What should have been a routine vote to extend the life of a state agency that looks out for the interests of average Coloradans in utility rate cases has instead become a marathon slog.
This is ludicrous. The Office of Consumer Counsel (OCC) literally has saved consumers hundreds of millions of dollars since it was created in 1984. There is simply no other state agency advocating on behalf of residential customers and small businesses. Regulators at the Public Utilities Commission, for example, operate under a different mandate.
The first hearing on whether to reauthorize the OCC under the state’s Sunset law occurred in January. It did not go well. And no hearing has been held since.
But this week, finally, the logjam may have broken. Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, who’d kept the sunset measure bottled up in a committee he chairs, introduced Senate Bill 271 to reauthorize the OCC for six more years.
With one catch. Although he’d maintain the OCC’s oversight and input on electric and natural gas service, Sonnenberg would eliminate it on telephone service.
That’s a mistake — although to be sure, electric and natural gas rate cases take up a far larger share of the OCC’s energy and concern than telecommunications. And after July 1, 2016, Colorado won’t even regulate rates and service for basic telephone service, meaning the OCC’s role in that sphere will be further reduced.
Still, regulators will be able to reassert authority over basic service in 2018 if they are dissatisfied with the direction of rates and how they’ve been set. And if that happens, the OCC ought to be at the table once more offering its perspective.
Despite this flaw, SB 271 is a welcome measure that will prevent the consumer agency from disappearing at a time when potential changes in the resource portfolios of utilities could make the agency’s voice more important than ever. Lawmakers should waste no time in ensuring its passage.
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