Citizens’ Utility Ratepayer Board backs off ideas to dissolve agency or fight EPA

The Citizens’ Utility Ratepayer Board on Thursday backed away from proposals floated at its Dec. 11 meeting to dissolve the agency or refocus its mission away from state rate cases and toward fighting clean-air regulations that are pushing up utility rates.

Following a special board meeting Thursday where she was voted in as chairwoman of CURB, Ellen Janoski said she will focus on internal changes to make the agency more efficient in its mission of representing residential and small-business utility customers.

Janoski was voted into CURB’s top job during the special meeting, held via teleconference, following the resignation Wednesday of Brian Weber. Weber, a former Republican state legislator, expressed frustration with his colleagues’ proposals to make major changes to the agency’s mission.

CURB’s primary responsibility at present is to legally represent home and small-business utility consumers in the court-like rate cases held by the Kansas Corporation Commission. The KCC sets rates for privately owned for-profit utility companies including Westar Energy, Kansas Gas Service, Kansas City Power & Light and Black Hills Energy.

At the Dec. 11 meeting in Wichita, board members discussed two possible scenarios that would radically change CURB:

▪  Eliminating CURB as an independent agency and transferring the consumer counsel function to the attorney general’s office.

▪  Keeping CURB independent, but shifting resources from KCC rate cases to fighting against the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. The bulk of recent electric rate increases are tied to the utilities’ cost of upgrading aging coal plants to meet current emission regulations.

The board didn’t dismiss either of those scenarios at the Dec. 11 meeting, and the majority said they thought CURB could bring about lower rates if it joined with the state’s utilities – and other states – in fighting the clean-air regulations.

CURB’s acting consumer counsel, Niki Christopher, told the board at that meeting that CURB’s enabling statute gives the board authority to hire a consumer counsel, direct his or her activities and propose legislation to the Kansas Legislature.

She advised that the board would need legislative approval to expand its advocacy to the federal level or transfer the consumer counsel function to the attorney general’s office.

She said she could not legally or ethically represent the board if it tried to “destroy CURB” because she would have a conflict of interest and the board would have to hire outside counsel.

On Thursday, board members sought to quell concerns that they might try to shut down CURB and characterized the Dec. 11 discussions as a “hypothetical” exercise aimed at gauging the effectiveness of the agency.

Board member James “Lenny” Mullin II, the most vocal member in questioning whether there was still a need for CURB last week, blamed the confusion on media coverage of the meeting.

On Thursday, he said a Dec. 11 decision to continue advertising for a new consumer counsel should have indicated that the agency intends to stay in business.

Janoski on Thursday characterized Mullin’s comments as “a couple hypothetical sentences” in a long meeting.

“Lenny’s whole point was: If we were gone tomorrow, would it make a difference?” Janoski said. “He didn’t say we were going to be gone tomorrow, that we were closing our doors, so I think it is important to clarify that with the media.”

Later, Janoski said that she doesn’t see taking on the EPA as a realistic mission for CURB, although she said the agency could and should educate consumers about the effect the federal clean-energy rules are having on Kansas electric bills. Actually taking on the federal government would be a “pipe dream,” she said.

She also said CURB will study how other states – those with and without an independent consumer agency – handle the task of representing small utility consumers, to look for ways to do it better.

But as for eliminating CURB and putting the consumer counsel under the attorney general, she said, “I don’t think that’s probably the best option for us in Kansas.”

Despite Weber’s departure, the board made no changes in actions it took Dec. 11 that shifted some agency responsibilities from the paid staff to the board.

The board has removed from Christopher the consumer counsel’s traditional role of representing ratepayers at the Kansas Legislature and barred her from speaking to the media about utility issues.

Board members said they would take on those roles themselves on an as-needed basis.

This story was originally published December 17, 2015 at 8:20 PM with the headline "Citizens’ Utility Ratepayer Board backs off ideas to dissolve agency or fight EPA."