As state public utility commissions (PUCs) undergo restructuring, consumer advocate services also face possible cutbacks.
California PUC:
In California, the CPUC's Vision 2000 plan would affect various independent departments, such as the Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA), Office of Administrative Law, and Department of Policy. It would recast those agencies into eight divisions: customer services (consumer complaints), human resources, information services, energy, telecommunications, rail safety, carriers, and water.
But according to Diane Deinstein, CPUC spokeswoman, the changes should increase staff accountability and give commissioners greater decisionmaking clout. Less effective consumer representation is "not the intent of the commission," Deinstein maintains. Whether the 250 people in the DRA office will remain is a detail yet to be worked out. "I don't think anybody foresees any layoffs at all."
Nevertheless, concerns persist about how effective of the consumer office will be, whatever its size.
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. worries that integrating the commission's advisory and advocacy roles "may create an irreconcilable conflict of interest." Toward Utility Rate Normalization (TURN), meanwhile, notes that restructuring along industry lines "returns us to a previous structure that was abandoned for a more flexible system."
TURN also claims that Vision 2000 violates PU Code section 309.5: "Collapsing the DRA into technical staff organized along industry practice areas does not fulfill the statutory requirement . . . that customers . . . are entitled to independent representation and a separate division must provide it."