Digging into one of this year's most important-but-overlooked clean energy elections

Volts

In this episode, Ylenia Aguilar joins me to discuss her candidacy for the Arizona Corporation Commission. We examine the ACC’s history of rubber stamping rate hikes, dismantling renewable energy initiatives, and generally pandering to utilities. Three ACC seats are up for election this year and the outcomes could have a profound impact on the state's energy future.

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David Roberts

All right, everyone, hello, this is Volts for October 11, 2024, "Digging into one of this year's most important-but-overlooked clean energy elections." I'm your host, David Roberts. As regular Volts listeners know, each state has what's called a public utility commission, or PUC, that monitors and regulates its electric, gas, and water utilities. As we discussed in my episode with Charles Hua, PUCs are often overlooked despite their pivotal role in energy systems. In part, that's because in most states, the PUC is a pretty sleepy agency, with commissioners appointed by governors working away on technical cases in relative obscurity.

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In Arizona, though, it's different. Its PUC is called the Arizona Corporation Commission, or ACC, and it is quirky in a number of ways. For one thing, it is one of the few such regulatory bodies created by the state constitution, with a somewhat idiosyncratic range of authorities in addition to utilities. For another, all five of its commissioners, unlike on most PUCs, are elected, which means that in Arizona, running for the ACC is a way of building a statewide profile with an eye toward higher office. And that brings us to the final quirk. Though Arizona is currently considered a swing state and its electoral votes went narrowly to Biden in the 2020 election, it has traditionally been a Republican stronghold, and the Arizona Republican Party has, in the last decade, gone full MAGA.

Ylenia Aguilar

So, the way things have worked out, the ACC is now dominated by a four-to-one majority of far-right, election-denying ideologues who have, in short order, given the ACC a reputation as one of the most corrupt, industry-captured regulatory bodies in the country. Ylenia Aguilar is among the candidates trying to change that, running for one of the three commission seats that are up for election this year. She immigrated from Mexico to Arizona 32 years ago, and since becoming a US citizen a decade ago, she's built a sturdy record of civic service, among other things, as a member of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District board and southwest field organizer for Moms Clean Air Force. She is running for the ACC, she says, to restore some integrity to the organization, to protect consumers, and to end the commission's hostility toward renewable energy.

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I am excited to talk to her about the stakes of this little-covered but nationally significant race. With no further ado, Ylenia Aguilar, welcome to Volts. Thank you so much for coming.

Ylenia Aguilar

Thank you very much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

David Roberts

I want to give listeners a sense of what the ACC has been up to in the last few years because I, in preparation for this, went back reading and, wow, it's pretty eye-opening what's going on in there. So, let's just start, maybe with the rate hikes. So, as far as I can tell, in the last, just in the last two years, there have been six requests from gas and electric utilities for rate hikes, and the ACC has voted to approve all six, except for the one Democrat on the commission, Anna Tovar, who voted against all six. So, maybe you could tell us a little bit about what's going on there.

Why so many rate hikes and why are they so easily voted through?

Ylenia Aguilar

Well, we know the answer. We know that this is a very utility-friendly commission. As mentioned, there are four Republican commissioners and the Democrat, Anna Tovar, who's on her way out — so grateful to know her, to be endorsed by her, to be supported by her. But the reality is, you know, since 2023, there have been approximately $656 million in annual rate increases for residential and commercial customers, as mentioned from our APS, TEP, Southwest Gas, UNS utility companies. And that's a lot of money. And we know that this number doesn't even include the hundreds of millions of dollars in adjustments to natural gas fuel prices.

David Roberts

Yeah, can you explain what a fuel adjuster is? Because if you add the rate hikes with the fuel adjusters, you get $1.3 billion in rate hikes in the last two years. What is a fuel adjuster? What does that mean exactly?

Ylenia Aguilar

Yeah. So the adjuster is a way, it's a mechanism — this is my understanding — that the utility companies have to go in front of the commission without a vote and to get it approved. And the way it shows up in our billing, it's also not very transparent, if that's the word that I can use, because, you know, most people don't know that they're paying the adjusters. So the numbers for APS, the APS power supply adjuster, it's collected $456 million in one year. But the ACC approved a separate increase multiple times for fuel adjusters.

