Questar customers get bill

An ongoing fight over who should pay for natural-gas processing ended Friday when the Utah Public Service Commission ordered $18 million in the costs to be passed to Questar Gas Co. customers.

Also Friday, the commission denied a request by Roger Ball, the former executive director of the state Committee of Consumer Services, and Claire Geddes, a citizen activist, to intervene in the dispute.

Ball and Geddes had opposed an agreement reached by the Salt Lake-based utility and two other state agencies to pass nearly $6 million a year in the processing costs to consumers. The fees will amount to about $7 a year per customer.

The issue has gained attention against a backdrop of skyrocketing natural-gas prices. In the past 30 days, more than 700 signed citizen petitions were presented to the PSC in support of Ball and Geddes.

Many of the signers abandoned hope in the state's consumer committee, charged with looking after the interests of residential and small-business customers. The committee sided with Questar on the gas-processing issue and opposed Ball and Geddes being heard on the matter.

"This loss for Questar's customers is another victory for the corporation's school-yard bullying tactics in Utah politics," Ball said. "This is a thoroughly unjust decision, and customers should be outraged that they are paying about $7 million a year for regulators who aren't protecting them from the greed of this monopoly utility and the corporation that owns it."

The commission's order is, in part, retroactive, with the added costs beginning Feb. 1, 2005, and remaining for a period of three years.

Julie Orchard, a spokeswoman for the PSC, said the fees will start appearing on customers' bills this summer.

In its order, the commission chided Ball and Geddes for waiting too long to file a request to be heard on the matter.

Reopening the case at this late date, the commission said, was tantamount to a "fishing expedition" by Ball and Geddes "to see if they might find some deficiency or uncover some new evidence."

Ball and Geddes have 30 days to ask for a reconsideration of the PSC's decision. Ball said he has not decided whether to file for reconsideration. "I would be surprised if we do not," he said.

According to the order, Questar Gas will not seek recovery of approximately $15 million of gas-management costs incurred from Jan. 1, 2003, through Jan. 31, 2005.