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