David Roberts

And this is just if the fuel they're using to make electricity goes up, so if methane gas prices go up, they get an automatic adjustment in rates without having to go back to the commission, basically.

Ylenia Aguilar

That's right. Exactly right. And it's an interesting process that is happening. When we think about the commission's responsibility, and transparency is one of their responsibilities, there isn't any transparency, and we see it reflected in our bills. I'm an APS customer myself, so it's really challenging to understand the billing practices.

David Roberts

Yeah, and I think if, I feel like it would be like part of what you want ratepayers to know is that being dependent on methane gas involves prices going up like this, you know, prices swinging up and down like this. But I imagine it's difficult to tell exactly what's going on from the bill. So theoretically, a voice on the commission that's supposed to speak up for consumers, for residential consumers, it's called the Residential Utility Consumer Office. What has it said about all these rate hikes?

Ylenia Aguilar

Well, RUCO has never supported any of these rate increases, so we know that they're doing their work, but they are underfunded and underappreciated. And this is, you know, a team that has, I think, a staff of like maybe four to five people. And I understand where they lack the support of the commission. But I feel that there is an opportunity, when we do have the right commission, to ensure that they're adequately funded and staffed because they are the advocates for the consumer, as you mentioned, and they're the only voice. Right. It's like in a legal case, you have the public defender or like an advocate in the legal system.

This is the equivalent. And something I haven't talked about is a little bit of my background. I always think about this experience and how I tie it into all of my other roles. I actually started on a school board, and on the school board, the school board member, the president, has to work with the superintendent. We need to, at least in my experience, where I was the president and where I worked with my superintendent in a very healthy way, the superintendent and the school board member work together. No one is rubber-stamping anyone because you're doing what is best for students, student achievement and success.

And most of the responsibilities on any board is to manage a budget and to have a healthy budget and have academic successes. Well, the reality here is, the way I've seen it, is that the superintendent could be the executive director at ACC. And I think that role is very important because they get to work and set the agenda with the president. What's happening with the president of the ACC is very, very friendly with the utility. So they're pretty much rubber-stamping everything. And that's how I visualize it and think about it, because, you know, we as school board members are the voice of the people and the students and the families at the ACC.

The ACC members are the voice of the people, the Arizonans, the consumers. They are there to ensure that we're getting the best deals from the utilities, and that's not what's happening. It's the other way around. They do whatever the utilities tell them.

David Roberts

Would you have voted against some or all of these rate hikes? Like, do you know enough about the details to know how you feel like you would have voted?

Ylenia Aguilar

I don't know enough details, but what I do know is that I would have asked for additional information. Do they need to get this max amount? Can we work out the details? Could we have worked out something where we're not, you know, giving them everything they're asking for? So, that's what I know is that we need to think about the communities and the people that we serve and know that the reality is that people are being impacted by these decisions. And we don't always have to vote in favor of rate hikes that are not beneficial to Arizonans.

You know, there's a lot that goes into play with a rate hike. We know that there's a 15-month period or 13-month period. And I know the staff provides a lot of information and data to the commissioners, and they, after looking at this data and ensuring that the utilities have gone through their process. One of the most important components to that is talking to the stakeholder, which is, you know, the communities that are being impacted. And I don't think that that happens often. At least I haven't seen it happen. We were hearing stories like in Mojave County where the ACC never came out for their input.

So, if that's one of the most recent cases, I can believe that that's true for a lot of these rate cases.

David Roberts

It's telling, I guess, that they have not voted against a single one. So, that would indicate a certain bias. They have done some other things; they have been busy doing some other things. Among them, I wanted to ask you about this. In 2006, Arizona was one of the first states to pass an RPS, a renewable portfolio standard. Pretty modest, asking utilities to get to 15% renewable energy by 2025. Compared to what most states have in place now, that's, I would say, modest at best. But the ACC rolled it back, got rid of it. As a matter of fact, I think that Arizona is the only state to have done this, the only state to have reversed and gotten rid of an existing RPS.

Why did they do that? Do you have an explanation?

Ylenia Aguilar

Well, yeah, this is something that is very embarrassing for the state of Arizona.

David Roberts

Well, let me just say this. I have to, I have this great quote. Anna Tovar, the one Democrat on the commission, said, "Whenever Arizona is first in the nation and doing something, it's usually something that is horrendous." She sounds pretty fed up. So, why are they doing this?

