By Margaret Newkirk

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Three utility regulators defied a 16-year-old Georgia law last week in a bold and possibly bungled power play at the state Public Service Commission.

It isn't good news for utility consumers, their advocates say.

By a 3-2 vote, the PSC voted to:

> Increase the tenure of its chairmanship to two years, instead of the one year set by state law. The trio said the state Constitution allows the move.

> Put a self-described foe of "consumerists" —- Stan Wise —- in the job for at least two years, starting in July.

> All but guarantee that its best-known consumer watchdog —- Robert Baker —- won't get the chairman's gavel again, by replacing a state-mandated rotation system with one in which the PSC elects its chairman.

The vote may not stand.

"The PSC does not have the power to declare a law unconstitutional," said Russ Willard, a spokesman for Attorney General Thurbert Baker.

An AG's opinion is pending, on request from Chuck Eaton, one of the two PSC members who voted against the change. That opinion could throw both the chairmanship issue and the legal validity of future PSC decisions into doubt.

On the surface, the changes appear relatively harmless. Commission chairmen have some power to steer the agency's actions, but not a lot. Supporters' stated rationale for the change also seems benign.

"By the time you learn the chairman ropes you have to get off for five years," PSC Chairman Doug Everett said of the current system.

But the intensity with which Everett, Wise and Commissioner Lauren "Bubba" McDonald pursued the changes have consumer groups on high alert and wondering about the trio's intentions.

The commissioners tried and failed to get a similar change at the Legislature before mounting their constitutional challenge to the law.

None are lawyers themselves. "You have an undertaker, an insurance salesman and a real estate appraiser thumbing their nose at a statute that's been on the books for 16 years," said former Republican commissioner Angela Speir, now with the consumer group Georgia Watch.

"What's wrong with this picture?"

Particularly alarming to Speir was Everett's defense of the measure. Reading from a four-page script, Everett said a two-year chairmanship is needed because one year "does not allow for sufficient time to accomplish any reforms or programs that a particular chairman might wish to undertake."

The only commissioner with a failed reform effort under his belt is Wise.

In 2006, when Wise held the rotating chairmanship, he tried to make changes to the PSC staff, focusing on the part of the staff that advocates for the public interest in utility rate increase requests.

He accused that staff of anti-utility bias and overly harsh litigation stands, suggesting the staff could be eliminated. He backed down in the face of public criticism.

That same staff is now the only public advocate for small business and residential utility customers. Budget cuts killed the state office assigned to represent their interests last year.

The chairmanship change approved last week was part of two-pronged bill Everett and McDonald pushed at the 2009 Legislature.

Everett's part, a change in commission residency requirements, died quickly. McDonald pushed the chairmanship change. What became known as "The Bubba Bill" would have changed a 1993 state law requiring the chairmanship to rotate annually. The bill would have let a majority of commissioners elect a three-year chairman.

At the time, McDonald explained it as a way to make the commission run more like a business, saying that businesses don't change CEOs every year.

Consumer groups opposed it. They said the change would shut out Baker, who is known for asking utilities tough questions. The PSC is all Republican but sharply divided: Baker would never get enough votes.

Everett, in an interview, said nobody was targeting Baker. "I don't know where in the world people are getting the idea that this is a vendetta against Bobby."

The Bubba Bill initially failed in the Republican House, passing only on reconsideration and with a tie-breaking vote by Speaker Glenn Richardson.

In the Republican Senate, it never got to the floor for a vote.

Everett, McDonald and Wise hinted in a meeting two weeks ago that they intended to change the chairmanship with or without a new law.

Then, on Monday, Everett sent his colleagues an e-mail saying he intended to add an item to the already-published Tuesday meeting agenda, an action which appears to skirt the state's open-meetings law.

The e-mail said Everett would resign his chairmanship, effective in July, and nominate Wise to be chairman for two years.

On Tuesday, Everett read from his prepared remarks.

He said the bill had been tabled because legislative leaders determined it wasn't needed, since the Constitution says commissioners could select their chairman.

He said the current system causes continuity problems: "Each chair has his own staff policies. Each has his own way of developing and executing procedures. Each prepares agendas differently and each executes orders in different fashions."

He said a longer chairmanship would give the PSC more legislative clout.

Eaton was stunned. He said he had supported the bill at the Legislature, but thought Everett's motion was likely illegal.

Commissioner Baker agreed.

"While you may have the votes to go forward, you don't have the law on your side."

After the motion passed, Eaton sent a letter to Attorney General Baker on Wednesday, asking him to clarify whether the law is constitutional and whether utility regulators could decide that issue on their own.

No one knows what happens next. Everett has resigned his chairmanship in any case. Defying an AG opinion could weaken the PSC's legal standing.

The PSC's chairman-in-waiting said the AG's say-so isn't needed.

"It behooves this body to act appropriately in its own interests," since Baker, a Democrat has announced a run for governor, Wise said before voting.

The AG, he said of the state's official attorney, "is just another lawyer."

Issues coming before the PSC

September: Georgia Power is seeking higher fuel charges on bills.

November: Atlanta Gas Light files for a rate increase.

Summer 2010: Georgia Power files for a rate increase.

January 2011: Georgia Power begins charging for its under-construction nuclear plants.

Source: Georgia Public Service Commission

Consumer voices at the PSC

However the chairmanship issue gets resolved, utility customers have fewer defenders than ever.

> In September, Gov. Sonny Perdue eliminated funding for the Consumers Utility Counsel, which litigated on behalf of small business and residential customers.

> The PSC staff, which hires consultants to probe rate filings, has less money. The staff consultant budget for the whole year is about what it was for a single rate case in previous years.