CPUC boss and energy innovator were friendly

The California Public Utilities Commission is beginning to release records sought by U-T Watchdog, some of them requested almost a year ago.

One batch of emails shows regular and friendly communications between longtime commission functionary Tim Sullivan, now executive director, and energy storage innovator Susan Kennedy.

Under normal circumstances, the exchanges might appear to be just the routine give-and-take of a longtime friendship.

But in the context of an ongoing criminal investigation of backchannel dealings at the agency, the emails show show how easy access can be to information or considerations that might be unavailable to a competitor.

Kennedy is a former utilities commissioner and gubernatorial aide whose firm was recently awarded a Southern California Edison contract worth up to $100 million for energy storage in the Los Angeles area. The commission approved the deal in November.

Sullivan was executive director at the time, although the commission says he was not considered a decision-maker on the deal.

“Executive Director Sullivan has known Ms. Kennedy for more than 12 years,” commission spokeswoman Terrie Prosper said. “He was on her staff when she was a commissioner at the CPUC, and they have stayed in touch over the years.”

Prosper says the emails stopped when Sullivan was promoted to executive director in December 2014.

Before that, the emails show Sullivan in regular contact with Kennedy, who did not respond to a request for comment. They discussed a wide range of commission business.

When Commissioner Mark Ferron announced his resignation in January 2014, Kennedy asked Sullivan for information about Ferron’s pending cases: “I know the President’s office decides, but who in Peevey’s office (Carol Brown?) and when?” she wrote, referring to former commission President Michael Peevey.

Sullivan answered the next morning, telling Kennedy the cases would be automatically assigned to Peevey but that Brown, Peevey’s chief of staff, “plays the key role with direction from Peevey, if any.”

In another exchange on Jan. 31, 2014, Sullivan asked Kennedy if then-newly appointed commissioner Michael Picker was one of her appointees in the administration of former then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“Yes, I brought him in under (Schwarzenegger) to cut red tape in permitting renewable generation,” she replied a few minutes later. “He did a spectacular job. Ironically, he was also my very first boss in politics back in 1980 when I first moved to CA.”

In an email from early February 2014, Kennedy told Sullivan that Peevey didn’t think he could issue an alternate decision on a proceeding in which Ferron had already issued a proposed decision.

“I told him that based on cursory research I thought that he could — didn’t mention names,” she wrote. “Are you guys able to give him an affirmation on that question if asked? It would save a lot of trouble if you could.”

Sullivan responded the next Monday morning, “I’ll send out a trial balloon.”

When Sullivan received a promotion in March 2014, he emailed Kennedy with the news. She responded a few days later, saying she hoped he would have enough time to make an impact.

“If there is any way I can help — even just to listen as you think things through — call any time,” she wrote.

In May, the two arranged a lunch. Shortly after, Sullivan emailed, apparently answering a question that came up during the meal.

“There is no telecommunications adviser in Picker’s office yet,” he told her.

On the morning of Nov. 6, 2014, when Sullivan was preparing to make an important but unspecified presentation, he told Kennedy he’d trimmed the material from 16 to 11 pages.

“How did it go?” Kennedy wrote back that evening.

“It went very well, but just after the presentation the commissioners found out that the AG (attorney general), using a search warrant, seized the computers of Peevey, Florio, Clopton, and Clanon — so all the attention got sucked away,” Sullivan answered. “I’ll have to see what happens.”

Peevey was out the following month, and his farewell tribute was co-organized by Kennedy. Then-executive director Paul Clanon also resigned in December 2014. Commissioner Michel Florio remains on the panel.

Karen Clopton is the commission’s chief administrative law judge. In addition to retaining a criminal-defense law firm firm at a cost of $5.2 million, the commission has hired a separate lawyer to represent Clopton in an ongoing criminal investigation into the regulator’s backchannel dealings.

Three weeks later, the Sullivan-Kennedy emails show Sullivan sought his former boss’s endorsement when he was seeking another promotion.

“I hope you’ll give me a plug,” he wrote.