Stan Wise Comments about Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

On March 22 2006, Stan Wise was quoted in the Douglas County Neighbor newspaper with the following quote about the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy:

“Those groups oppose future needs of Georgia,” Wise said.  “I think they want us to wear animal skins and live in caves.  And some of them wouldn’t want us to wear animal skins.”

Power Bills to Rise

ATLANTA – Georgia Power Co. customers will see electric bills go up an average of about $5 monthly after a Thursday decision by the state Public Service Commission. storyPhotos();

State law allows utilities to recover the full price of fuel needed to generate electricity, without profit or mark-up. Georgia Power had asked the PSC for more money both to repay about $400 million in fuel costs that haven’t been recovered and to try to collect an adequate amount for future energy supplies.

Commissioners did not agree with the company’s $561 million-a-year request, and instead approved a reduced plan put together by commission staff, a committee of major industrial power users and the Utility Counsel of the Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs.

Georgia Power executives didn’t agree to the compromise, saying it won’t keep up with rising costs of coal and natural gas used in power generation, but Commissioner David Burgess made the motion to accept the compromise despite the objection.

“I think the stipulation does represent the interests of all the parties in this case,” said Mr. Burgess, one of two commissioners up for re-election this year.

There were essentially three plans on the table. The company’s plan lost support during the lengthy hearing process, which often sunk to debates on fluctuations of global energy prices.

A second proposal came from commission staff, which would have disallowed charging electricity customers for various expenses, dropping the total yearly increase by $280 million from what the company sought. That alternative would have added $4 to the average residential monthly bill for Georgia Power customers.

The PSC, however, rejected that staff proposal 2-3. Commissioners Bobby Baker and Angela Speir were outgunned by Commissioners Burgess, Doug Everett and Stan Wise, the chairman.

The third proposal was a compromise after the Georgia Industrial Group and the Georgia Textile Manufacturers Association objected to the amount their members would have to pay. The compromise, which all five commissioners voted for, trims $211 million from Georgia Power’s request, but it also means that Georgia Power residential customers will pay a 17 percent increase in fuel costs starting with their July bills.

Commissioner Bobby Baker tried to prevent customers from having to pay the expense of replacing electricity during six of 2,800 power outages that Georgia Power’s own review concluded were caused by errors committed by its workers. That would have saved customers the $5.2 million needed to buy replacement electricity from other utilities during the outages.

By the same 2-3 split, the commission voted down Mr. Baker’s motion.

Mr. Wise, who is also up for re-election, said looking at isolated outages was unfair to a company that generally saves customers money by operating more efficiently than the average electric company in the country.

“To point out one or two incidences would be inappropriate,” he said.

From the Friday, June 16, 2006 edition of the Augusta Chronicle

Wise has some explaining to do!

PSC, step on the Gas
Atlanta Gas Light’s expenditures demand answers; Public Service Commission should see it gets them

Published on: 05/15/06Atlanta Gas Light makes a tidy profit selling an odorless commodity to customers who use it to heat their homes. But the company’s cold-hearted disregard for how it spends other people’s money — and the lax oversight of its expenditures by public officials — reeks to high heaven.

A better-late-than-never audit by the staff of the Georgia Public Service Commission reveals AGL possibly overcharged ratepayers by nearly $665,000 during the last several years for cleaning up toxic coal tar pollution in central Georgia. In 1997, the regulatory agency had granted AGL permission to impose a surcharge on every customer’s bill to pay for the cleanup, a fee which now stands at $1.30 a month.

Since then, according to the PSC’s partial audit, politically connected contractors have used some of that money to indulge in a spending spree that included a quail-hunting trip, barbecues, cellphones, parties and gifts to undisclosed recipients.

Those expenses were billed under a contract AGL awarded to Virgil Williams, a Gwinnett County entrepreneur who also happens to be a major contributor to PSC Commissioner Stan Wise. Williams, in turn, hired Shawn Davis, Wise’s former campaign manager, to run a $2.3 million public relations effort intended to ward off potential and costly lawsuits associated with the cleanup.

An AGL spokeswoman claims the work performed by Davis and others helped save the company $45 million in “likely” remediation costs. But it’s difficult to determine if their accounting is credible because AGL hasn’t been very forthcoming about many of the expenses it has incurred.

