** Missouri utility regulator urged Governor Parson to prevent detailed disconnection reporting ([link removed])
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By Shelby Green on Aug 13, 2024 08:15 pm
After a nearly four-year effort, the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC) was just days away last November from requiring all investor-owned utilities serving more than 2,000 customers to publicly disclose the number of customers they were disconnecting for non-payment by zip code last year. The proposed rule would have paved the way for consumer advocates and energy assistance service providers to design more effective outreach programs that proactively target customers at risk of disconnection and utility bill delinquency. But Gov. Mike Parson’s office expressed disapproval of the zip code provision, and soon after, the rule
([link removed]) passed without requiring zip-code-level reporting.

NBC 5 in St. Louis reported ([link removed]) at the time that Parson rejected the proposed rule, but emails reveal that Commissioner Kayla Hahn requested the governor’s denial, according to records obtained by the Energy and Policy Institute via public records requests.

Hahn, who was part of Parson’s senior staff team as Policy Director and Senior Advisor, was appointed by the governor to the PSC on June 1, 2023. Weeks after her appointment, Hahn emailed her former colleagues asking that they “deny final rulemaking approval to the PSC residential Disconnection Rule … You are not in possession of the final order of rulemaking yet, but it will likely be sent next week.” Hahn now chairs the PSC.

In the talking points attached to her request, Hahn branded the proposed rule as “burdensome” and said it creates “red tape.” Hahn also said she does not want to create a “regulatory environment that is otherwise burdensome or discouraging to investment in this state … this rule, as drafted, is a minor step in the wrong direction.” Hahn went on to say that the states that have implemented similar rules requiring zip code level data are not “considered peer states politically or demographically to Missouri,” ([link removed]) but overlooked that there are some Missouri-regulated utilities that already comply with this rule in other states, like Ameren and Liberty.
[link removed]

Parson’s office complied, denying the proposed rule in an email to the Commission shortly after receiving Hahn’s request.

[link removed]

At a PSC meeting on September 7 ([link removed]) , the PSC’s Senior Regulatory Law Judge John Clark briefed the commissioners on a memorandum he wrote summarizing a telephone conversation with Governor Parson’s Office about the proposed rule. In the memo, Clark wrote that the Office of the Governor shared similar points raised by Hahn in the talking points document previously sent to the Governor, indicating that the “increased costs related to the zip code reporting requirement were the primary reasons for their not approving of the rule further.”

In the meeting, Commissioner Maida Coleman objected and said, “zip code [data] will allow utilities and all stakeholders to identify and address bill delinquencies and disconnection trends. This data will allow more proactive responses that could help reduce delinquencies and improve consumer education and resources.”

Coleman further explained how when she was Chair of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) committee on Consumers and the Public Interest, that the committee collaborated with the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) to identify the best practices to reduce disconnection and delinquencies. NARUC ([link removed]) and NASUCA ([link removed]) found that the most useful and meaningful action results from specific disconnection data. “This detailed data is needed now more than ever given that many consumers are experiencing financial burdens,” said Coleman.Hahn said that while she appreciated Commissioner Coleman’s concerns, she did not want the extra costs to be incurred and pointed to a fiscal note about the rule’s impacts provided by the Missouri Department of Commerce and
Insurance. According to the fiscal note, the Missouri Public Service Commission would need to hire a full-time staff employee to analyze the service disconnection reporting data submitted by utilities, costing up to $112,000 per year.

However, the fiscal note ([link removed]) did not estimate the costs of reporting disconnection information with the zip code addition. The analysis acknowledged that while there would be upfront costs ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 for each of the utilities, it was only assumed to be “higher” if utilities were required to report disconnection information with the zip code data. The public costs of the new PSC employee would remain the same, regardless of the addition or removal of the zip code provision, according to the estimate.

