This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Daren Bakst, Legal and Regulatory Policy Analyst for the John Locke Foundation.

When a consumer advocate argues for a tax on the consumers it’s supposed to protect, something is very wrong. The Public Staff, an independent state agency that is supposed to represent electricity consumers, apparently thinks that higher taxes are what consumers want. This agency clearly needs to be reformed right away.

There are two recent examples that demonstrate the problem. First, the Public Staff has recommended that electricity consumers pay an extra fee (better known as a tax) on top of existing rates to help finance what is called a public benefits fund. The tax could cost as much as $181 million a year, if not more, according to the State Energy Office. A public benefits fund could be used for a variety of unknown environmental reasons, but certainly it would be used in part to try to reduce demand for electricity.

Second, the agency also has said that it would support a wind farm proposal for Ashe County, if not for the Mountain Ridge Protection Act, known as the Ridge Law. Barring an unreasonable interpretation, this law will protect the mountains from massive wind turbines that can be as tall as 400 feet, or approximately 30-40 stories. For those individuals living on the coast, there is no such protection from these wind turbines.

This is not to say that the Public Staff should worry about the size of the wind turbines. By law, it is supposed to represent only the interests of the using and consuming public. In other words, when it comes to analyzing wind power, the Public Staff is supposed to worry only about consumers’ concerns. Wind power is a costly and unreliable means of generating electricity. It doesn’t require much more analysis than that to realize that wind power may not be very consumer-friendly.

If consumers are going to be protected, the Public Staff needs some practical reforms. The following are three recommendations to help ensure that the Public Staff is a consumer advocate and not an environmental advocacy group:

1) Term Limits: An executive director leads the Public Staff. The individual is appointed by the governor and confirmed by a joint resolution of the General Assembly to serve a term of six years. The current executive director, Robert Gruber, has served since 1983, and he is up for reappointment this year. An individual already serving 24 years in what clearly is a political position is absurd, especially in today’s ethical climate in North Carolina. The executive director should serve either one term of eight years or two terms of six years.

2) Consumer Oversight: There should be a formal consumer board made up of residential and industrial electricity consumers. The governor would appoint them to serve overlapping terms of four years. Individuals could serve only one term. Their clear purpose would be to provide consumer perspectives to the Public Staff. The goal would be to create consumer oversight of the Public Staff’s operations and policy recommendations.

3) Demonstrate Need for Recommended Price Increases: Whenever the Public Staff recommends a price increase or a policy that reasonably can be expected to lead to higher prices for consumers, it should be required to demonstrate that the increase or policy is clearly necessary to protect electricity availability, services, and other interests that are commonly shared by consumers.

The consumer board would have to approve the recommended price increase or policy by a two-thirds vote. Formal notice of the recommended price increase would have to be published in the North Carolina Register. Public hearings would be required, and any citizen would be able to challenge the increase or policy in front of the consumer board.

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The key to reform is for the Public Staff to be answerable to consumers and not to environmental advocacy groups and utilities. Right now, the Public Staff generally doesn’t have to worry about residential consumers, nor does it appear that they’re going to care anytime soon. Through reform, there’s hope for change. If not, consumers would be better off without the Public Staff.