The monthly surcharges will continue to appear on Georgians’ gas bills although the cleanup is nearly complete. Those costs warrant closer scrutiny because, as the PSC audit report explained, “the evidence became clear that the company has not been monitoring the expenses being charged as community affairs.” Among other disputed charges is $22,000 for a study AGL paid for without PSC approval and is refusing to release.

AGL officials have responded to a request to reimburse ratepayers for questionable expenses by, in essence, thumbing their noses at the PSC. Of the $665,000 agency auditors claim should be returned, AGL has offered only $50, which is the late fee another contractor on the project owes on his overdue utility bill.

That kind of corporate arrogance by AGL is becoming all too familiar. The company recently tried to use its clout with key state lawmakers to circumvent the PSC’s regulatory authority in order to build a $300 million natural gas pipeline between Atlanta and Elba Island near Savannah.

Far more troubling, however, is the lack of adequate oversight from the PSC, which has neither set, nor enforced clear standards for allowable expenditures under the cleanup program. Several commissioners have belatedly started asking tough questions with the notable exception of Chairman Wise, who has been missing in action lately. When he returns, Wise has some explaining to do. Until then, his colleagues should continue their line of inquiry because the answers they’ve gotten from AGL so far don’t pass the smell test.

—Lyle V. Harris, for the editorial board (lharris@ajc.com)

Find this article at:
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/0515edpsc.html

‘Gift for Danielle’ irritates official

Gift for Danielle’ irritates official

By MARGARET NEWKIRK
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/12/06Who is Danielle?

That’s how Georgia Public Service Commissioner Angela Speir set off a first public airing Thursday of a long-awaited audit of Atlanta Gas Light — an audit that says the company overcharged customers $664,810 through environmental cleanup fees.

“We have an item marked ‘gift for Danielle,’ ” Speir said, referring to a list of expenses passed through to ratepayers and attached to the audit.

“Who is Danielle? Why would ratepayers buy her a gift and what did that have to do with an environmental cleanup? Do you have any justification for why this gift was purchased?” she asked the audit’s lead staff analyst.

Speir’s opening shot began what’s likely to be a touchy debate at the PSC over the staff’s audit report on a long-running and now substantially finished AGL program to clean up buried coal tar sites around the state.

AGL is contesting the audit’s findings almost entirely, saying its being penalized for spending that helped bring a notoriously difficult environmental job to conclusion and saved customers tens of millions in the process.

Just as touchy is who spent a big part of the questioned money.

The audit says AGL customers were overcharged $400,000 through a beefy community relations program run by Commission Chairman Stan Wise’s friend and former campaign manager, Shawn Davis, then working for a company owned by one of Wise’s top campaign donors, Gwinnett County entrepreneur Virgil Williams.

Wise did not attend Thursday’s meeting. A PSC spokesman said he was out of town on family matters.

AGL says it’s willing to reimburse its customers $50 of the $664,810 the audit says they’re owed.

The $50 is a late fee incurred by a contractor who failed to pay a light bill.

But the company said another audit finding, which says AGL double-billed ratepayers for a $243,000 executive salary, is factually wrong.

And it says the $400,000 in community relations spending saved ratepayers more than 100 times as much, by staving off litigation and helping persuade property owners to accept less costly cleanup efforts.

AGL attorney Craig Dowdy said the savings were at least $45 million, and that the benefit flowed to ratepayers.

“The staff is asking the commission — after that benefit has been received — to disallow the spending that helped bring it about,” Dowdy said.

Commissioners Speir and Robert Baker argued that those savings need to be proved, that the expenses passed on to consumers were unreasonable on their face and that the refunds recommended in the audit may not go far enough.

They said it appeared that no one at AGL had been minding the store until the PSC staff began its probe, and that expenses had been passed on to customers routinely and without question.

“I’m looking at auto detailing,” said Speir, interrupting Dowdy at one point.

“Gatorade. Barbecues. Quail hunting trips. Gifts for folks we don’t know who they are or what they’re for. We have line items of $3,000 and there’s nothing to say what they are, except question marks.”

The list also included apartment cleaning, a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, ibuprofen, a $548 meal that included three bottles of wine and some beer, a $24 fish sandwich and public relations chores both complicated and mundane billed at $200 per hour.

