Don't let PSC muzzle public input

The Public Service Commission used to hold hearings during which utility rate increases were openly litigated. The utilities would ask for what they wanted; the Division of Public Utilities would offer comprehensive evidence in support of just and reasonable rates; the Committee of Consumer Services would advocate vigorously in the interests of ratepayers; individual customers and groups were listened to respectfully; then the commission made its decision.

But open and honest testimony inconveniences and embarrasses the utilities when it reveals the extent of their greed, so they have lobbied assiduously for years to persuade governors, attorneys general and state legislators to neuter their regulators. Both the division and committee are under the aegis of the Department of Commerce, whose executive director answers directly to the governor, and their lawyers answer to the attorney general.

The committee was designed and created as an independent entity to protect utility ratepayers' interests. But it has fallen entirely under political control. The governor appoints its members and chairman. The committee went along when he fired its director and appointed two more in less than two years. The division is supposed to present comprehensive evidence to the commission to enable it to set just and reasonable rates. But both agencies now prefer to quietly negotiate rate increases with the utilities and have them rubber-stamped by the commission.

Questar, the commission, division and committee have tried their utmost to prevent ratepayers from overturning a rate increase to pay for the extraction of carbon dioxide from coal-seam gas that the corporation chose to transport on pipelines built to bring oil-field gas to utility customers. Although ratepayers had paid for the pipelines for many years, Questar was quick to seize the profit opportunity but wanted us to pay once more to make the gas safe to burn in our furnaces. The Utah Supreme Court rejected an earlier rate increase for this purpose, and now we have had to ask it once again to do what the regulators would not.

More recently, Questar, the regulatory agencies and the politicians were upset when individual ratepayers offered forthright testimony in opposition to another agreement to increase rates. So the commission is considering changing the rules that govern its formal hearing procedures to prevent the quiet approval of privately negotiated rate increases from being disrupted in future.

It was the intent of the Legislature that the utilities pay the cost of regulating them. This is not happening. Utility regulation in Utah costs about $17 million a year. For years, the commission has allowed the utilities to pass those costs on to their customers in rates.

We as ratepayers are paying for the entire regulatory process: for the commission, the division, the committee, their attorneys, Department of Commerce management and even what the utilities spend to try to raise our rates. Yet they are doing everything in their power to silence ratepayer input.

The commission will hold a public meeting to receive input on possible rule changes. If you'd like to attend, it will begin at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Room 401 of the Heber M. Wells Building, 160 E. 300 South, Salt Lake City.

For more information go to www.utahratepayers.org or call 801-998-8511.

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Larry Norman is a Questar customer and stockholder. He is also bursar of the Utah Ratepayers Association.