Title
Resolution - Approval of Directive for Delegates Regarding Upcoming National Meetings - M Viesca
Other Info
Submitted By: Shelley Sager on behalf of Mike Viesca
Department: Public Affairs
Financial Impact and Cost/Benefit Considerations:
Discussion
Review the 2020 Proposed National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) Resolutions. These resolutions will be presented by the NRECA Resolutions Committee at NRECA’s Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana on March 1-4, 2020. The final slate of votes will be cast by PEC’s designated voting delegate.
The NRECA Resolutions Committee is comprised of the chairs and vice chairs of each of the three NRECA Member Standing Committees. To ensure each Region is represented, the NRECA President appoints additional individuals from the Standing Committees. Terms are designed to provide overlap between new members and outgoing members.
Following the NRECA Regional Meetings, the Compendium of Proposed Resolutions and all actions taken by the regions’ voting delegates are forwarded to the NRECA Member Standing Committees. The Member Standing Committees’ work is forwarded to the National Resolutions Committee. At their January meeting, the National Resolutions Committee: (1) reviews the Member Standing Committees’ work; (2) makes recommendations on all proposed and existing resolutions; (3) updates policy background statements where necessary; (4) orders the resolutions in a logical sequence; and (4) prepares a consent agenda for the NRECA Annual Business Meeting.
The Board may now consider PEC positions and directives for voting delegates on the matters presented.
Body
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE COOPERATIVE, that PEC’s voting delegate and alternate voting delegate are directed to vote as discussed by the Board this day:
In Favor Of:
2020 Proposed Resolutions
• 1-C: Urges NRECA to support necessary actions by Congress to require the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to maintain flood risk management as a top priority in the 7 management guidelines aimed at controlling the Missouri River and the Mississippi River.
• 2: Urges NRECA to provide assistance and support to communities and organizations in Puerto Rico that are exploring the creation of electric cooperatives.
• 3: Urges NRECA to advocate for the passage of Federal legislation, such as the RURAL Act of 2019, that excludes Federal and State grants for purposes of determining the 8 tax-exempt status of rural electric cooperatives pursuant to Section 501(c)(12) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Amendments to Existing Resolutions (changes indicated in bold font and strikethrough)
• 4-C: Urges NRECA to take a prominent leadership and advocacy role in the U.S. Congress, with the Administration, and at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by advocating for reforms to the FCC National Broadband Map and Census Block reporting. These changes will ensure more accurate broadband service coverage and speed information for cooperatives that (to ensure cooperatives) have the ability to provide broadband voluntarily, on their own or in partnership with other local providers, in rural America. We also encourage NRECA to assist its members with efforts that remove state statutory or regulatory barriers for cooperatives that wish to provide broadband services.
• 5-C: Urges NRECA to support policies and investments that encourage (incent) production and deployment of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure, encourage transportation electrification that can optimize electric grid infrastructure, improve management of electric loads, and integrate renewable energy resources.
(Specifically, we urge NRECA to advocate for federal legislation to remove the 200,000- vehicle limitation and phase out of Section 30D the Electric Vehicle Tax Credit, and seek an extension of current tax credits.)
• 6: urges NRECA to seek legislation to prevent electric cooperatives and their members from subsidizing commercial and industrial members that file for bankruptcy by strengthening Bankruptcy Code Section 366(c) to better protect electric cooperatives. We further urge NRECA to pursue clarification of federal bankruptcy laws to define utilities that provide mutual aid as “critical vendors” in order that they are qualified for prompt reimbursement by the bankruptcy trustee.
• 7: (Previously, urged NRECA to work with its members and other appropriate stakeholders to address stranded assets such as power generation, transmission and distribution facilities, and oppose initiatives that would result in significant stranded assets and have negative economic impacts on rural communities.)
NEW LANGUAGE: We urge NRECA to work with its members and other appropriate stakeholders to support recovery efforts by rural communities that are significantly and economically impacted by federal policies that result in the stranding of electric generation, transmission and distribution assets built to serve those rural communities.
• 8-C: Urges NRECA to identify and provide education regarding best practices in areas of cooperative governance, financial planning, bylaws, policies and surveys that would prepare and strengthen cooperatives against threats of territorial invasion and hostile takeover and to support vigorously the defense efforts of the board of directors, management, or members of any threatened cooperative. (Removes lengthy bullets regarding prevention of hostile takeovers.) We urge NRECA to support legislation prohibiting use of federally subsidized tax-exempt securities to finance acquisition of rural electric system facilities and prohibiting non-RE Act preference borrowers, such as investor-owned power companies, the privilege of assuming RUS loans.
We urge NRECA to encourage participation by cooperatives in National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation “System Integrity Fund” which may provide financial support for legal defense costs by threatened cooperatives.
• 9-B: urges NRECA to oppose dam breaching proposals for congressionally authorized federal multipurpose dams, or efforts to involuntarily breach other hydroelectric dams, which may impact access to carbon-free energy, the reliability as well as the economic and environmental benefits of the nation’s hydropower system.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Chief Executive Officer, or designee, is authorized to take all actions necessary to implement this resolution.