One $200-per-hour bill was for the task of putting gift cards in Christmas baskets.

Baker homed in on the hourly billings submitted by Davis and others then working for an environmental company owned by Williams under a subcontract with AGL.

He said the money represented profit for Williams, generated by employees working on salaries undoubtedly lower than the hourly rate charged to and passed on by AGL.

He said the PSC had intended to reimburse AGL for the costs of the cleanup but that the community relations work became “a profit center for the Williams remediation company.”

Commissioner Doug Everett was the only other commissioner to speak.

He asked the staff to give him commission policies that would have spelled out what expenses could legitimately be charged to ratepayers, before the current audit report said they were inappropriate.

“I’m not aware of anything being provided to the company that would detail what’s acceptable or not,” he said. “Surely, we told them what we wouldn’t allow or not.”

Told that such guidelines hadn’t been in place, he said they should have been.

“We wouldn’t be here today, and the ratepayers wouldn’t be being ripped off.”

With the exception of the last part, Everett’s question dovetails with another argument being made by AGL.

The company says it should not be docked for spending the PSC did not specifically prohibit, and which was not flagged as a problem during regular audits over the years.

Staff analyst Tony Wackerly said the commission’s 1990s ruling setting up the cleanup fee didn’t require AGL to break out spending in detail and that the staff didn’t see the community relations spending until a snapshot audit caught it in 2003. The current audit began then, he said.

In addition to the refunds, the audit recommends a number of changes in how AGL handles pass-through expenses in the future, including limits on spending for hotels, meals, entertainment and travel that mirror strict limits in place at the PSC itself.

The audit does not recommend docking AGL for the $249,000 in identified lodging, meals and entertainment expenses billed to customers under the coal tar program so far.

That includes the gift that ratepayers bought for Danielle, which is listed in audit backup materials as costing $54.

Find this article at: http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/0512bizpsc.html

Audit: AGL overcharged customers

Overcharges in environmental cleanup effort included $400K PR program

By MARGARET NEWKIRK
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/11/06Atlanta Gas Light overcharged and should reimburse its customers $664,810 for an environmental cleanup effort over the past few years, according to a Georgia Public Service Commission audit released Wednesday.

The overcharges included $400,000 related to a bells-and-whistles public relations program run by the PSC chairman’s former campaign manager, the audit report said.

That program, which was the subject of an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article last fall, had raised eyebrows because of billings for activities that included a quail hunt at Carrollton’s Hog Liver Shooting Preserve, parties and gifts and $24 for a fish sandwich. AGL withdrew some of those expenses last year, and this week’s audit doesn’t say which additional costs the staff found excessive and unreasonable.

The audit also said customers should be reimbursed for the cost of putting a contractor on AGL’s payroll, the cost of a regulatory study AGL won’t disclose and the $50 late fee incurred by another AGL contractor who failed to pay his company’s utility bill on time.

The audit let $249,000 in travel, meals and entertainment expenses pass, including a $548 dinner at an Italian restaurant in Savannah — although it recommends limits on such spending in the future.

In an e-mailed statement, AGL said it had reviewed the audit and agreed with part of its findings — a very small part.

“AGL will refund the program a total of $50,” the company e-mail said.

The company says its contractor should have eaten the late fee, and that AGL should not have passed it on to its own customers.

The PSC will discuss the audit findings in a committee meeting this morning, and could vote on the recommended reimbursement by next Tuesday.

The environmental program in question is a long-running effort to clean up buried deposits of coal tar, a byproduct of an turn-of-the-century method of making natural gas. The tar is rich in poisons like benzene.

Under orders from the PSC and the state Environmental Protection Division, AGL was supposed to begin cleaning up coal tar sites around the state in 1992, and began doing so seven years later.

The PSC allowed the company to charge customers for the costs of the program through a fee on their monthly bills. That fee is now $1.30.

Cleanup nearly done

The cleanup is almost entirely complete now, at a cost of $254 million. The company will continue to incur and pass on site monitoring expenses indefinitely.

The commission staff conducts a snapshot audit of the spending each year, and then allows the company to increase charges accordingly.

A little more than a year ago, the staff became concerned about some of the items being billed to customers as cleanup costs.

