Fight over utility ratepayer board moves to Statehouse

Two lawmakers have introduced a measure to keep the Citizens’ Utility Ratepayer Board focused on fighting for lower rates in state cases, not battling against federal pollution rules.

House Bill 2500, introduced by Reps. Jim Ward, D-Wichita, and Annie Kuether, D-Topeka, would restrict the CURB board from changing the agency’s mission without legislative approval.

It would also lift a ban the board imposed on its interim consumer counsel that prohibits her from speaking with legislators and the news media on utility issues.

CURB is a small state agency established by law to represent residential and small-business utility customers in state rate-setting cases and at the Legislature.

Once among the most obscure of state panels, the CURB board drew attention to itself in a December meeting where several of its members suggested changing the agency focus from rate hearings to fighting federal air quality rules that have pushed up the cost of coal-fired power generation.

Ward said the main point of HB 2500 is to preserve the original mission of CURB.

“This is really about trying to protect the little guy in these rate cases,” Ward said. “The larger customers all have lawyers to advocate for their interests. You and I don’t have an advocate in the room unless CURB is there. That’s why it was created.”

CURB Chairwoman Ellen Janoski, designated by the board as the agency’s primary spokesperson, did not return a phone message seeking comment.

While Kansas gets some of its electricity from nuclear, natural gas and wind power, coal remains the primary source.

Retrofitting aging coal plants to meet current environmental standards has been a major driver of utility bill increases in the past few years.

More costs are expected as utilities work to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, which is directed at carbon dioxide emissions that a broad majority of scientists say are causing global warming and climate change.

CURB board member Bob Hall said the agency still intends to represent consumers at rate cases, although he remains convinced that global warming is a fraud and that fighting the Clean Power Plan could save Kansas consumers millions of dollars without affecting their environmental quality.

At a meeting earlier this month, he distributed a climate-change denial paper to the other board members.

“The Clean Power Plan and all that stuff, it could very well drive me out of my retirement home,” said Hall, a retired utility executive. “It’s just a huge impact and completely unnecessary. They cannot change the temperature of the globe no matter what they do.

“You talk about doing things for the consumers of Kansas, the one single thing that’s going to hurt them the most is that Clean Power Plan. … We want to help the consumers of Kansas, and the way to do that is to help them against this crazy idea that the globe is warming. It’s not.”

Kuether, the ranking Democrat on the House Utilities Committee, said “CURB was created by statute, so they can’t just arbitrarily decide what they’re going to do.”

She said she doesn’t think HB 2500 has much chance of passing the conservative Republican-dominated Legislature. But she said she thinks the bill will get a hearing, where lawmakers can discuss their concerns with the CURB board.

Ward, a former member of the Utilities Committee, said he’s also “very concerned about the gag order where they won’t let the consumer counsel talk with legislators and legislative research staff and the media.”

Until a recent board decision, the CURB consumer counsel was a near-daily presence at legislative utility committee meetings and often a primary source in news reports.

But the board forbade acting consumer counsel Niki Christopher from representing the agency in the Legislature or speaking to reporters about utility issues.

Instead, board members said they would handle those duties themselves on an as-needed basis.

Kuether said that while CURB didn’t always win arguments over utility issues, its ongoing input has been vital to helping members of the Utilities Committee understand the impact of proposed legislation on average customers.

“I’m puzzled that they have a consumer counsel and don’t even want her in the (Capitol) building,” Kuether said.

Board members have said they may lift the prohibition once they hire a permanent consumer counsel to replace David Springe, a 17-year fixture at CURB who departed in December for a job as executive director of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates in Washington, D.C.

Hall said he wouldn’t really have a problem with allowing Christopher to talk to lawmakers and the media, but he voted for the prohibition to reduce her workload.

CURB is budgeted for three attorneys, but two of the positions are unfilled at present.

One position is on hold while board members decide whether they need another lawyer, or an executive director to administer the office and represent CURB to the Legislature and the public.

All current members of the CURB board are Brownback appointees. Days after the December meeting, their chairman, former state Rep. Brian Weber, resigned.

Weber, a Brownback appointee and former Republican legislator, said he wanted to spend more time with his family and business and that he was troubled by the direction in which other board members wanted to take the agency.

Since then, the four remaining members of the board have taken steps to hire a permanent consumer counsel.

Applicant interviews are being scheduled for next month.

This story was originally published January 23, 2016 at 3:03 PM with the headline "Fight over utility ratepayer board moves to Statehouse."