Marian McClure says her eight years as a Republican state lawmaker and 30 years of shrewd investing would inform her decisions as a member of the Arizona Corporation Commission.
“I read balance sheets year in and year out because I think only a savvy investor that knows what a company is doing should be in the market,” McClure said. “My overall knowledge of what business and the Corporation Commission are supposed to be doing make me qualified.”
A homemaker and self-proclaimed professional volunteer, McClure, a Tucson resident, has served in the Arizona State House of Representatives since 2001. She represents District 30, which stretches from the southern and eastern portions of the Tucson area into portions of Santa Cruz and Cochise counties, including much of Sierra Vista, and chairs the House Committee on Public Institutions and Retirement.
McClure said her top goal is keeping utility rates as low as possible while understanding the need of companies to expect a reasonable rate of return.
“If we do not allow them a profit by requiring officially low prices, sooner or later their business will go out of business,” McClure said. “And our population would decrease really quickly without electricity for air conditioning.”
During a September debate involving Corporation Commission candidates, McClure she said she doubted she would have voted for the commission’s requirement that utilities get 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025. She said she would support the standard if elected, but added that renewable energy is only part of the solution to Arizona’s energy challenges.
“I believe that it would strap the utility companies tremendously and they would be back in asking for a rate increase in the very near future if we expected 100 percent to come from renewable,” McClure said in the debate.
In an interview, McClure said she worries whether renewable energy would be cost-effective for ratepayers in the near term.
“My main concern with solar is that the best-cost analysis is that your rate per kilowatt will nearly double,” McClure said. “I have a lot of people that could not afford double the cost of electricity.”
McClure said she expects alternative energy sources such as solar or wind to become more prevalent as the technology becomes more affordable. Meanwhile, she advocated nuclear power as a larger part of Arizona’s energy portfolio.
“It is doable; we have to figure out a way to do it. With the growing population, we must explore all options,” McClure said.
McClure said her investing experience helps her understand securities fraud, an area the Corporation Commission investigates.
“I’ve seen some mighty bad brokers that should have never been licensed,” McClure said. “You have to know how to look. You have to know about securities before you can understand securities fraud.”
