Ratepayers Spend Millions to Save Billions on Utilities, but Why Do We Have to?

Source: The OC Register  |  By Teri Sforza

Electric rates, gas rates, water rates — they go up. And up. And up. Policing these regularly scheduled consumer agonies — or rubber-stamping them, as critics often charge — is the job of the California Public Utilities Commission. This powerful regulator is charged with ensuring that rate hikes and policy decisions are fair and justified.

The largest group getting intervenor comp, by far, is TURN. It requested $26.4 million between 2020 and early 2024, and was awarded $24.8 million. Over that time, it has saved Californians hundreds of millions of dollars, its accounting shows. In a typical year, its legal staff of 12 attorneys and five policy analysts work on about 100 proceedings at the PUC. For example, TURN recently: Helped win a ruling preventing SDG&E from recovering $514 million from customers that it spent on wildfire mitigation before a reasonableness review by the PUC. Helped win a ruling preventing Edison from recovering $85 million from customers that it spent on tree trimming in non–high fire risk areas. Helped win $400 million in savings for PG&E, SCE, SoCal Gas and SDG&E ratepayers by getting PUC to reduce “Cost of Capital” profit rates (more on that in a minute)…