Of particular concern: A $2.3 million community affairs program run by Stan Wise’s former campaign manager, Shawn Davis.

As this week’s audit report explained, “the evidence became clear that the company has not been monitoring the expenses being charged as community affairs.”

“The company had approved expendiures for parties, barbecues, tents, musical bands, DJs, cellphone use, gift baskets, commercials, videos, a quail hunting trip, Web site monitoring, newspaper monitoring and much more.”

The work was being billed to AGL, through a contracting company owned by Gwinnett County entrepreneur Virgil Williams, at rates of $50 to $200 per hour.

Davis, interviewed about the expenses last fall, said the program saved AGL customers money by keeping the public affected by the cleanup expenses informed, happy and less likely to sue or ask for excessive fees for property access.

Other costs avoided

AGL spokeswoman Martha Monfried estimates that the company “avoided more than $45 million in likely remediation costs through its technical, regulatory and community work.”

Monfried also said the community affairs program has been audited repeatedly over the years with no complaints about it.

After the PSC began questioning some outreach costs incurred in 2003 and 2004, AGL backed $15,000 out of the costs it was billing to customers last year, including the quail hunt for an affected property owner, holiday gift baskets and the $200 per hour charged to put cards in those baskets.

This week’s audit doesn’t say which additional expenses staff found excessive and unreasonable.

It includes only the $1.2 million in costs reviewed in detail by the PSC staff. The audit recommends that AGL reimburse one-third of that to ratepayers.

Besides the $400,000 refund of community relations charges, the audit recommends that AGL credit ratepayers an additional $243,000 related to an executive with a environmental cleanup company who was hired into a vacant executive’s spot at AGL.

Because the vacant spot was funded through regular rates, and the executive’s salary was paid through the coal tar fee, AGL customers essentially paid much of his salary twice, the audit said.

The final $21,760 in recommended reimbursements was paid to an Atlanta consultant for a regulatory study.

The audit recommends customers pay nothing for the study, because AGL did not seek PSC approval to conduct it and because the PSC doesn’t know what it says.

AGL refused to release the study, citing lawyer-client privilege, the audit said.

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/0511bizcoaltar.html

“Change Can Be Good!”

AJC Opinion Published on: 03/26/06
Inch forward, fall back
By still allowing private talks with the companies it regulates, the PSC offsets its recent positive decisions

The Georgia Public Service Commission deserves a modest pat on the back for a couple of consumer-friendly actions they’ve taken this week. But they should also get a swift kick in the pants for failing to stop fraternizing in private with representatives of companies they are charged with regulating.

The PSC on Tuesday voted 4 to 1 to leave basically intact the agency’s adversary staff system. That’s an important development because the staff has traditionally served as an aggressive advocate for residential and commercial customers who would otherwise be left to the not-so-tender mercies of utility companies.

The lone dissenting vote was cast by PSC Chairman Stan Wise, who in January had ordered a departmental efficiency review that, if utility companies had gotten their way, would have limited or scuttled the adversary staff’s ability to effectively challenge requests to increase the rates those companies charge electricity and natural gas customers.

The PSC’s decision to mostly leave the adversary staff alone, except for a minor name change, is laudable. But much of the credit actually belongs to Georgians who have been paying record-high gas bills this winter. After learning of Wise’s ill-advised proposals, they bombarded the agency with calls, letters, faxes and e-mails expressing their displeasure.

With far less prodding, the PSC this week also unanimously agreed to allocate $8 million for programs that will give Georgia’s poor and elderly residents a break on their gas bills. As a result, an eligible senior citizen will get a $150 credit on her April bill.

Despite taking those two steps forward, the PSC also took a giant step backward by rejecting efforts to prohibit off-the-record conversations between commissioners and utility company officials and their lobbyists. Georgia is one of only two states that doesn’t restrict the talks in some way. Commissioner Angela Speir had sought to make such communications off-limits while also forbidding commissioners from accepting gifts from companies that had pending cases before them.

Both Spiers’ proposals are long-overdue and would signal that the PSC was serious about conducting the public’s business in the open, while not being beholden to private interests.

Chairman Wise refused to allow Speir’s proposal on corporate gift-giving to come to a vote, and he continued to defend his now-failed plans to reshape the agency’s adversary staff.

