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Paul L. Gioia, a former apprentice electrician who for 5 years oversaw New York State’s utility firms as they struggled to deal with the general public’s rising considerations over nuclear energy vegetation and client complaints about their prices, died on Feb. 13 at his dwelling in Loudonville, N.Y. He was 81.
The reason for his dying, in a hamlet simply north of the state capital in Albany, was cardiac arrhythmia, Clarence J. Sundram, a longtime buddy and former colleague in state authorities, stated.
Mr. Gioia (pronounced JOY-ya) was an apolitical lawyer when he was appointed chairman of the Public Service Fee by Gov. Hugh L. Carey in 1981.
“Because the P.S.C. chairman, he stood up for the responsibility of quasi-judicial officers to make their judgments unbiased of political influences,” Mr. Sundram stated. “He had a powerful judgment of right and wrong and the braveness to behave on his convictions even when he knew it might value him his job.”
However Mr. Gioia’s independence ran afoul of Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, Mr. Carey’s successor and a fellow Democrat.
In August 1986, a gubernatorial election yr, Mr. Cuomo ousted Mr. Gioia, the primary time in a half-century {that a} governor had eliminated a md of the fee, whose seven members regulate operations, charges and financing for the state’s electrical, fuel, steam, phone and water provide companies. The chairman has just one vote, however sometimes units the fee’s agenda.
The governor argued that the fee was favoring utilities over shoppers and challenged the panel’s findings that might have allowed billions of {dollars} in building prices for 2 new nuclear energy vegetation — Shoreham on Lengthy Island’s North Shore and 9 Mile Level 2 in upstate Oswego — to be handed on to ratepayers.
The fee imposed a spending cap on the upstate plant (which started common operations in 1988, 13 years after building began), and imposed a $1.35 billion penalty on the Lengthy Island Lighting Firm in 1985 for mismanaging the constructing of the Shoreham plant.
Mr. Gioia stated he had been searching for to reconcile prospects’ considerations over security and their rising utility payments ensuing from value overruns, whereas preserving the facility firms solvent, no less than quickly.
Security considerations had been stoked by the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor close to Middletown, Pa., in 1979. In line with federal officers, the accident resulted in small radioactive releases however generated a backlash in opposition to nuclear vegetation and sweeping modifications within the protocols for emergency responses.
A chief concern in regards to the Shoreham plant on Lengthy Island was the dearth of sufficient evacuation methods. These considerations had been exacerbated in 1986 by the meltdown of the No. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant in Ukraine, which resulted within the evacuation of tens of 1000’s of individuals.
Shoreham was accomplished after vastly surpassing its projected funds, however it by no means started common operations. The Lengthy Island Lighting Firm, which constructed the plant and had been a goal of public outrage for many years, was finally changed in 1998 by a state company, the Lengthy Island Energy Authority, which instantly reduce charges.
“It was Mario’s view that the P.S.C. wanted to change into extra aggressive on dismantling Lilco and stopping Shoreham,” stated Tonio Burgos, who was secretary to the governor. “Nevertheless, Mario had nice respect and admiration for Paul as a lawyer and a great public servant.”
Paul Leonard Gioia was born on July 26, 1942, in Brooklyn to Peter and Mary (Santoro) Gioia. His father was an electrician whereas his mom managed the family.
After graduating from Lafayette Excessive Faculty in Brooklyn, he acquired a bachelor’s diploma in 1962 from Fordham College on a union scholarship and apprenticed summers as an electrician. He earned a legislation diploma from the Cornell College Legislation Faculty in 1965 (and a grasp’s diploma in philosophy from Fordham in 2022).
Mr. Gioia served on an icebreaker within the Coast Guard, labored as an assistant district lawyer in Manhattan and as a particular assistant to U.S. Senator Jacob Ok. Javits, a New York Republican. He went on to be named an assistant counsel to 2 Republican governors of New York, Nelson A. Rockefeller and Malcolm Wilson. To his shock, he was retained by Mr. Carey, a Democrat, within the counsel’s workplace, which the incoming governor had named Judah Gribetz to guide.
In 1976, Mr. Gribetz and Mr. Gioia had been instrumental in Mr. Carey’s finally profitable effort to oust Maurice Nadjari, an aggressive particular state anti-corruption prosecutor, who by then was extensively thought to be extra heedless than heroic.
After leaving the Public Service Fee when his time period as a commissioner expired, Mr. Gioia joined a world legislation agency, which turned generally known as Dewey & LeBoeuf. He helped set up the New York Unbiased System Operator in 1997 to supervise the newly deregulated wholesale electrical energy producing market and the upkeep of high-voltage transmission methods.
His spouse, Patricia, died in 2016. He’s survived by a brother, Salvatore Gioia Sr.
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