Ylenia Aguilar

That is very true and very sad, and that's true for anything. Even, like recently during our debates, the commissioner that's running for reelection likes to talk about how we're, like, fifth in the nation. I'm like, "Well, can't we be first? Like, why do we have to be fifth? We could be first in something good." So, you know, they voted to repeal the renewables, as you mentioned, and I believe you're right. Like, I think we're the only state in the country to roll back the renewables. I would say the answer is really simple. It's because they are very friendly with the fossil fuel industry, and they want to continue down that route.

We know that one of the commissioners that got elected the last cycle was an engineer and he worked for Southwest Gas. So, we know their priorities. Their priorities are not to ensure that we are energy independent. That's the opposite of what they believe. And we know that these energy standards were successful in creating policy that was, like, I wouldn't say forcing or mandating. I would say, like, that would encourage and kind of like, you know, I'm a mom of two, so I say, like, in a way it was like tapping the utilities. Like, "Hey, you need to invest in a clean energy future."

And we saw that it did good, that it led to lowering prices. And it's really unfortunate that that happened. But that's one of the things that we can do when we have the majority, when we have three Democrats on the commission, we can go back to bringing back the standards.

David Roberts

Yeah, I was going to ask on a positive, you know, sort of forward-looking way, would you vote to bring it back or bring it back a higher one? Is there any talk about, you know, how to restore this?

Ylenia Aguilar

Absolutely, I would want a higher one, and I would eventually want to get to 100%. But right now, that's not really the conversation that we're having, because just bringing them back is the start. And having, like, a goal would be ideal. I think higher than 15% is definitely something that I would prioritize. We know that one of the commissioners that worked on these standards, drafting and creating this policy, was back then she was a Republican, and she's now our Democrat attorney general, Chris Mays. So, I don't understand why this is so partisan when I think that despite your political party, we can all agree that we want lower rates and that we want a planet for our future generations, and that includes clean air.

David Roberts

This seems like it ought to be easy to communicate to Arizonans, too, because Arizona has no fossil fuel production to speak of. So all the coal and natural gas it's using, it is exporting money to other states to buy that, whereas it has more sunlight than — I think, I'm not totally sure about this, but I think, like, sunlight per square foot, you know, just in terms of irradiation, it is the sunniest state in the union. And yet, like, I think Massachusetts has a higher percentage of its electricity coming from solar than Arizona. It's wild.

It is your number one domestic resource.

Ylenia Aguilar

Absolutely. And, you know, as my colleague Joshua Polacheck would say, our current commission is in the pockets of fossil fuel companies. And I wouldn't disagree with that. I think if people knew what was happening, there would be a different outcome, which is the outcome that I'm looking for. But I am running clean, which means that I can't take money from PACs. And we get approximately $250,000 for this campaign. And the reality is I need as many votes as our US Senate candidate, which is Ruben Gallego, who's raising millions of dollars.

David Roberts

Yeah.

Ylenia Aguilar

So, I started on a school board. I am currently on the water conservation board. And the water conservation board is very similar to ACC. Most people don't know about it, but they are so important to the vitality and future of the state. And the reality is that most voters don't vote in these. There's a big drop-off between president and US senator, Congress. So, how do you share this message? When you're talking to people, whether it's the Democrats or whether it's any event that I go to, even I didn't know this — and it could be for many reasons.

I'm a new American, I'm a new voter, but most people don't know that the Arizona Corporation Commission is the one who approves the rates. People just think that it's the utility company that approves the rates. They don't know that there's a body that was created to protect them from the monopolies, but this isn't what's happening. They just think that the utility companies are responsible, which they are, but there is a body that's set up to protect them from that. And the reason is because people don't know that this body exists. So, that's just the truth.

David Roberts

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's not the most obvious name either. It doesn't exactly, even if you heard the name, it's not like it conveys exactly what it's doing. I also feel like, you know, I mean, I know it's difficult to communicate these things on a mass scale, but it also feels like even among, like, conservatives, rooftop solar, being able to generate your own power on your own roof and be somewhat independent of the monopoly utility, seems like it ought to appeal even to, you know, across political lines. And yet, the commission also eliminated the community solar program.

