Kalispell doctor, retired executive square off for PSC District 5 seat

Voters in the Public Service Commission's District 5 are facing clear choices in experience and philosophy between candidates vying for a spot on the body that oversees the rates most Montana households pay for energy.

Facing off in the district that stretches from Helena to the Canadian border are Republican Annie Bukacek, a Kalispell physician who made news as an anti-vaccine activist, and Whitefish Democrat John Repke, a recently retired executive with experience in the oil, waste management and wood products industries.

(Editor's note: The other PSC seat up for election this year is in District 1, where SunRiver Republican and former legislator Randy Pinocci is running unopposed.)

The year's contest takes place amid the PSC's decision last month to allow NorthWestern Energy to charge ratepayers nearly $92 million more for natural gas and election. That's less than the $120 million originally sought by the utility that serves roughly two-thirds of Montana's households.

Bukacek is a first-time candidate for state office, but she's not new to public life. She served on the Flathead City-County Board of Health from January 2020 through this March when she resigned to focus on the PSC race. She won a four-way primary in June, defeating veteran Whitefish legislator Derek Skees by 87 votes.

It was during her time on the health board that she made local and national headlines, drawing both criticism and support for questioning the value of anti-COVID-19 vaccines and the national tally of pandemic deaths. She declined to be interviewed for this article and referred questions to her campaign website.

On it, she writes that she'll work to keep Montana energy independent, as much as possible. She also writes that she will oppose efforts "to remove access to Montana's coal and hydroelectric sources of power."

She discusses those ideas more fully in a website video, arguing that renewable energy from wind and solar sources are unreliable, requires hydrocarbons in their manufacture and threatens birds and bats. She also said they produce waste that can be toxic and difficult to recycle.

Another of her goals, she wrote, is bringing the state's water compact management boards under the PSC's jurisdiction. Such compacts are agreements between governments, such as the compact between the Confederate Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the State of Montana and the federal government over water use in the Flathead Basin.

Other aims, she writes, include amplifying the PSC's communication with the public, improving its involvement with legislators, and assisting them by crafting legislation and testifying about PSC matters.

Much of the PSC's work entails wading through detailed applications for rate increases, and Bukacek writes that her decades of managing her patients' health care, which can sometimes mean making life and death decisions, and her medical practice qualifies her for the job.

"Applying my character and value system to the job (at the) PSC, I will do my research, apply my proven problem-solving abilities, and not be beholden to environmental or monopolistic special interests in the push for energy independence for Montana," she writes.

She also vows to "apply free market principles to the regulation of utility monopolies."

Meanwhile, her opponent said his experience overseeing a waste management company and his master's degree in business administration gives him an edge in this race – and even over past commissioners.

"Almost all of my duties involved setting fair rates for companies and the people paying them," Repke said in an interview. "Other than that, I have experience in budget analysis, cost analysis and rate of return. These are all things the PSC should have some competency in, and I'm not sure they have that."

He said he hopes to bring greater objectivity to the commission's decisions.

"All I will pledge is that I will commit to thorough and complete analysis and make my decisions and cast my vote in a way that I think is best for the ratepayers," he said. "To bring forth any projects or partisan baggage into the position would be completely inappropriate. A Public Service Commissioner needs to work to strike a perfect balance between energy companies and ratepayers, and that's what I plan to do with the PSC."

Republicans have controlled all five seats on the commission since 2013, though the PSC has had a reputation for in-fighting. Commissioners, who are paid $112,000 yearly, have occasionally drawn fire from critics who say some members take on too much outside work.

Repke said many of the PSC's struggles over the years have stemmed from a lack of experience managing businesses.

There's been a pretty long list of unethical and unprofessional behavior going on at the commission, and so the solution there is pretty simple: to act with a level of integrity and bring some hard-earned knowledge to the position," he said. "I don't think that's too much to ask from any public servant."

District 5's seat is currently held by former chairman Brad Johnson of Helena, who is limited by law from running for another consecutive term. The PSC's current chairman, James Brown of Helena, is running for the Montana Supreme Court.