Gov. DeSantis appoints former lawmaker Bobby Payne to Public Service Commission

As a lawmaker, former Rep. Bobby Payne sponsored legislation with bearings on the Public Service Commission (PSC). Now he’ll experience firsthand the effects of the changes he backed.

Gov. Ron DeSantis just named Payne and Ana Ortega, a chief policy adviser to PSC Chair Mike La Rosa, to serve on the panel beside him.

Both appointments are subject to Senate confirmation.

Payne, a former Seminole Electric Cooperative executive who now owns and operates an eponymous consulting firm in Palatka, served in the House from 2016 to 2024, when fellow Republican Judson Sapp succeeded him.

During his time in office, he successfully carried multiple PSC-focused bills, including:

— HB 1645 (2024), a wide-ranging energy package that required public utilities to notify the PSC before retiring an electric-generating unit, authorized the PSC to approve utilities’ voluntary electric vehicle-charging programs, mandated that the PSC assess the safety of Florida’s electric grid and natural gas facilities against physical and cyber threats, and required the PSC to evaluate the feasibility of advanced nuclear technologies.

— HB 229 (2024), whose Senate companion (SB 354) simplified how the PSC updates the agency-funding fees utilities pay by dropping an extra legislative ratification step through 2028, while still requiring a cost analysis.

— HB 405 (2018), which streamlined permitting for long utility corridors, treating pipelines and power lines as “linear facilities” chiefly under state siting rules rather than local development rules. While the measure didn’t affect rate-setting, a principal matter over which the PSC has purview, it still related to the PSC, which issues the required “need” determination for major electric transmission projects that proceed under those rules.

PSC members, all appointed by the Governor, serve staggered four-year terms and earn $158,094 a year.

Payne and Ortega, who also serves as chief aide to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners President Tricia Pridemore, were among six candidates the PSC Nominating Council sent the Governor in August.

They replace Art Graham, whom President Donald Trump appointed to the Tennessee Valley Authority Board, and Giles Fay, a past PSC Chair who confirmed he was leaving the Commission before his term’s 2026 conclusion in an August interview with the News Service of Florida.

Other nominees included former Illinois politician Gary Adams, maritime and trade professional Sonless Martin, former Wisconsin banker Stephen Zimmerman and former NextEra Energy contractor Matilde De Haan, who also applied for the PSC in 2022.