Yet Beck's confirmation drew little attention and generated no outcry, despite her former job at Xcel, the nation's 16th largest gas and electric utility in 2006, according to revenue rankings by Fortune magazine. This despite Xcel spending $23 million in an effort to ship its nuclear waste to Skull Valley, about 50 miles from Salt Lake City. Beck said she had no role in Xcel's pursuits at shipping its nuclear waste to Utah.

But while Beck may have dodged the early brawling that slapped her predecessor, criticism over her performance in the past six months has mounted.

"She's not the consumer-minded person I thought she was," said Claire Geddes, a consumer activist who was part of a search committee that recommended Beck for the position and has personally known all five of the committee's directors.

Geddes points to a decision earlier this year in which Beck and the consumer committee backed a plan by Salt Lake-based Questar Gas Co. to increase natural gas rates 19 cents a month per customer in an effort to subsidize natural gas costs to 34 rural towns and cities.

"That's one of the biggest issues to me," Geddes said. "There's a lot of pressure for the committee director to go along with these stipulations. We want someone that we know can stand up to that pressure. So far I haven't seen that."

Beck appears surprised at the criticism. At any given time, she said, the committee is tracking dozens of utility issues.

"You don't have to be loud and confrontational to be standing up for the needs of the consumers," Beck said. "If you would talk to either Rocky Mountain Power or Questar, they would tell you that I already stood my ground with them, and you're only going to see that more."

For example, she cites scrutiny by the committee over a bidding process by Rocky Mountain Power to build a new power plant.

Beck already is contemplating who will be asked to pay for future carbon taxes, which are likely to be implemented by states or the federal government and could impose significant additional costs on Utah consumers.

She believes that utilities, which have profited for decades from coal facilities, should pay a fair share of the new taxes, not just consumers.

And she believes Rocky Mountain Power has underestimated its resource needs, something that poses reliability risks for Utah consumers.

"If you overbuild, it's a temporary situation. We're growing into it," Beck said. "If you underbuild, the costs could be high."

Beck also takes issue with a new pricing plan by Questar that guarantees that the utility can collect 100 percent of its non-gas revenues, about $214 million annually. And she is outspoken when it comes to Utah laws that govern utility regulation, saying utility statutes here are lax compared to other states.

Dee Jay Hammon, chairman of the six-member consumer committee, said he has full confidence in Beck. Since Hammon was appointed to the committee in 2000, he has seen three directors.