For decades, the working premise of our state’s top consumer advocate, the Office of Consumer Counsel, has been that Colorado’s rank-and-file utility ratepayers need an advocate in their corner. And while this adjunct of the state Public Utilities Commission has had its ups and down and made a few missteps, it has dutifully endeavored to carry out that mission. It has done its best to represent the interests of power, gas and telephone customers against successive rate hikes proposed by the regulated utilities that have provided those services.
The challenge now facing this obscure but important state agency, however, is that the marketplace for utility consumers has changed dramatically since the office was established in 1984. Notably, there has been nothing less than a seismic shift in the world of telecommunications—as your iPhone or Android attest. It is a world in which teens are as attuned to touch screens as they are befuddled by Grandma’s clunky old dial-up phone. And the providers behind the new wave of 21st century devices offer consumers a degree of competition in rates and services—to say nothing of technological features and capabilities—unimaginable in the early 1980s.
At the same time, electricity and natural gas service in Colorado remain very much tethered to the utility-based delivery system. The PUC—and the Office of Consumer Counsel—are in the best position to shield consumers from rate hikes. Arguably, that is where the public service of the consumer counsel should be training its sights.
The General Assembly now has an opportunity to move the Office of Consumer Counsel forward into the modern era. Senate Bill 271, just introduced this week in the state Senate, would largely free the office from involvement in the telecommunications market—an acknowledgment of the degree of competition now thriving in that sector—while leaving intact the office’s advocacy for power and gas ratepayers. The proposal merits serious consideration by our state’s elected lawmakers and our governor.
Without a doubt, Colorado’s residential and business power and gas ratepayers need the Office of Consumer Counsel going to bat for them. As the Denver Post’s editorial board noted earlier this year:
The OCC attempts to level the playing field with a few experienced analysts who examine (rate-hike) requests and advocate for consumers’ interests. The result has almost certainly saved Coloradans hundreds of millions of dollars over the years.
The core mission of the office is as important now as it ever was, but the priorities for carrying out its mission must evolve. The office should scale back its role in telecommunications matters, enabling it to concentrate its efforts above all on Colorado’s electricity ratepayers, who face much steeper price increases on their electricity bills than their telephone bills.
Indeed, there has been no initiative since the office’s inception to reassess its core mission in light of the new telecommunications era that is upon us. The pending legislation at last moves the ball. There’s no time like the present to take up the task of realigning the dated priorities of this still-valuable public service.