Texas Democratic Party: Moving Texas Forward

The Public Utility Commission (PUC) has seen its original mission corrupted by “pay to play” politics as much as any Texas state agency. Charged with regulating Texas public utilities, the PUC has spent the last decade creating rules and regulations that protect the profits of utility companies at the expense of Texas consumers. Like every state agency, the PUC is run by Rick Perry’s appointees.

In recent years, the PUC has repeatedly ignored requests from state lawmakers to provide relief during the summer months for families struggling to pay their electric bills. From 1999 to 2004, 258 Texans died due to “exposure to excessive natural heat” – and almost all of those deaths occurred in Texas’ notoriously hot summer months. (Source: Texas Department of State Health Services) During our long hot summers, Texans’ electric bills go up – and many living on low or fixed-incomes struggle to pay their bill or risk their health by trying to sweat it out. State lawmakers routinely beg the PUC to delay disconnects in the hot summer months – and the Public Utility Commission routinely brushes off their requests. (Source: Houston Chronicle)

The latest scandal, however, is even more appalling: the Public Utility Commission allows convicted criminals to run prepaid electric providers, thereby putting at risk thousands of Texans in need.

The Dallas Morning News broke the story on October 5, 2009:

• Prepaid electric providers market themselves to the poor, sick, and disabled, and their utility rates “sometimes are 50 percent higher than those of traditional providers” – making summer cutoffs and disconnection a regular threat.

• Convicted criminals are known to manage and operate these prepaid electric providers, and have a proven record of customer complaints – complaints so numerous that the PUC’s director of consumer protection raised the concerns to one of the PUC Commissioners, only to have the issue “largely ignored” by Rick Perry’s hand-picked Commissioners on the PUC.

• The PUC regularly ignores complaints against these criminal-run electric providers, and will often reduce penalties against the providers in favor of weakened settlements that protect the criminal and punish the consumers.

Three weeks after the Dallas Morning News published their stories, the PUC held a meeting to address rules and regulations. At the hearing, the Commissioners were defensive and offered nothing more than technical suggestions to address the scandal. PUC Commissioner Ken Anderson – who was Rick Perry’s Appointments Secretary for seven years before becoming a Commissioner – stated, “I’m not the one who’s against prepaid service.” (Source: Austin American-Statesman, Dallas Morning News)

Instead of enacting tough rules and regulations to crack down on criminally-run prepaid electric rate providers, the PUC did what it usually does: held a public meeting to suggest insignificant changes, and then did nothing.

It is disgraceful that a utility provider run by convicted criminals can actively scam Texas consumers and get away with a stamp of approval from the Republican-run Public Utility Commission.

Next: #9: TxDOT’s One Billion Dollar Math Error Takes a Toll on Texas Taxpayers

To read more about Republican mismanagement, corruption, and  pay-to-play politics, visit the TDP’s “Top Ten State Agency Scandals” campaign by clicking here.