Electric Co-ops Serving Broadband to Rural Mississippi, With Commissioner Brandon Presley

Transcripts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

Stephen Smith: And thank you for listening in to another episode of Rural Broadband Today. And I'm excited to have as our guest on the show Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley. Commissioner, we're delighted to have you on the show.

Brandon Presley: I am glad to be with you. I appreciate the chance. For a long time, we've been needing to link up.

Stephen Smith: Yeah, that's for sure. I've been following your career over there for some time, and I think you really put the service in public service commissioner.

Brandon Presley: I appreciate that. I appreciate that very much.

Stephen Smith: So let's kind of start there and give our listeners a little background in how you got to the Public Service Commission. I know there's been a few stops along the way, so just give us a little background.

Brandon Presley: Well, for my first political office, I was elected mayor of my hometown of Nettleton back in 2001. Then I served there. I was reelected in 2005. Then the public service commissioner that had been in office for 16 years had decided not to seek reelection in 2007. So in Mississippi municipal elections — like in Alabama and most states — are on an off-year compared to when state elections are. And so when I was reelected in 2005, I was about two years into that term when the seat on the Public Service Commission came open. I ran, and I was elected. So I had to resign as mayor on December 31, 2007, and of course, became commissioner the next day. That's sort of been my career coming from local government into state government. Then, of course, I ran for reelection in 2011, 2015, and then last year. Luckily last year, I slipped by without having an opponent.

Stephen Smith: Now that speaks to your popularity and the fact that the public has trust in you. Thanks for doing a great job.

Brandon Presley: Either that or nobody else wants this crazy job, one of the two.

Stephen Smith: Well, it's easy for citizens to look at the governor and see what they do and even your local senators and representatives. But when you think about the Public Service Commission, it's not always clear exactly what the role of a commissioner is. Now, explain for our listeners a little bit about what a public service commissioner does.

Brandon Presley: Well, you know, in Mississippi, the Public Service Commission is one of the oldest state agencies. It's actually mentioned in our state constitution. It began as the Railroad Commission because of railroads coming through areas, and obviously the need to protect landowners, ensure fair transportation rates, and those sort of things. And then over the years, as monopoly systems kind of increased in their penetration really and how our society works, the Public Service Commission became more of a regulatory body, not just over railroads, but electricity, water, sewer, natural gas (as it came in as an energy source), and telephones. And then, of course, in 2020, that's morphed into really a different take on telecommunications. When you look at things like broadband and others, and although we don't regulate the cost for service to broadband, our agency is tasked with enforcing and administering much of the FCC's rules related to the Connect America Fund, the Universal Service Fund. We also have a role to play in that related to telecommunications.

Brandon Presley: In a broader sense, the legislature a few years ago tasked the Commission with making sure that — in carrying out all of our duties — that we advance the economic development of the state. Of course, one of our duties is related to the expenditure of broadband money and how policy works on both the federal level, but making sure we get the most for the state.

Stephen Smith: So let's boil that down to how the Public Service Commission impacts the daily lives of the citizens.

Brandon Presley: Well, you know, we regulate the vital services of the people, the state. You know, nobody could imagine in 2020 not having electricity, not being able to get a phone. These are the machines, if you will, that make our economy work and make modern life work.

Brandon Presley: And so, you know, our job when it comes to electricity is to make sure it's reliable, affordable, and the lights are always on. That's kind of a worn-out phrase, but it's true. And the same thing with other services. But I've tried to take a different take on that. Yes, that's part of our job is to make sure that the current system works. But also, how are we expanding services to people who lack them? How are we making sure that, for instance, rural communities get access to natural gas service, so they have the same options to heat their home as someone living in a city? And, of course, that applies to broadband. But also, you know, and incidentally, just yesterday we got notice of a grant that has been awarded to one of our small towns to go out into a rural area to provide water. And we're working on some legislation to make sure that the laws are clear that this city, this town really, can go out and serve these rural customers. So we think that, you know, everybody has access to community water, but they don't. So we still have some basic building blocks of services that we're still working on. But, you know, the one that is leapfrogged just about everything, to be candid with you, has been the topic of your podcast and your work, and that's broadband.

Stephen Smith: Absolutely. And I think we knew leading up to the current [global pandemic] situation that we're in that broadband and solving this rural broadband problem definitely needed to be a focus of the country. I mean, we can look back even to 2009-2010 with the stimulus grants, the ReConnect, and things of that nature. There's been momentum, but I think that pales in comparison to the attention that rural broadband is getting now because of all the folks sitting at home working, going to school, and having to access those services from the house.

Brandon Presley: Well, that's exactly right. I mean, we knew that this was an issue going into COVID-19. It was getting a lot of the appropriate attention, and not just on the federal level, but the state level. But I think that we never had to really rely on the system. We were in a situation where we were reacting to the fact that people lacked service, but that was not coupled with the sense of a national emergency or a pandemic. [A pandemic] where we had to within a period of really two weeks, to be fair about the calendar, the whole country had to transition in a major shift to online work, online education, telehealth, telemedicine, and we had to do it. And we were somewhat, I think for rural areas, not caught by surprise — because we knew this was an issue and some of us had been working on it for a long time — but the issue was forced. And we had to really see the realities of where this lack of public leadership in many places had gotten us. And essentially, we were forced into that situation by events outside of our control, and it just made it starker, clearer, closer, and personal. And the very things that many of us have been talking about for years, came to pass in reality and in which other people — legislators, policymakers, and the like — could see...