Readers may wonder whether my columns of the past year have exaggerated the transgressions of the Public Utilities Commission. Could these three regulators possibly be as indifferent to the consumer’s interest, as highhanded in abusing their power, or as compromised by conflicts of interest as I’ve portrayed them?
Actually, maybe I’ve been too kind. Or at least that thought occurred to me while reading the stark conclusions of District Court Judge Herbert Stern.
Earlier this month Stern overturned a rate hike for Qwest for basic telephone service that the commission approved in 2009 — a seemingly dry legal finding if ever there was one. But Stern’s language was anything but dry. He torched commissioners for ignoring most of the law in granting the hike — never bothering to find out, for example, “how much costs in providing service rose or fell during the relevant time period.”
And then this bombshell: “Because there are so few findings of fact, so many apparent assumptions, and scant evidence that the PUC held Qwest to its statutory responsibilities, the PUC’s Order constitutes an abuse of power” under its mandate to set “just and reasonable rates.”
Qwest may well have deserved the rate hike. Stern’s point is that commissioners never seriously tried to find out, as the law requires.
Maybe Chairman Ron Binz was in a hurry to hop on another jet in his impressive effort to grace every possible resort with his official presence (he’s been on more than 50 out-of-state trips in the past 3½ years). Or, what is more likely, perhaps commissioners possess an alarmingly grandiose vision of their authority.
After all, this is a commission that thinks it can dictate a company’s level of charitable giving — as it did as a condition for approving the merger of Qwest and Century- Link. This was too much for commissioner James Tarpey, who objected that “charitable contributions are not a cost paid by ratepayers” — they’re borne by shareholders — “and are a matter outside the commission’s jurisdiction.”
This is the same commission, for that matter, which last month as part of its order regarding the Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act, directed its staff to study “how to efficiently dedicate appropriate ratepayer funds (my emphasis) to the effort of retraining eligible coal miners” because “funding for worker retraining available to the Colorado Department of Labor is . . . fairly depleted.”
What other depleted state funds might Xcel Energy ratepayers be tapped to replenish? And when did the electric bill become a treasury for social services?
The irony in the PUC’s failure to meet the law’s requirements in granting Qwest a rate hike is that Binz himself apparently helped write the statute the commission defied (just as he helped write the Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act and then permitted Xcel to flout its deadlines while concealing critical information from agency staff.) PUC disclosure memos from April 2008 confirm several meetings between Binz and Qwest officials to discuss language in House Bill 1227, which created the very legal standard on which Stern would base his decision.
If Binz isn’t interested in adhering to his own handiwork, why immerse himself so deeply in the legislative process to begin with?
“Giving Qwest the benefit of the doubt on costs, without more, is not just and reasonable to consumers of Colorado,” Stern wrote. Just so. Unfortunately, Colorado consumers are getting used to this sort of cavalier treatment.
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com.
