this case is for dash fourteen dash zero one seven three and zero one eight two consolidated cases in zero one seven three cameron illinois company petitioner i was person only commerce commission approach make sudden shifts in methodology about explanation ignore evidence of record or treat one utility materially different from another without revealing a basis for doing so specifically the what was perfectly acceptable in people's north shore cannot be used in this case short type of data was the same financial model was the same but the outcome was different and the result was  this well established that an agency cannot act arbitrarily commission cannot do one thing in one case and then without explanation do the opposite in another this makes sense because consistency is needed to allow the regulated utility the opportunity to understand the regulatory landscape and to point us utilities should be able to understand these are the models and here's how they work and this is especially true of the rate of return issue this is estimates the cost of back would be forgiven security as a function of a risk free return plus a risk premium this is in turn determined by something called the beta coefficient multiplied which measures relative risk to the market by one overall market  undoubtedly these are complex financial models but the point that i am in illinois making is not accomplished point ammons concern is that the order arbitrarily rejected its experts kept them result the commission's order does not contain finding for analysis efficient to allow for different reviews the particular man due order and hear the word does not answer the fundamental question of why why did you commission reject the utilities kept him in its calculation of return why does the commission do this we don't really know the order devotes only three paragraphs out of a two hundred fifty two page order its decision on this critical issue the cap and those three short paragraphs that never explains why it is rejecting the commission fails to explain why it has a problem with elements of a illinois kaftan when they didn't have a problem with those same elements six months earlier in fact it fails to mention as i said before it was nor shorter at all it says the stat inputs for more reliable but it doesn't say why or how or there's no finding the futility have animals mathematically incorrect calculations were wrong or that the model itself which is a model that commission relies on in in most cases as it's the commission has said so if the model that the argument is that the north shore or establishes a precedent that is somehow binding on the commission rather the the north shore order presents an approach in which certain elements were included in the model and the model was included in setting rates six months later the commission does something completely different it looks it to inputs that were previously in the model and were no problem says these are  er concern for the model utilities model out of the calculation this is arbitrary and unexplained and so that's really the concern is that the arbitrariness of the commission's decision and the lack of explanation as to why it was doing something differently six months later the commission is obligated to as i said earlier not act arbitrarily  least utility would light a more fulsome complete explanation of why so i agree it's a long order and in that long order there are very few paragraphs devoted to addressing and explaining and providing sufficient findings and analysis to justify this important be clues in that it makes the the significant immaterial conclusion i would note also that there's another reason for reversing the commission's order and that is it is not supported by the record for one the order is just wrong with respect to one of the and with the order says that the utility made a measurement period was eighteen to twenty four months when in fact it was not there was also five your data which is that they dated commission looks were included in that that statement is simply incorrect you are also fails to consider the exclusion of non dividend paying companies from an overall market rate of return as the utility pointed out in testimony in briefings it doesn't make sense to include if your factor is the overall market rate of return it doesn't make sense to exclude the non dividend dividend to abide by three what it called consumer protection and we've argued in our reads here that the commission had no authority under the article nineteen to make alternate gas suppliers comply with those three conditions tariff inconsistent with now before you get into that i should address the issue right now which has been raised by the commission the standard for rightness is whether first of all that whether the cases fitness has is fit for review and whether there be harm to parties simply on the to itself however in this case these three conditions were not ordered for amarin amarin doesn't have to do them or doesn't even put them in their tariff attached or reply brief or copy of the tariff that is being considered in next case protections these three new protections were raised in by the sitting utility board they recommended them and we objected to them in our priests was that before the hearing was held  say these are the three we think you should do and then there were hearings and actually nother thing happens i mean these cases is the parties tend to perhaps waive cross examination instead just introduced into the record  s discovery which we did in this case we had discovery of the cup witness that we introduced as exhibits very explicit it says that there shall be ten days from when a bill is issue where is the commission has decided that generally it