Paul L. Gioia, who oversaw nuclear energy in New York, dies at 81

Paul L. Gioia, a former apprentice electrician who oversaw New York State’s utilities for five years as they grappled with growing public concern about nuclear power plants and consumer complaints about their costs, died Feb. 13 in his home in Loudonville. , NY He was 81.

The cause of his death, in a hamlet just north of the state capital in Albany, was cardiac arrhythmia, said Clarence J. Sundram, a longtime friend and former colleague in state government.

Mr. Gioia (pronounced JOY-ya) was an apolitical lawyer when he was appointed chairman of the Public Service Commission by Governor Hugh L. Carey in 1981.

“As PSC chairman, he stood up for the duty of quasi-judicial officials to make their judgment independent of political influences,” Mr Sundram said. “He had a strong sense of right and wrong and the courage to act on his beliefs, even when he knew it could cost him his job.”

But Mr. Gioia’s independence has clashed with Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, Mr. Carey’s successor and a fellow Democrat.

In August 1986, an election year for governors, Mr. Cuomo ousted Mr. Gioia, the first time in half a century that a governor had fired a chairman of the commission, whose seven members control electric utility operations, rates and financing regulate by the state. gas, steam, telephone and water companies. The chairman has only one vote, but usually sets the committee’s agenda.

The governor argued that the commission favored utilities over consumers and disputed the panel’s findings that would have allowed billions of dollars in construction costs for two new nuclear power plants — Shoreham on Long Island’s north shore and Nine Mile Point 2 in upstate Oswego. passed on to taxpayers.

The commission imposed a spending limit on the upstate plant (which began regular operations in 1988, 13 years after construction began), and in 1985 fined the Long Island Lighting Company $1.35 billion for mismanagement of the construction of the Shoreham factory.

Mr. Gioia said he had tried to reconcile customers’ safety concerns and their rising utility bills due to cost overruns, while keeping utilities solvent, at least temporarily.

Safety concerns were sparked by the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor near Middletown, Pennsylvania, in 1979. According to federal officials, the accident resulted in minor radioactive emissions, but also sparked backlash against nuclear power plants and sweeping changes in the protocols. for emergency responses.

One of the main concerns about the Shoreham plant on Long Island was the lack of adequate evacuation strategies. These concerns were exacerbated in 1986 by the collapse of reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, which resulted in the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.

Shoreham was completed after vastly exceeding its planned budget, but it never began regular operations. The Long Island Lighting Company, which built the plant and had been the target of public outcry for decades, was finally replaced in 1998 by a state agency, the Long Island Power Authority, which immediately cut rates.

“It was Mario’s view that the PSC needed to become more aggressive in dismantling Lilco and stopping Shoreham,” said Tonio Burgos, secretary to the governor. “Mario, however, had great respect and admiration for Paul as a lawyer and a good public servant.”

Paul Leonard Gioia was born on July 26, 1942 in Brooklyn to Peter and Mary (Santoro) Gioia. His father was an electrician, while his mother managed the household.

After graduating from Lafayette High School in Brooklyn, he earned a bachelor’s degree from Fordham University on a union scholarship in 1962 and apprenticed summers as an electrician. He received a law degree from Cornell University Law School in 1965 (and a master’s degree in philosophy from Fordham in 2022).

Mr. Gioia served on an icebreaker in the Coast Guard, worked as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan and as a special assistant to U.S. Senator Jacob K. Javits, a New York Republican. He was subsequently appointed assistant counsel to two Republican governors of New York, Nelson A. Rockefeller and Malcolm Wilson. To his surprise, he was detained by Mr. Carey, a Democrat, in the counsel’s office, which the new governor had appointed Judah Gribetz to lead.

In 1976, Mr. Gribetz and Mr. Gioia were instrumental in Mr. Carey’s ultimately successful effort to oust Maurice Nadjari, an aggressive anti-corruption special prosecutor who was by then widely seen as more careless than heroic.

After leaving the Public Service Commission when his term as Commissioner expired, Mr. Gioia joined an international law firm, which became known as Dewey & LeBoeuf. He helped establish the New York Independent System Operator in 1997 to oversee the newly deregulated wholesale electricity generation market and the maintenance of high-voltage transmission systems.

His wife, Patricia, died in 2016. He is survived by a brother, Salvatore Gioia Sr.