Evening star., 1934-11-18
Commission Serving 2 Mas
ters and Director Is Need
ed, Says Counsel.
OWN OFFICE LIKENED
TO "FIFTH WHEEL"
Political Study Club Told Radical
Shift of Duties Is Necessary
to Protect Public.

A radical shift of the duties Of the
Public Utilities Commission and the
Office of peoples counsel is needed,
in the interest of effective control of
utility concerns here, William A. Rob-
erts, peoples counsel, declared yester-
day at a meeting of the Political
Study Club.
He suggested creation Of a director
Of public utilities. with an adequate
staff, whose sole duty would be to act
for the protection of the public.
The Public Utilities Commission,
with a small staff to assist it in its
studies, would be left free to receive
evidence from the director of public
utilities and from the utility COM
panies and to render decisions in an
impartial way, in the light of applica-
BILE laws.
Duties of Present staff.
The commission now has a staff
which conducts Investigations and
makes cases for changes in utility
rates and valuations, and the peoples
counsel, with no staff, has the duty of
representing the public and present.
ing its position in matters.
Roberts emphasized he was not
voicing any statement derogatory to
any present or past officials involved
IN utility regulation, but suggested
that the commission now is called
upon to serve two masters-the public
and the utility concerns-and de-
scribed the peoples counsel as the
fifth wheel of the wagon" and one
which is more likely to interfere
with commission operations than to
assist the public in its earnest efforts
to secure the solution of controversies
with the public utilities"
Public service commissions" Rob-
erts said, were created to relieve
Congress of the detail of regulation
of utility rates and services. The
utility business had grown to such
gigantic proportions that it was i'm
possible for legislative committees to
make sufficient study of the problems
or for the executive officials to en-
force. through the usual channels, the
laws which Congress had made.
Relation to Congress.
"The commission is, in fact, an arm
of Congress and its direct agent.
Congress had no thought it was
creating an impartial judicial body,
but rather it was creating an ener-
getic administrative body for the pro-
lection Of the public
Roberts described how the commits
sions serve as the court of first In
stance having the dual duty of
protecting the rights Of the utilities
and protecting the rights of the public.
They control the work of staff pre-
pairing evidence for presentation in
opposition to the evidence prepared
by utility lawyers. The commissions
then call hearings and are then sup
posed to sit as court and impair
TALLY decide as between the public
and the utility concerns and to or
der appropriate relief, Roberts said.
In my opinion a man does not live
who can serve two masters" Roberts
continued. Either the Utility Com
mission will devote itself entirely to
enforcing legitimate demands OF the
public or it will be impressed with the
arguments of the lawyers for the
corporations and in passing on its
own evidence will lean backward to
the detriment of the public"
The fallacy of the present Job Of
peoples counsel, he said, is that an
individual lawyer. without an engi-
neering staff is wholly unable to rep
resent the public adequately against
the high-grade and expensive pres
entation made by the corporations.
Difficulty of Position.
1.-THE peoples counsel" he added,
''is placed in the position of either ac-
cepting the commissions conclusions,
in which event his services are value
less, or attacking the commissions
evidence in which event he is ap-
plauded by the utilities as an able
aid to their own cause"
Roberts said it was his intention of
working to cooperate with the staff
of the commission in presenting a
purely public case, an impartial case
before the commission, believing that
the utilities are we'll able to take care
of themselves.