“It’s very discouraging to me, given the role we play in this state,” Wise said. “Change doesn’t come easily, I suppose. It never has, from the days of the Model T replacing the farm horse.”

There’s no doubt that change can be good.

Voters should remind Wise of that when he stands for re-election to the PSC in the fall.

Consumers Win! 4-1 Vote

Consumer groups cheer as PSC nixes plan to retool staff

By MARGARET NEWKIRK
The Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionPublished on: 03/22/06

A fast-track push to overhaul the Georgia Public Service Commission staff structure officially ended Tuesday, with the PSC voting to leave it alone.

Public interest advocates, including Common Cause and AARP, called the decision a victory for consumers, who stood to lose a protection against utility rate increases had the overhaul gone forward.

“I think that’s going to be good for the commission and good for the citizens of Georgia,” said Bill Bozarth, the executive director of Common Cause.

AARP spokesman Will Phillips said Tuesday’s decision “will have implications for every utility rate case from this point on.”

“It’s a real victory for consumers,” he said.

The decision was also a defeat for the commission’s chairman, Stan Wise.

Wise launched the push for an overhaul two months ago. By Tuesday, he stood alone in a 4-1 vote.

At issue was the role of the PSC’s so-called adversary staff in contested utility rate increase battles.

That staff prosecutes its own, independent case when utilities like Georgia Power or Atlanta Gas Light ask for more money from consumers.

It typically opposes some or all of what those utilities are asking for, and aggressively makes that case before the commission.

A second group of PSC staff then comes in at the end of a case, after listening to all sides, and makes recommendations directly to the commission. That advisory staff typically splits the difference between the top dollar amount requested by the utility and a lower dollar amount the adversary staff argued the utility needed.

Review started in January

The system came under fire in January, shortly after Wise took over as the PSC’s chairman.

Spurred in part by public comments from two other commissioners, Doug Everett and David Burgess, Wise kicked off an “efficiency review” specifically targeted at the adversary staff.

In public statements and in a white paper, Wise and Everett in particular alleged that the adversary staff had become too extreme and too aggressively pro-consumer, effectively setting the floor in rate debates too low.

Wise floated a number of proposals for reform, including some that would have eliminated the PSC adversary staff altogether, leaving its role to other state agencies like the chronically underfunded Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs.

Public outcry was fierce.

‘I’ve made my effort’

Wise said Tuesday that he wouldn’t try again.

“It’s very discouraging to me, given the role we play in this state,” Wise said. “Change doesn’t come easily, I suppose. It never has, from the days of the Model T replacing the farm horse.”

He said he still believed the PSC’s staffing needed changing but that another commissioner would have to take it up.

“I’ve made my effort,” he said.

The commission also defeated a proposal by Commissioner Angela Speir on Tuesday that would have banned private conversations between commissioners and utilities or others with official business before the commission.

Georgia is one of two states in the country that doesn’t restrict those conversations in some way.

A second Speir proposal, which would have banned gifts to commissioners from utilities or others with an interest in commission business, didn’t come to a vote. Speir had offered it as an amendment to the staffing issue. Wise ruled it out of order on the grounds that it wasn’t germane.

The staff structure proposal the PSC approved Tuesday includes some minor tweaks to the status quo but nothing approaching an overhaul. It retains the adversary and advisory roles for staff in rate cases, but changes the name of the former to “public interest advocacy staff.”

The name change is intended to eliminate any perception that the staff opposes any and all utility proposals.

Wise suggested four amendments, three of which would have changed the PSC more substantively. Only one passed. It clarifies that commissioners are not supposed to be biased.

Bad timing cited

A key obstacle for both Wise’s proposals and for Speir’s private communications ban turned out to be Burgess.

He said he agreed with both Wise’s and Speir’s intent, but that the timing was bad and the process too speedy.

“We’ve got a $765 million fuel case coming, the consolidation of telecom, these still-skyrocketing fuel prices. This thing has become somewhat of a distraction. We’re spending time trying to figure out the structure in the middle of a fire,” he said.

The commission’s debate over Speir’s proposed “ex parte” rules was Tuesday’s liveliest.

Such rules restrict private communications between commissioners and those with business before the commission, without all parties being present.

Major disagreement

Speir said her proposal would “eliminate the appearance of conflicts of interest or bias.”

