Page 1 1 2 STATE OF NEW YORK DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE 3 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X 4 Matter No. 14-01299 5 PSEG-LI UTILITY 2.0 LONG-RANGE PLAN 6 7 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X 8 August 26, 2014 9 6:00 p.m. One Cedar Street 10 Emergency Services Building Second Floor 11 East Hampton, New York 12 13 JULIA BOVEY, 14 Director, Department of Public Service Long Island 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 800.523.7887 Associated Reporters Int'l., Inc. Page 2 1 Case 14-01299 - 8-26-2014 2 MS. BOVEY: We have forty-three 3 speakers, and I'm going to -- the most important 4 thing for me, two things. The most important thing 5 to me is that you feel heard, but also that we're 6 all respectful of each other. 7 And if we could just keep that in 8 mind, as far as the bottom line here, that we all 9 want to be respectful of each other's time, and the 10 fact that nobody would be in this room if they 11 didn't want to move forward and have a better 12 outcome, so let's keep, try to keep that in mind 13 tonight, please. 14 I'm going to be keeping time, and 15 I'm going to call first the three elected 16 officials, and then the cards in the order that 17 folks signed up, so we're going to start with 18 Assemblyman Fred Thiele, please. 19 Mr. Thiele, this doesn't 20 necessarily apply to you, but for the rest of the 21 speakers, if you could please make sure you say 22 your first and last name. Make sure you speak into 23 the microphone. We have a stenographer here, and 24 this is all going to be entered into the record. 25 ASSEMBLYMAN THIELE: To be Associated Reporters Int'l., Inc. 800.523.7887 800.523.7887 Associated Reporters Int'l., Inc. Page 3 1 Case 14-01299 - 8-26-2014 2 consistent, my name is Fred Thiele, and I reside in 3 Sag Harbor, New York, and I am a state assemblyman 4 for the 1st Assembly District, and I represent all 5 the Town of East Hampton, all the Town of 6 Southampton, southeastern Brookhaven, and the 7 independent nation of Shelter Island. 8 So it is my pleasure to be here 9 tonight, and I never could have imagined that so 10 many people would come to my birthday party 11 tonight. So thank you very much. 12 I had the opportunity to submit 13 testimony to the department at the Stony Brook 14 meeting, and I am certainly not going to reiterate 15 all of that. A lot of what I wanted to say is in 16 that testimony, so there's just a couple of things 17 that I want to say for the record tonight. There 18 are a lot of speakers and my, again, my testimony 19 really is already in the record. 20 First, it was in the plan that 21 you would come to places like East Hampton and have 22 public hearings, and that was a request that 23 Supervisor Cantwell, Mayor Rickenbach, and myself 24 made at the Stony Brook hearing, and we want to 25 thank you for coming to the Village of East Hampton Associated Reporters Int'l., Inc. 800.523.7887 800.523.7887 Associated Reporters Int'l., Inc. Page 4 1 Case 14-01299 - 8-26-2014 2 and the Town of East Hampton. 3 There obviously is a great deal 4 of public interest in energy issues in general at 5 the Town of East Hampton, and obviously this 6 meeting site occurs in a context that has, you 7 know, people concerned, and you're going to hear 8 more of that. So I'm not going to get into a lot 9 of that, but I did want to thank you for being here 10 tonight, number one. 11 Second, with regard to the 12 presentation in general that you made earlier this 13 evening with regard specifically to alternative 14 energy, solar energy, wind power, things of that 15 nature, that is something that we would like to see 16 more of on the East End, alternatives to fossil 17 fuels, so I guess what I would just say, in a 18 nutshell, is everything that you presented tonight, 19 we'd like to just see more of it. 20 And related to that in the plan 21 with regard to the South Fork, there's a little bit 22 more detail presented tonight, but in the plan 23 itself is a lot of TBDs in the plan with regard to 24 the South Fork. And, that makes people out here 25 nervous, that things are to be determined and we Associated Reporters Int'l., Inc. 800.523.7887 800.523.7887 Associated Reporters Int'l., Inc. Page 5 1 Case 14-01299 - 8-26-2014 2 don't know what they are even. 3 So, to the extent that you can 4 flesh out what some of the plans are for the South 5 Fork and for the East End, I think that we want a 6 transparent process. People want to see specifics 7 and have the ability to comment on specifics. 8 And lastly, I just want to 9 briefly talk about transmission lines. Again, I'm 10 not going to get into the controversy here. 11 Everybody here knows about it, 12 and I suspect that people are going to talk about 13 it. But in the context of long-term planning, what 14 I want to suggest tonight is that with regard to 15 transmission lines and undergrounding transmission 16 lines, there needs to be a consistent policy 17 similar to what has already been enacted in states 18 like California, where there is fair and equitable 19 way of paying for undergrounding utilities, 20 undergrounding transmissions. 21 We are out here on the East End 22 of Long Island. We are very susceptible to storms. 23 In addition, I think what makes this area unique is 24 that they are willing here -- like the people in 25 this room, have been willing over and over again Associated Reporters Int'l., Inc. 800.523.7887 800.523.7887 Associated Reporters Int'l., Inc. Page 6 1 Case 14-01299 - 8-26-2014 2 for the last thirty years to tax themselves to 3 protect the quality of life here. The residents on 4 the East End of Long Island, over the last thirty 5 years, have spent over a billion dollars on open 6 space, farmland preservation, parks and recreation, 7 and historic preservation. 8 And the community, you know, we 9 have fought very hard to stop the ever-present rush 10 of suburbanization, and we think we've done a good 11 job of it. And, that's why it concerns us when 12 decisions are made elsewhere, in town hall or 13 village hall or the county center, that puts those 14 investments in jeopardy, by not taking into account 15 the rural character and the community character of 16 the area, and that is certainly for reliability and 17 the resiliency, but it's also, I think, the history 18 of this community to protect its rural character. 19 To date, we've had a very 20 different kind of a scattershot policy with regard 21 to underground transmission lines. We've had one 22 case that was handled one way in Southampton. 23 There was another case in 24 Riverhead that ended up being handled a different 25 way in Riverhead. And, then, the case recently in Associated Reporters Int'l., Inc. 800.523.7887 800.523.7887 Associated Reporters Int'l., Inc. Page 7 1 Case 14-01299 - 8-26-2014 2 East Hampton that was handled yet a third way in 3 East Hampton. 4 The only thing that was 5 consistent with all three of these cases is that 6 the utility company got sued all three times. I 7 think it's important to include, as part of Utility 8 Plan 2.0, a very forward-thinking and a equitable 9 method of trying to come up with ways for 10 undergrounding utility lines. 11 Senator LaValle could not be here 12 tonight but shares my views on this. We have 13 sponsored legislation that would attempt to do that 14 legislatively, but there's no reason why the 15 department, working with utility companies, 16 couldn't implement that also administratively. 17 So I thank you for your time, and 18 I thank you for being here in East Hampton, and I 19 look forward to the input from other members of the 20 public, and I sure hope we get a better product in 21 the end. 22 Thank you. 23 MS. BOVEY: Could Supervisor 24 Cantwell please come up. 25 SUPERVISOR CANTWELL: It's nice Associated Reporters Int'l., Inc. 800.523.7887 800.523.7887 Associated Reporters Int'l., Inc. Page 8 1 Case 14-01299 - 8-26-2014 2 to be here with you. I can see there's great 3 interest in East Hampton and our energy future as 4 well as -- as you can see, there's great interest 5 in East Hampton with respect to our energy future, 6 as well as our existing issue with the transmission 7 lines.