It hiked the fees that rooftop solar ratepayers have to pay. It decreased the payback rate that is offered to rooftop solar. One of the commissioners tried, sort of like, overnight, without any hearings, to cut the rate by 37%. But there was, from what I could tell, kind of a revolt of solar homeowners, and they went back to 10%. But even a 10% cut is a serious cut. Is there no sort of, like, grassroots support for rooftop solar out there?

Ylenia Aguilar

Well, there are a lot of groups that are working towards educating on this matter. For example, there is an organization, obviously, most of these nonprofits are nonpartisan. And like you said, even conservatives, everyone is a believer in rooftop solar. I think that when we create a position, like you said, with the incorrect name, so it should be a utility commission, and you make these issues, I guess, political, then that's where you have this separation between individuals. Because if you ask Republicans who have solar, they're very upset. They are angry that this is happening.

So, I do think that for now, this is, it could work to our advantage, because they do believe that, like, they have the right and everyone should have the right. We know that rooftop solar is the cheapest way to generate electricity, and it's proven, and there are states that are succeeding at it. We are not one of those states. But I do believe that what is currently happening on the commission, where we are penalizing or disincentivizing people from this, even, like the vote to eliminate community solar and the grid access fee case that happened, and that's going to be reopened, that may create unintended consequences, which is an additional increase, is unfortunate, because these fixed fees are just penalizing people who are trying to do what is right for them.

And I think, whether you're a Republican, Independent, Democrat, we all want to have that agency to choose, and we're taking away their choice by doing this.

David Roberts

Yes. Well, again, on the forward-looking side, I take it if you are elected and you have a majority, you would try to undo this, try to reduce these fees and boost the payment level back up.

Ylenia Aguilar

That's right. We know that, as you mentioned, that is the direction to head into. I've heard from people on the campaign trail who are the grandfathered-in customers who complained about the utilities trying to remove them or eliminate this opportunity. And it's just horrendous what's happening, whether they are trying to just get creative by eliminating these customers or adding the grid access fee, and then now that it's reopened, trying to find other loopholes to find ways to charge even more, is not good.

David Roberts

Another thing that the commission did, which I found sort of darkly hilarious — I just have to tell a little bit of this backstory. So, any power plant 100 MW or above has to go through an official environmental review. One of your utilities proposed they were going to build a 200 MW gas plant. But what they argued to the commission is that each individual turbine, there are four separate turbines in the power plant, all hooked up to the same cooling infrastructure and all that. But there are four separate turbines, and each of the turbines is only 50 MW.

So, what they're arguing is that there are actually four separate 50 MW plants, not one big 200 MW plant, and therefore, the whole thing should not have to go through environmental review. And, like, everyone laughed at this argument. But then the commission said, "Yeah, that makes sense to us," exempted these new methane gas plants from environmental review. I mean, I don't even know what you have to say about that, other than it seems kind of ridiculous, but, like, is this typical of the way gas gets treated by the commission?

Ylenia Aguilar

I remember that because it's when I had just started running for office, and that was what people were talking about: the vote to eliminate the environmental review. It was really interesting to hear about it while I was running. And of course, like, they voted four to one, Ana being the only person not voting in favor of it and for the expansion of the project in Mojave County. So it is interesting because, like, the way that I thought about it is like, if we do that for them, then every utility company is going to come and say, like, we need to eliminate the environmental review process for this and then for that, and everyone's going to want their way, which they usually do get their way.

So, I don't question why they do it, because they know they're going to get away with it.

David Roberts

That was particularly flagrant, I thought, even as these things go, even in terms of these things. One other substantive question: Arizona is subject more and more these days to intense heat events. Matter of fact, as I was researching all this, I was reading all these news sites, and almost every news site has at the top a red banner: extreme heat event coming, blah, blah, blah, don't go outside, et cetera, et cetera. So, obviously, with intense heat comes, a) a lot of power demand for air conditioning, and b) a lot of water stress, a lot of water demand.

And this is just as rates have been hiked up. So, I mean, is there a disaster on the way here? And how do you think about what the commission ought to be doing to sort of prepare better for resilience against intense heat?

