Amid one of the most turbulent periods in its short history, LIPA’s board on Wednesday is expected to vote to approve the appointment of its top quasi-regulator to its chief executive post.

Long Island Power Authority trustees at their last meeting before a summer recess are expected to approve the appointment of Carrie Meek Gallagher, the director of the Department of Public Service’s Long Island office, as its chief executive and president. The position had been filled by John Rhodes on an interim basis since March 2024.

DPS has a unique "review and recommend" oversight role at LIPA, but doesn’t serve as the strict jurisdictional watchdog that its affiliated Public Service Commission does. DPS, for instance, has not publicly weighed in on a recent flurry of controversial LIPA procurement decisions that have sparked a state investigation, at least one ethics complaint and calls for intervention by Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The controversy involved a decision by LIPA trustees in April to rejected a recommendation from a LIPA panel that Quanta Services should be hired to replace PSEG as manager of the electric grid. The six board members who voted to reject the recommendation said they did their own extensive research and investigation. They have since named a new committee to negotiate a contract extension with PSEG for up to five years.

Gallagher has been director of the Long Island DPS office since September 2021, taking the post after she served as acting deputy secretary for energy and environment under former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. Gallagher had been seen as an eventual replacement to become DEC commissioner at the time, but former commissioner Basil Seggos stayed on past a planned departure date, sources said.

Gallagher also has served as Long Island regional director of the DEC, a post she held for just over 5 years, starting in 2015, and also worked as chief sustainability officer at the Suffolk County Water Authority and in Suffolk County government.

She’s been a candidate for the LIPA job since at least last year, when former LIPA chief executive Tom Falcone abruptly resigned in March following the appointment of a new slate of trustees by Hochul, Newsday has reported.

A Freedom of Information request to DPS returned no documents that indicated Gallagher had sought or received any special ethics clearances from the state to seek the LIPA job while serving as LIPA’s quasi-regulator. One expert wondered why. 

"If she’s been interviewing [and] is actively under consideration for a position at LIPA, she should have been recusing herself with respect to LIPA," said Paul Sabatino, former counsel to the Suffolk County Legislature. A DPS spokesman declined to comment on Gallagher’s possible appointment at LIPA. 

Gallagher is a known entity on Long Island, chiefly in political and environmental circles, a well-liked problem solver. She was dubbed a "Natural Born Leader," by the Long Island Contractor’s Association, a business group, in a 2021 cover story that explored her roots in the environmental field. In an interview with the association, she described a spiritual encounter on a family camping trip, waking one morning to find a bison not far from her tent. " ... That breathtaking encounter with a bison made such an impression that Carrie immediately gave up eating animal meat and remains a vegetarian to this day," the publication noted.

Gallagher graduated top of her class from Amherst College, and went on to earn a master's degree from the University of Maryland and an MBA from Hofstra University.

Suffolk Legis. Steve Englebright, who has known Gallagher for decades, said she is well-suited for the job.

"She knows her way around local government, state government, and everything in between and she is a proven problem solver," said Englebright, a former state Assemblyman who attended Gallagher's Gold Award ceremony when she was a teen in the Girl Scouts. "That’s what LIPA needs now: Someone who knows how things work and how to get things done." 

Gallagher "will be tested at LIPA, but I think this is a terrific appointment," said Englebright.

But some have criticized her oversight role of LIPA and PSEG as light handed, particularly in recent months as LIPA’s board voted to reject the recommendation to award the grid management contract to Quanta Services over PSEG. Gallagher has attended at least one of the sometimes testy board meetings where speakers have questioned or criticized LIPA’s moves, but neither Gallagher, nor DPS, have publicly weighed in.

In a recent post on LinkedIn, former Suffolk County LIPA Oversight Board member Peter Schlussler noted the DPS office is the "last line of defense against potential abuses or questionable dealings. Yet with every fresh revelation of questionable conduct, not a single word of public comment, inquiry or condemnation comes from her."

James Denn, spokesman for DPS, explained that the agency Gallagher oversees "does not have oversight function over LIPA procurement actions."

Following Tropical Storm Isaias, DPS had a hand in recommending not only that LIPA sue PSEG Long Island for failures tied to the storm, but also to start looking for PSEG's replacement (Rhodes was CEO of DPS at the time.) Later, DPS chief executive Rory Christian wrote an eight-page letter to LIPA’s board in 2021 in favor of the new LIPA-PSEG contract after an exhaustive analysis by that agency, at Cuomo’s urging.

But Denn said in response, "As part of the resolution to all matters related to Tropical Storm Isaias, LIPA and PSEG LI settled their lawsuit, culminating in the [PSEG contract] now in effect. This was effective oversight and enforcement of PSEG operations, not of LIPA procurement."

Like Rhodes, Gallagher has not run or worked for an electric utility. In a 2018 audit conducted for the DPS office she would later run, the state found that utility experience was essential, particularly for an authority using the public-private model in which an investor-owned utility (PSEG) was charged with operating the grid for LIPA.

"For a utility operating with this business model, the need for strong management skills and a deep understanding of the nuances of utility operations is critical to provide effective oversight and continuous improvement."