Wise said it would restrict information: “I started this whole process because I wanted access to more information, not less,” he said, adding that ex parte rules don’t work and “criminalize free speech.”

Commissioner Robert Baker said he had reservations about some details of Speir’s proposal but that “some ex parte rule is long overdue. The cases we handle are not insignificant.”

“When we consider a case that affects millions of Georgians, it’s important that we all get the same information at the same time.”

Find this article at: http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/0321psc.html

Got an extra $300 Million?

PSC bill signal of bigger issues in the pipeline

Editorial Story updated at 8:54 PM on Friday, March 17, 2006

If usurping the power of the Georgia Public Service Commission is such a good idea, why did the Republican contingent of a state Senate committee feel it had to engage in parliamentary hijinks to get a vote on a bill to do just that?

In its current form, the legislation in question – House Bill 1325 – would dictate how the PSC is to handle a request from Atlanta Gas Light for a $300 million pipeline project. The utility would fund the project with a fee of approximately $2.50 tacked on to its residential and small-business customers’ monthly bills for the next 30 years.

The bill was in front of the Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee Wednesday.

According to a report on that meeting in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, committee Chairman Mitch Seabaugh, R-Sharpsburg, told a packed meeting room the committee would hear testimony, but wouldn’t vote on the measure. But when testimony concluded and the room began to empty, Seabaugh announced there would be a vote.

The bill passed out of the committee on an 8-0 tally. Two Democratic committee members who were on hand for testimony didn’t get back to cast a vote, while three Republican committee members who didn’t attend were somehow able to make it in time for the vote.

The Public Service Commission is an elected body that regulates the utility companies operating in the state. By attempting to use the legislative process to tell the commission how to do its job, the sponsors and supporters of House Bill 1325 are, in effect, working to subvert an arm of the state’s duly elected government.

That ought to be enough for the full Senate to reject the bill. If it’s not, then senators should remain mindful of the chicanery employed to get the proposal in front of them.Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 031706

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/031706/opinion_20060317021.shtml

Where was Stan?

PSC chairman a no-show
Overhaul: Few have anything to say at final public session to discuss proposed
changes in utility oversight panel’s staff.

Margaret Newkirk – AJC Staff
Friday, March 17, 2006

A final public hearing on the wisdom of changing the state Public Service Commission’s staff structure came and went with barely a whimper Thursday.

Even Commission Chairman Stan Wise, who requested the hearing, didn’t show up.

It was Wise who launched a staff review in January, after circulating a document suggesting that the PSC’s adversary staff — which represents the public in utility rate battles — had become too extreme. There was no immediate explanation of Wise’s absence; he was out of town earlier this week. His office did not return phone calls Thursday.

At the hearing, Common Cause, AARP and the Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs all endorsed recommendations of a staff report suggesting only minor tweaks to the staff’s structure.

Utility and industry representatives at the meeting said nothing.

Commissioner Angela Speir, who wants to add restrictions on private conversations and gifts for PSC members to any reform, was mum, too.

The commission will take up staff reforms officially on Tuesday.

The ideas likely to be on the table include the modest changes proposed by the staff itself, a revised proposal by Wise, and Speir’s restrictions on private conversations and gifts.

Wise’s new proposal would keep the adversary staff intact but dispense with a second staff role — the advisory role — now used at the end of utility rate cases.

Advisory staff make final recommendations to the commission.

Wise has suggested that each commissioner get a personal adviser instead, and that the new positions be funded by an assessment on utilities.

Speir proposes that private conversations about commission business be banned beginning 90 days before a case begins, unless all parties in a case are invited to participate and the public is notified. Only Georgia and Louisiana don’t restrict those conversations at all, according to an informal Atlanta Journal-Constitution survey last month of utility regulators across the country.

Speir is also calling for a ban against most gifts to commissioners — including nonworking meals and tickets to sporting events — from those with an interest in commission business. Those gifts are legal now, but lobbyists are required to disclose them.

Some industry officials have said limits on conversation could chill their ability to inform commissioners about complex issues, but a number of consumer advocates welcomed the idea.

“Any effort to implement ex parte rules or gift rules would certainly be applauded,” Will Phillips, associate state director for advocacy of AARP, said at the hearing Thursday.

The Heat is On!