Ylenia Aguilar

Well, we know that we're currently in aridification, which is the permanence of drought. We see that because we are — I'm dealing with the Colorado River water in my other role. So we know that, that it's only going to continue to get hotter and hotter. And the reality is most people don't really understand this notion of climate change, especially in the state. But that's the reality. And we know that 60% of the deaths in Arizona that are heat-related are due to people who have a broken AC unit. And in Maricopa County, we've had so many heat-related deaths.

The Arizona Corporation Commission did have a moratorium, but this is after someone died. It was an APS customer, I believe her name was Stephanie Pullman, and she died in 2018. That's when they decided to put a moratorium. So all summer, if you don't pay your electricity bill, you're not going to be disconnected. But the problem with that is that most people who can't afford to pay their bills, do you think they're going to be able to afford to pay their bills at the end when they have like a $3000 or $2000 bill? There should be more, like support, like financial support to relieve this burden from these families who can't afford it.

And also, like, the utility should be providing support for, like, broken ACs. There is no reason why human beings should have to die because of broken ACs. And you're right. In this state, we cannot exist without water and electricity. And you can't talk about one without talking about the other. For example, CAP, the canal system that delivers the Colorado River water from Lake Havasu all the way to Tucson, 336 miles. We are one of the largest users of energy just to push that water up and deliver it. So imagine what happens in homes and in other places.

Like, we are consuming a lot of water and electricity in our homes, but also, as you know, in the water districts or the water utility companies, which is what this body regulates. It regulates 400 utilities. Out of 400, 300 of them are private water companies and 50 of them are water districts. So, just like your regular water districts. What is happening currently with water in rural areas is that, for example, if you're a small private water company, a mom and pop company, and you are not, you know, balancing your budget, and you would like to go in front of the commission to get a rate increase, you can't afford to do that because it costs $150,000 to $250,000 to hire lawyers, experts, and engineers.

So, there's a lot of inequity in this space for private water companies. So, what happens is, like a Global Water or an Epcor Water, or these large water companies come in and acquire these little baby mom and pops water companies that are struggling to make ends meet. And now, these companies are, you know, purchased by the big corporation, and now they're under this portfolio. So, your water bill just went from $40 to, like, $160 is what I'm hearing. So, these, we're talking about a lot of different issues. And then to add to that, the contaminants, right?

Like, if you're a small mom-and-pop company and you're out of compliance because you don't have the staff, and there's lead, PFAs, arsenic in your water, and you can't bring it into compliance because you don't have the means, that's another issue, which is very true for Arizona. Rural areas, border communities, anywhere around a tribe, anywhere around a military base, there's PFAs and arsenic and lead. And I know this because I worked in the access to clean drinking water space for several years. And that's the reality. Governor Ducey, our former governor, actually wrote a letter to the Fed asking for help in the way of financial help because we have all these issues.

So, there's a lot of things that are going on when it comes to water and the opportunities that the ACC has to solve them. The number one thing is to bring a lot of these small companies into compliance and having systems in place to track who's in compliance, because people don't deserve to live like this. Like I lived in, I grew up in a Superfund site. That's, there's a reason why I have three autoimmune conditions.

David Roberts

Something that could be done that springs to mind is just efficiency. It's just helping households, you know, have better insulation and sealing and all this kind of stuff, just so that they need less power, need less air conditioning to stay cool, and the same with water. Just conservation and efficiency measures that utilities, you know, utilities across the country have various efficiency programs that their PUCs force them to do. Are Arizona utilities doing anything like that? Is anyone trying to help households with efficiency so that they just need less?

Ylenia Aguilar

Yes, so I do believe that there are multiple efficiency programs, and we know that we have seen, through the IRA, that there has been funding for so many opportunities. The utilities, you literally have to work with them to ensure that they are creating these opportunities. So, let's say they do create these opportunities, and there are incentives and there are energy efficiency programs. The people who need them the most don't know they exist.

David Roberts

Right.

Ylenia Aguilar

Or how to access them. It's kind of true for solar. Like, the people who would benefit the most are our low-income, fixed-income communities who could never afford to have them. I feel the same way about energy efficiency programs. And I think that they are marvelous. It's kind of like a quality education. If you go to the right school district and know where to, like, you know, because there's something to be true that is true for even water and electricity. Your zip code determines your quality of life. Are you going to live next to a landfill?

