Robert Clayton has asked the Governor to relieve him of his duties as Chairman of the Public Service Commission. Clayton details the letter he’s sent to Governor Nixon.
“I was appreciative of the opportunity to serve as Chairman of the Public Service Commission. Over the last two years we’ve been able to accomplish all of the tasks or most of the tasks that I wanted to complete and that now was an appropriate time to ask him to go ahead and appoint a new chair and I’ll step back. (I’ll) continue serving as a member of the commission, but look forward to some new leadership,” Clayton said.
We asked Clayton why he still wants to stay on the commission.
“I think there’s important work that needs to be done. We’ve got a handful of rate cases that have been filed by Missouri utilities. There are important decisions that need to be made and I think I can bring a lot to the table as we work through those issues. As chairman of the commission, however, it’s easy to be distracted by administrative responsibilities, working through budget issues, working through legislative matters. I wanted to get back to the bread and butter type of work that we do at the commission, and that’s deciding these very challenging cases,” Clayton said.
He was appointed Chairman of the Commission in 2009. He expects Governor Nixon to appoint one of the two Democratic commissioners as the new chair.