to not only end its contract with PSEG-LI but to finally end decades of failed public-private partnerships that have put profit over people,” the event’s Zoom registration page states.

Forum speakers will include Brooklyn College Associate Professor Michael Menser, who serves as president of the college’s Board of Directors, and also sits on its Participatory Budgeting Project.

Eleanor Stein, an adjunct professor of climate change law and justice at the University at Albany, Albany Law School, will also speak. Stein is a former administrative law judge and REV project manager for the New York State Public Service Commission.

Menser and Stein will be joined by Johanna Bozuwa, co-manager of the Climate & Energy Program of the Democracy Collaborative and Lisa Tyson, director of the Long Island Progressive Coalition.

The speakers will highlight the need for the transition to a public electric utility “as part of the necessary rapid transition” from “fossil fuels and toward renewable energy,” the release stated.

The forum will be held in a virtual format over Zoom. It starts at 7 p.m.

The forum was organized by the Long Island Progressive Coalition, Food & Water Watch, the Suffolk and Nassau county chapters of Democratic Socialists of America and New York Communities for Change. It has the support of a number of organizations who signed the Reimagine LIPA Statement.