would be the when the bill is due which is going to be later a for door to door sales some of her and sign them up but they had six months to revoke the contract without having to pay a early termination fee and the statute is says ten days ten days or ten days there's nothing in statute that says at least ten days or no more than ten days there's nothing that in the entire article nineteen that gives the commission authority to impose conditions that are different than those imposed in article nineteen article making is very explicit has very detailed rules for alternat and there's nothing in there that gives the commission thirty to do anything behind those if you look at the commission's briefs they cite some of their general authority over utilities but again those are in different parts the articles of the public  applies a consumer fraud protection act to them it requires also that they have with the cough third party verification where a customer and the salesman get on the phone with a third party not if they get it with utility and they then get the  the sales person off the phone and the third party verifies that yes indeed you need you want this company to take your stuff but this first was the rules for door to door and again the general assembly decided that's all that's necessary it didn't think there was a need for six quickest commission now requires them to give three years of data at least quarterly which again has nothing in the act that allows them to do that and the has in fact explicitly gives the commission the mandate to create a website and have built comparisons so that utilities so customers can compare different rates and there's nothing about this three years of comparison nothing about quarterly so again the commission has added something that's not in the at him again your response to him or the evidence concerning the just unreasonable level the return on equity is entirely based on evidence admitted by expert witnesses of the just and reasonable amount of return on equity it's not just the studies as the court is aware the commission order goes from page one twenty eight to one sixty six saying so also said this the other side said this is wrong to them and they replied particular issue of alt m studies and one's course arguing that a single decision and involving amran constitutes a prior commission practice there's been violated here the plain fact is that the underlying nurture people's gas case doesn't constitute anything but it individual decision the commission acting is is in it as the solution maker as to what should happen lot of it seems to me to be this bad form is a bit the can't them studies are done by three separate acts in this case where there were three separate actions weird witness and of course their witness actually did three separate studies when possible the call for a yes or no answer give me a yes or no answer then never an argue to the commission and a petition for reconsideration that you're departing from the north shore analysis yes  reliance council's making on the there was no issue raised similar to intellectual people so the underlying christine didn't the side anything about capcom studies all they're saying is an expert that subsection one nineteen g five be cited anywhere near brief and analyze the response to the arguments raised  evidence supports this finding for the horse part of my question was do you address that subsection and explain why that argument is i object because the commission has jurisdiction to issue the conditions as you lay out in the brief nothing  section one thousand one fifteen b provides the commission is barred from doing this as you noted this is then do you provide us with any analysis of that subsection in your brief explaining why no article nineteen order to anyone these conditions do not apply to anyone as yet and may never unless they are adopted as it somehow in the case that's still pending decision so i'm not getting involved with an no you did not address that specific subsection the argument why ok and you explain why you didn't i didn't because it's not here this is the article nine rape case a the establishment of the right was taking place in the subsequent proceeding in the page thirty eight and two forty of the case the it almost reason as if this case the suit was it your position that the arguments are just that more are made with regard to that subsection her right for education murder commission of this court as to the legal issue yes i have a problem admittedly with the factual issues because the evidence apparently was only placed into this case but i think the ev exists i'm not sure i understand it well if these conditions are political the alternate gas suppliers how does that work how does that happen it has to be can taint somewhere what we ordered them protections yes it is if they were a party they were intervening party the already has this case is am not not to gas out suppliers out of goodness knows how many we have in this  staff witness yes despite yields on the risk free rate and also a calculation of all overall market return the commission has criticised the use of a spot yield in a prior cases  kept them study only and obviously adopted that they had once again which they had done in the previous rate case rejected amerinds them if there was a president who should read a previous time in which the commission had him study so i don't know how you reconcile when the witness supporting it says there on the inside however determination of an appropriate return on equity is not a manual formula this is a question of pragmatic business judgment to the wish to which  i don't know what's going to happen in the in this case before the court these conditions will be part of