Daneya Esgar,
D-Pueblo
Rep. Faith Winter,
D-Westminster
The future of the Colorado Office of Consumer Counsel — utility ratepayers’ watchdog — just got murky again. A day after Senate Republican Jerry Sonnenberg of Greeley introduced a bill to reauthorize the office, the House Democrats dropped their own bill Friday afternoon.
With just seven working days left before the session adjourns on May 6, and the need for at least one of the bills to pass both the House and Senate (plus possibly a joint conference committee, then a vote in each chamber on a compromise), this fight — with households, farms and small businesses stuck in the middle — could push perilously close to the end.
If neither bill passes, the office would sunset on July 1 after more than 30 years of representing ratepayers whenever gas, electricity or telephone providers go before the state Public Utilities Commission ask for customers to pay more.
Since it began in 1984, the OCC has requests, according to its accounting.
The main differences between the bills are telephones and duration before the next sunset review. Sonnenberg, the sponsor of , and other Senate Republicans say there’s no need for the Office of Consumer Counsel to ride herd over phone rates. Those are dictated by competition in the free market, after the legislature deregulated telecoms last year.
Supporters of say the office needs to keep a watch on remaining phone services and issues, such as 9-1-1 service and whether deregulation is giving customers a fair shake.
The newest OCC bill sponsored by Reps. Daneya Esgar, D-Pueblo, and Faith Winter, D-Westminster, and 28 Democratic co-sponsors preserves the OCC’s telecom oversight. The Senate bill reduces the time until the next sunset review from 11 years to six. The House bill maintains it at 11.
“Extending the Office of Consumer Counsel is a no brainer,” Esgar said in a statement Friday afternoon. “It provides critical protections for Colorado consumers and businesses to ensure that big utilities and telecom companies aren’t ripping off hardworking Coloradans to increase their profits.”
Said Winter: “We know the counsel has prevented telecom rate increases in the past. We shouldn’t create a loophole that threatens 9-1-1 services and will cost consumers more money.”
The House bill has been assigned to the chamber’s Transportation and Energy Committee, which had not yet put it on its agenda for its meeting next Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. Sonnenberg’s bill is set for a hearing in the Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee on the same day at the same time in a different Capitol conference room.
Gov. John Hickenlooper, who would have to sign whichever bill passes, has not personally expressed a preference.