Are you going to live next to a freeway that's trafficked and polluting your air? It's the same for access to information. Who has access to this information, if it even exists? You kind of have to get disconnected. And sometimes, you get the right person who's going to guide you through the right process. But the reality is that this information isn't readily accessible for those communities that I just mentioned, and then the monolingual Spanish or any other language because we have over hundreds of languages that are spoken in Arizona because we're culturally and ethnically diverse.

So, they do exist. But, they don't invest in campaigns to educate communities. They're just barely investing because they have to, not because they want to.

David Roberts

Well, again, while it seems like you have a state regulatory agency, the whole job of which is to force them to do stuff like that. Well, let's talk briefly then, just about the commission itself. As I said, I don't think it's particularly controversial or even partisan to say that the ACC has a nationwide reputation of being in utility pockets, even relative to other PUCs. I mean, this is a thing with PUCs everywhere, but it's pretty crazy. So just to tell one anecdote that I was reading about, one of the commissioners, Kevin Thompson, who is a former methane gas lobbyist, when he's commissioner, goes on this trip, meets with all these financial firms and investors who have a financial stake in, you know, electricity systems and power systems in Arizona, and talked about all sorts of commission-related issues. He claims he didn't discuss any specific cases with any of the specific companies that were involved in the specific cases, but of course, no one knows whether he did or not.

Anyway, this caused a big fuss. There's a lot of outcry. So, what the commission did is they held one closed-door meeting about this and decided, "Eh, seems fine, no big deal, nothing to see here," and just moved on. It's funny, again, Ana Tovar, who I love, even though I've never met her, I just have been reading quotes by her. She voted against going forward with an investigation too. Her rationale was the ethics code that governs the ACC is so vague and so garbage that it would be impossible to build a legal case using it.

So, it's like what looks on the surface like obvious ethical breaches might not even technically be ethical breaches because the ethics code is so weak. So, I just wonder, a) am I getting an accurate picture of the commission's sort of tendencies here? And b) what would you do about that? Like, would you support a better, a stronger ethics code for the commission itself?

Ylenia Aguilar

Everything you just said is true. This is the reality. Like, we can go deeper into it. I don't want to, but, for example, the sister is the executive director and they hired someone to lead the legal, and he's not even licensed in Arizona. So, there are a lot of unethical things that are currently happening. I don't know. I'm a new American. I became a citizen ten years ago. I truly believe in our rules and following our constitution, which established our article 15, this commission. For me, it is very important to be ethical and to be transparent.

I think we do need to update our ethic code because, even if we did have one, as mentioned, it's vague. The role of this public utility, for the commissioners, is to safeguard the interests of consumers, and that is not what's happening. It's so, so, so sad. These monopolies just do whatever they want because they have no competition. So, I do believe that there is an opportunity to provide clear, consistent transparency and that our commissioners are able to execute pro-consumer policies. That should be something that everyone should truly believe that they have to do when they're elected.

It's very sad. I've been on a couple of debate stages where, like, the Republicans are saying that they don't believe in government and subsidies. And I'm like, "Well, why are you running for a government position?" This is a paid job. Like, my other roles are unpaid. You're actually getting paid to represent, to be part of the government. Like, if you don't believe in government, go run your free enterprise somewhere else. But this is a government job, and if you don't believe in the constitution, you shouldn't be in this position either. So, I do believe that we need to have policies to ensure that we are protecting the consumer, like transmission, energy permitting, reform, and resource planning, because they're usually ignored.

So, you know, we will continue to see these large rate increases if we don't take action. But we do need commissioners who believe this, and that's not what we have. Poor Anna. Once I realized all of this that is happening, I was terrified because I've only served in nonpartisan roles where I get along with the Republicans and we do what is right. When it comes to water, we are doing, we may not always agree, but it's not toxic and dysfunctional like the ACC.

David Roberts

Yeah, she's stepping down after one term. It sounds like she's had about enough. I mean, are there specific, you know, like you and the other two Democrats who are running for these seats, are there specific commission reforms, ethics reforms that are on the table that you support, or is this something that you would just sort of look into more once you get in?