a particular writer of an airman tear their adopted but that writer doesn't exist counselors pointed out and i don't doubt him that in fact these conditions are not contained in the right or well there's no such thing as a secret protocol for the writer if the commission is conditioning this writer as i think they intended to avoid the problems we ha when we opened up other territories and they're all noida competitive of altered gas supply it has to be there in some way before the court this is what the commission said they were doing they may be deciding if the case gets them to do something else which i can't even address i can't even ask my client what they're going to do about this if most of the other writer cases the courts have to suffer big rivers and can maybe one or two others ignition said go build the writer out and the writer got on six months a year later it was him so there was never this kind of gap i will i will but tell the court it's my understanding that right arrest review was supposed to be in place last  nothing in article nineteen bars the establish an additional consumer protections the specially under the facts of this case that we are opening a new territory and every time we have previously done that we get thousands  customers saying we were misled we were lied to blah blah blah and our authority to do things about it is somewhat limited u home i mean if suppliers are required to be conditions within the utility tariffs that's nineteen dash one twenty three of the act we have the authority don't force those conditions and it makes no sense to say oh well but you don't have a actually approve or or have conditions on a something related to the alternate gas suppliers and as i pointed out the third consumer protection about standardization of price comparison which is that the heart often of people taking the service falls under the commission's jurisdiction are section eight three zero one of the act as adopted by one thousand one fifteen be one having consistent price comparisons miss the policies of the utility one dash one o two d two public understand to be at it's a small room two and a small room and five orderly transition and frankly as to the third condition council has never point out this violates a single provision within thousand they just say whoa but ever like to say the commission supported this case on the basis of the evidence submitted which was not contested all the parties cited to the commission about the previous program for the first one were we had fourteen thousand cancellations out of fifty two thousand customers were going to few months and the second case we had similar number come cases i couldn't tell anywhere how many was put in a record no cross examine no one of jeck to do to his testimony as an expert witness the evidence needed for the conditions is only that at the reasoning my mind would accept is sufficient to support a particular natural gas markets and the difficulties with house the house sales and confusion only different in any comparable gas cost comparisons in the marketing materials having said  it differently well i think in terms of the required legal requirement that an agency not act arbitrarily in between cases and particularly the commission can make a decision in one case and then do something different in that case well i'm not sure that's completely true i mean yes you wouldn't have you know done one way in this case and done completely differently and in another case but counsel also referenced the prior case where emmerdale illinois two thousand and eleven cases serving as a source of a president but in annoy had their return on equity expert head and made some changes from the two thousand and seven case those were not addressed in the order either so i think even in the absence of the north shore case and of course we do have in our short case you still have a fundamental lack of explanation as to why the commission came to the illusion it did not only because it didn't mention north shore but because it did not address a variety of other issues they they would have that power if it was something of you know disappointed or they could have granted retreat or they could have addressed it by addressing it in the final order after it was it was brought up on exception i think that you know counsel the commission points to a lot of evidence there was a lot of evidence on this topic of evidentiary points that were made in the record i think that that really illustrates the key point that none of that evidence was discussed in the  right were you surprised that your clients can disregard the commission's decision i was about to address that justice no they can't because they don't have authority to provide service until hammer and has a program you know they have to one has to give them the the customers has to provide the gas service but in that system and it won't do that so he answers them or it is yes they're ready to go suddenly at that point when you proceed but now you're subject to the new even raise the issue of commission we consider these three they already said we don't hear about it this is the side of already and the only thing we're going to do in this case the power i'm going is setting up the details of exactly you know how some of these minor rules between they have to their only authority is what the statute gives them and the statute doesn't give them authority to do what they've done therefore they don't have it it's not enough if they don't stop this we can do whatever we want that's the first thing i really want to address he did mention the evidence of these prior cases out of ten if my time's up thank you all right thank you counsel face will be taken under consideration and a written decision