The PSC addressed Parson’s initial denial by agreeing to revise the proposed rule, despite originally agreeing that “having disconnection data by zip code would provide better information ([link removed]) ” for “forming public policy aimed at protecting the public health, safety, and welfare.” ([link removed])

Hahn’s behind-the-scenes involvement advocating against zip-code-level reporting to Parson was not made public at the meeting.

Hahn did not respond to questions from EPI.


** Proposed rule was years in the making and had broad support
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The PSC drafted the proposed rule in response to a petition ([link removed]) filed in November 2019 by the Missouri Office of Public Counsel, which represents the public’s interests in PSC proceedings. The Counsel sought to standardize the PSC’s disconnection data practices after failing to adequately respond to questions about customer disconnections posed by the National Consumer Law Center, despite the PSC collecting data on disconnections and bill assistance since 2009.

The proposed rule resulted from a nearly three-year-long working group docket, which included two workshops, a voluntary case study, active participation from over fourteen stakeholders ([link removed]) , and multiple rule revisions.

During a hearing for the proposed rule, Dr. Geoff Marke, Chief Economist for the Missouri Office of Public Counsel, said “adding [zip code] level of information” ([link removed]) would be helpful “in trying to implement and facilitate funding through federal funds”. ([link removed]) The Consumers Council of Missouri added that having “more granular publically available data would assist community action agencies” ([link removed]) in targeting assistance funds.

Dr. David Konisky, a professor at Indiana University and Co-Director of the Energy Justice Lab, recommended the PSC to require utilities to report granular disconnection data, stating ([link removed]) that “utility reporting with this type of geographic granularity [would] enable analysis of demographic and socioeconomic patterns of disconnections, which is essential for informing future rulemakings and programs to reduce utility disconnections, especially for vulnerable population groups. This type of analysis is not possible when data are only reported for each utility’s entire service territory.”

Ameren responded to Dr. Konisky’s comments by saying that it didn’t support reporting disconnection at a granular level, as low as the census block level, and said it would have to “try to develop … special analysis to provide any information by zip code.” ([link removed]) But Ameren, which also operates in Illinois, currently reports this disconnection data ([link removed]) at the zip code level to the Illinois Commerce Commission and has done so since 2021. Evergy didn’t quantify its support level for the zip code provision, but stated it would be “concerned if that was added to the rule.” ([link removed])

John Coffman, an attorney for the Consumers Council of Missouri, told EPI that he agrees with Commissioner Coleman’s justification for zip code data reporting:

“Having that level of geographic detail in a way that could be tracked over time, and comparable between utilities, would genuinely aid better decisions regarding how to help struggling households. It is becoming more and more common for states to require zip code level data on utility disconnections. We have routinely been able to obtain zip-code-level data during utility rate cases, and so we know that information is regularly kept in the course of business by monopoly utilities, and that such information can be easily produced. It is a mystery to us as to why there is such an effort in Missouri to keep that information from being regularly reported.”


** Disconnection and debt data
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The Governor’s Office ultimately approved the revised proposed rule, officially requiring all utilities to publicly disclose disconnections for non-payment, albeit without the zip code data.

Missouri’s largest investor-owned utilities, Evergy, Ameren, and Spire, performed over 57,000 electric and gas disconnections for non-payment from March to June 2024, according to an analysis by the Energy and Policy Institute.

IFRAME: [1][link removed]

The rule also requires all utilities to publicly disclose the total number of delinquent residential accounts and the average arrearage amount.

IFRAME: [2][link removed]

Using this information, an analysis by the Energy and Policy Institute discovered that the compensation Ameren, Every, and Algonquin, Liberty's parent company, doled out to its top executives in 2023 is more than the debt currently owed by each utility's delinquent customers.

IFRAME: [3][link removed]

Header Credit: Missouri Public Service Commission ([link removed])

The post Missouri utility regulator urged Governor Parson to prevent detailed disconnection reporting ([link removed]) appeared first on Energy and Policy Institute ([link removed]) .

References

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