Ylenia Aguilar

Well, there aren't any specific reforms that I can think of off the top of my head, but I do think that we have to find some reform that will create a more transparent process for setting the rates. One thing that I care a lot about is public input. I don't think that's currently happening. We've heard that everywhere. First of all, I've logged in to file something in the docket. It's not an easy process.

David Roberts

Yeah. Yes. Notoriously.

Ylenia Aguilar

Yeah, they're designed that way. Right. Like, they want to keep people's voices out of this. So, I think those are some of the reforms that we could start with, making this process a little bit more accessible and ensuring that there is public input and that the rate increases are justified in the public interest.

David Roberts

I want to ask you about one specific reform, just because it's kind of a pet thing of mine. But in some states, in a couple of states now, they've passed laws that basically made it illegal for a utility to use ratepayer money to lobby for either PUCs or legislatures for particular policy results. Would you support something like that?

Ylenia Aguilar

Absolutely. I don't know how this is going to look in this election cycle, but I know when Anna ran and when Lauren Kubey and Sandra Kennedy, who's a former commissioner, ran, they were both super overqualified candidates and they lost because of all the money that the utility company spent against them. We are currently in a place where we won't know. Right. I can't tell you right now because if they are spending money, it's going into the coordinated Republican Party in ads that are going to go against us. So we won't know how many of them, you know, how much money they spent until after the election cycle.

But like, they will always find loopholes to get their way. So, we won't, because of the outlawed dirty money, we are now under this new rule and the loopholes that they're navigating are different. So, it's not to say that the utility companies aren't spending money against us. They are. We just don't know about it yet.

David Roberts

Yeah, well, this is my last couple of questions are going to be about the race itself. And I sort of just from on the outside, if you are here running and explicitly saying that you're going to deny some of the biggest, most powerful corporate entities in the state, you're going to deny them what they want and they have all the money in the world. Are you three Democrats not just getting sort of crushed in spending? How are you raising enough money if all the gas and electric utilities decide they don't want you in office and all of them contributing to your opponents?

How are you not just getting sort of wildly outspent here? How do you, you know, how do you have any, any chance at all? Is there money coming? Like, are you raising money yourself? Is there enough money coming in for you guys?

Ylenia Aguilar

So, I shared earlier that I'm running through the Clean Elections. So, this is a fund that is in the state of Arizona that allows people like me. I am a single mom and I work in the advocacy space.

David Roberts

You don't, you don't have a spare billion or whatever to buy an office?

Ylenia Aguilar

I don't. So. Not yet. Just kidding. So Jonathan and I, Jonathan is one of the three. We are running clean. And actually, the Republicans are running clean. And in the history of this race, I think two people ever have run traditional in the entire history of the corporation commission. So most all Republicans have always run clean and they've won. So you get, you have to collect 1,500 $5 from an Arizona voter. So once we collected our $5 from 1,500 Arizonans, then we were able to qualify for our Clean Elections money, which gave us $250,000. So for, if you gave me $5, that's an equivalent of like $250.

So, we were able to get that amount of money. The Republicans did the same thing, too. So, with that, you're able to spend on digital ads and whatever your campaign staff . It's not a lot of money, but it is the amount of money that every candidate has been using. I'm talking about the Republicans, including Anna Tovar, who won, and every Democrat who's run in the past two has used to run for this office.

David Roberts

So, in theory, you should have roughly the same amount of money to run as everybody else does.

Ylenia Aguilar

The same amount of money. Yep, we have the same amount of money. The difference was before. Before, utility companies could put money in an IE and they could put, like, I think for Anna Tovar and Bill Mundell, they spent like, I don't know, like $3 million if I'm right, against them. Against them. Now, they can't do that. So we have. There was a proposition and it passed and it's called Outlaw Dirty Money. So now you can't do that, but you can give money towards your coordinated party. So let's say Butterfly Utility, "I really love this Republican.

I'm going to give her $500,000, and we're going to put it in the coordinated Republican Party. That money is going to pay for ads against Ylenia because we don't like Ylenia." So, those $500,000 will be spent on, like, communications, whether that's digital, whether that's so we won't know because it's going to say paid by the Arizona Republican Party. So, we'll know at the end because we'll see that, like, how much money did Butterfly Utility give to the Republican Party? That's how we're going to know. That's why I was saying so we all have the same amount of money.