PSC chief softens plans for changes “Adversary staff” may stay, but more proposals ahead
By MARGARET NEWKIRK
The Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionPublished on: 03/15/06

State Public Service Commission Chairman Stan Wise is backing off his pointed scrutiny of the PSC staff that fights utility price hike requests on behalf of consumers.

The change comes after weeks of consumer outcry, a public hearing and a stay-the-course assessment from a staff committee. All were reacting to Wise’s publicly expressed notion that the so-called adversary staff was biased against the interests of electric and gas utilities and perhaps a factor in an inefficient system for setting rates.

Wise is still proposing some internal changes at the PSC, which will be discussed at a meeting Thursday morning. But they fall far short of options he outlined in a paper circulated two months ago, when he launched what he called his “efficiency review” of the PSC’s adversary staff.

Wise’s new ideas for change were circulated in a three-page document late last week. He did not return a call Tuesday seeking comment.

Furthermore, the reform process Wise unleashed is promising to serve up some embarrassment for the commission majority.

Commissioner Angela Speir announced this week that she planned to file a motion regulating the commissioners’ own behavior. She’s asking for strict limits on private conversations — so-called ex parte communications — between regulators and regulated utilities or other parties that have business before the commission.

Speir also is seeking a ban on gifts to commissioners from parties who do business before the PSC.

The fight over the commission’s in-house workings began shortly after Wise took over the chairmanship from Speir in January. That’s when Wise put out a paper suggesting that the PSC’s use of an adversary staff in contested utility battles had no support in state law and had led to “extreme litigation positions” characterized by anti-utility bias.

He launched a fast-tracked efficiency review focused solely on the role of that adversary staff and whether it should be continued, reformed or moved outside of the commission altogether.

The adversary role is assigned to members of the staff on a case-by-case basis. The adversary staff mounts a case on behalf of consumers and is usually opposed to some of what a utility requests.

A second group of staff members, also assigned on a case-by-case basis, weighs in with recommendations at the end of a rate fight. That “advisory staff” usually proposes a middle ground between what the utility has requested and what the adversary staff says the utility deserves.

Wise appointed a committee of staff members to study how other commissions work and whether the PSC’s current structure created either a bias against or a perception of bias against utilities. Its 400-page report recommended minor tweaks but essentially said the system worked well.

The review also included a public meeting last month, with utilities and public interest groups arguing for a much wider range of reforms.

Commissioners also received scores of calls and e-mails from constituents in defense of the adversary staff.

Wise’s new proposal calls for the adversary staff to remain in place but be renamed the “trial staff,” with its recommendations going straight to the commission. There would be no advisory staff as a second step.

The move would address one criticism of the current structure — that advisory staff members were inherently biased toward the arguments by their colleagues on the adversary staff.

The proposal also calls for each commissioner to get his or her own separate technical adviser, and calls for the commission’s regulated utilities to pay for that through a special assessment.

Wise’s proposal also would eliminate some of the utility-specific divisions of staff. There would no longer be a section of staff specifically devoted to studying electric issues, for instance, or a staff specifically devoted to studying natural gas.

Speir’s ideas for change were drawn from public comments, but they may face resistance. She often is on the losing end of the commission’s votes.

But she has the backing of several public interest groups that are concerned about the ex parte communications. Only Georgia and Louisiana don’t restrict those conversations at all, according to an informal Atlanta Journal-Constitution survey last month of utility regulators across the country.

Speir proposes that private conversations be banned beginning 90 days before a case begins at the commission, unless all parties in a case are invited to participate and the public is notified.

“I think it’s needed,” she said. “I think it’s important for the public to have confidence in us as public servants, and I think it’s important that the process be transparent.”

Among opponents to ex parte restrictions is the state’s largest and most powerful utility company.

“The PSC deals with a multitude of incredibly complex issues in our business,” said Georgia Power spokesman John Sell.

“And we think the commission can make better-informed decisions by maintaining an environment where representatives of the state’s regulated businesses can answer questions, provide information to, and receive input from the commissioners and commission staff.”

Speir is also calling on a ban against most gifts to commissioners — including non-working meals and tickets to sporting events — from those with an interest in commission business.

Those gifts are legal now, although lobbyists are required to disclose them.

Find this article at: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/0315psc.html