Budget Plan Could Weaken Groups That Fight Utility Rate Increases

Members of a group that fights utility rate increases are hoping lawmakers or Gov. Scott Walker will stop a state budget plan that may weaken opposition to power company price hikes.

The plan would cut a competitive Public Service Commission grant of up to $300,000 in utility ratepayer money that for five years has gone to the Citizens Utility Board, also known as CUB. It would also cut in half a fund for parties that intervene in rate cases, and make CUB and other groups to pay half the cost for expert witnesses.

As of right now, Walker hasn’t said what he’d do if the plan reaches his desk.

The governor did not himself introduce any of the provisions: Rather, the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee suddenly made those changes on April 15, with state Sen. Alberta Darling, the committee co-chair, blaming CUB for driving up utility costs.

“We’re talking about the cost of doing business in Wisconsin,” she said.

Critics shot back that Darling and her Republican colleagues were doing the bidding of Gale Klappa, the head of the state’s largest utility, We Energies. Klappa is also on the board of the Metro Milwaukee Association of Commerce.

However, a We Energies spokeswoman said it wasn’t Klappa, but MMAC lobbyist Steve Baas who was the instigator. Baas himself acknowledges that’s the case.

“You’re looking at who was behind it,” he said. “MMAC was the one who worked this motion through finance.”

Regardless of who pushed the measure through, longtime, dues-paying members of CUB said ratepayers are the ones who will eventually foot the bill if CUB and other customer groups are weakened.

Milwaukee resident Roger Oldenburg said CUB has saved him a lot of money over the last 35 years by convincing the state PSC to hold down the size of utility rate hikes. Oldenburg said hurting CUB would harm residential and small-business customers.

“In a situation like this, when you’re dealing with multi-mega corporations that have millions and millions of dollars to spend on attorneys and presentations and lobbying and all of that, we need somebody that’s actually going to speak on behalf of the little person,” Oldenburg said.

CUB Executive Director Kira Loehr said some of the utilities’ cash in rate cases comes from ratepayer dollars. She said that’s ironic, given some utility executive’s salaries.

“I believe Mr. Klappa is making about $10 million a year now, which would fund CUB for 20 years to provide advocacy to save ratepayers millions of dollars over that time period,” she said.

Loehr said the state taxpayers wouldn’t save any money if the grants and funds for those who challenge utility rate cases are cut. She said CUB can’t go out and just raise more cash because that model hasn’t worked elsewhere.

At her home in Waukesha, Pearl Schwanz, another longtime CUB member, said she and her husband already do their part to hold down electricity and heating bills.

“I turn off the lights when I leave a room. I don’t run the radio all day long. We holler at the teenagers to not take such long showers,” she said.

But Schwanz said she needs CUB to be a strong partner before the PSC. She’s appealing to the governor to reverse the proposed cuts.

Asked specifically last Saturday about the Joint Finance Committee’s cut for CUB, the governor didn’t show his hand.

“We’ve been collecting all the changes they’ve made,” he said. “We’ll be at it extensively Thursday, going through what’s likely to make it through the Assembly and Senate, and make a decision on what the line-item vetoes are going to be.”

In other words, utility ratepayers might know by this weekend the fate of customer groups like CUB.