The PUC's New Gig

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

February 13, 2012 | 10:33 AM

Pennsylvania’s impending impact fee provides a big new job for the Public Utility Commission. The regulatory board will administer and collect the per-well levy and set the annual fee rate. It will also have the job of determining whether or not local drilling zoning is “reasonable.”
The Post-Gazette takes a look at the PUC’s new role:

The agency has about 500 employees, with headquarters in Harrisburg and regional offices in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County. PUC’s five commissioners are appointed by the governor and serve five-year terms, but every office also has administrative law judges on staff who are seen as the most likely candidates to review ordinances.
“We do have an adjudicative role now, and we are used to mediating between two parties,” said Commissioner Pamela Witmer. She said the commission was “certainly appreciative of the confidence” the state has given it.
…Lawmakers allotted $250,000 out of the general state fund to help the PUC incorporate the databases needed to track shale development and are planning additional funding to help pay for personnel.