I think Joshua has a little bit less because he decided to run traditionally. And in this race, it's really hard to raise money. You're competing against a president, a US senator, Congress. So, companies like the energy industry don't just come in and say, "Let's give you all this money." No, because no one really knows about this race and it's really hard to get money. So.

David Roberts

Yeah. So what's probably going on then is you have these big utilities and energy companies funneling money into the Republican party, in part earmarked to win these races. And there's just no commensurate money coming in on the other side. I mean, if anybody's imagining. If anybody's giving money to the Democratic party in Arizona, they're frantic to win the presidential this time around and frantic to keep Kari Lake out of the—

Ylenia Aguilar

Yep, that's exactly right. That's what's happening right now.

David Roberts

You're pretty far down the list, I would imagine. Unfortunately, on Democratic priority.

Ylenia Aguilar

Reproductive rights are on the ballot here. We have a lot of horrible things happening. Everything's at stake. It's always like this in the state. It's really sad, but that's the reality. And I'm competing. We are competing with very important issues like reproductive rights and, you know, everything that comes out of the Republican Party is polarizing.

David Roberts

Yeah.

Ylenia Aguilar

So, we are just fighting for, like, just to exist, as I think — What is it? A gun has more rights than me right now here. So.

David Roberts

Well, in theory, Arizona went to Biden in 2022 narrowly, but in theory, there's a slim Democratic majority in the state. So, if just every Democrat who voted just checked your box, in addition to the president box and the Senate box and the reproductive rights ballot measure box, you could take advantage of that. Is that what happens? Like, do people vote all the way down the slate? Or is this one of those things where there's, like, a huge drop off after the top races?

Ylenia Aguilar

There is a huge drop-off after the top races. I will say Anna Tovar did get more votes than Biden, and I believe Senator Kelly, too. So, we have in Arizona, the majority, registered voters are independent. And I've only been elected to nonpartisan roles. So, I have been elected by the independents and Republicans. I don't think many Republicans are voting for me, but I will, I will say that independents, they are the ones who turn out for us.

David Roberts

Interesting.

Ylenia Aguilar

We are relying on them, and we're hoping that they turn out to vote because we can't win even if, let's say, even if all the Democrats turned out to vote. We can't get the win just with Democrats. We need independent and Republican votes. And I think the good thing for us is that a lot of people are waking up and understanding what this race entails. We're not talking about the MAGA voters. We're talking about reasonable Republicans who care about not just their pocketbook, but they care about air and water. So they're understanding the importance of this race.

David Roberts

Or just reining in corporations. Right? I mean, it seems like that ought to have some sort of, like, cross-partisan appeal, just not letting corporations run roughshod over consumers. In Arizona, it seems like that ought to have some appeal beyond the Democratic Party.

Ylenia Aguilar

You would hope so. And let's hope that that is true. I think that we are getting there. I think in Arizona, because we have way too many extreme people, like Kari Lake. The normal, level-headed, sensible Republican, will vote. And we saw that with Ana Tovar. We've seen this with Kris Mayes, who won with, like, I think, 280 votes. So we have seen Adrian Fontes, who's our secretary of state, like, we have seen this happen where, like, we will win some of the Democrat seats. We're splitting the ticket. And that happens very often in Arizona. And I'm hoping that that happens for me.

Like, I'm working really hard on the ground and I've been elected county wide. We're like the fifth largest county in the country. So, I think, you know, a little bit of the work that I've done in water and that I'm continuing to do on water will, like, continue to give me that name recognition to carry us through. And when I ran, I was recruited to do this and I'm bringing two other people with me, and hopefully, I've worked hard enough to carry them through.

David Roberts

Well, I wish you good luck. It's been fascinating looking into this particular niche. Really fascinating. And really, the stakes are quite high. So, I hope at least this will help people pay attention. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for taking the time.

Ylenia Aguilar

I really appreciate it. Thank you.

David Roberts

Thank you for listening to Volts. It takes a village to make this podcast work. Shout out, especially, to my super producer, Kyle McDonald, who makes my guests and I sound smart every week. And it is all supported entirely by listeners like you. So, if you value conversations like this, please consider joining our community of paid subscribers at volts.wtf. Or, leaving a nice review, or telling a friend about Volts. Or all three. Thanks so much, and I'll see you next time.