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.
