points of error.
CONCLUSION Having overruled GTE's points of error, we affirm the Commission's order and the district court's judgment.
POWERS, Justice, dissenting.
The legislature explicitly declared that the kind of agency proceeding now before us "is not a rate case." PURA § 3.211(i) (emphasis added). The majority conclude nevertheless that such a proceeding is a rate case. Believing this to be an unjustified negation of the plainly stated legislative will, I respectfully dissent.[1]
Since 1976, PURA has provided that "[a] utility may not make changes in its rates except" by filing in the Commission a statement of intent to change its rates, initiating thereby a rate case. Id. § 3.211(a) (emphasis added). A utility may not under PURA increase its "rates" in any other way. Since *167 1991, PURA Section 3.211 has provided, however, that a utility may obtain "adjustments" in its customers' bills - to account for increases or decreases in the utility's franchise-tax expense - without the necessity of the utility's changing its "rates" through a rate case.[2] PURA § 3.211(i). Section 3.211(i) explicitly declares that an adjustment proceeding thereunder "is not a rate case under" PURA section 3.211(a). The purpose of this provision is to avoid the expense of a rate case when it is not necessary; the "adjustments" lie entirely outside the Commission's ratemaking function.[3] PURA § 3.211(i).
The legislature in 1995 enacted PURA section 3.351. This statute is intended to facilitate an orderly transition from a regulated utility market to a more competitive market. See PURA § 3.351. Under the statute, a local exchange company may elect to come under the new regime by so notifying the Commission in writing. By making its election, the company commits itself "to limit any increase in the rates charged" for certain services and "increases in rates for basic network services are permitted only with commission approval."[4] PURA § 3.353(a), (b) (emphasis added).
PURA section 3.211(i) gives GTE a statutory right to the annual adjustments to its customers' bills; the company exercised the right for several years and the Commission made the necessary annual adjustment in amounts before GTE elected to be governed by PURA section 3.353(a) and (b).
No statute expressly declares that a local exchange company, such as GTE, surrenders its statutory right to the annual adjustments by electing to be governed by the provisions of PURA section 3.351 enacted in 1995. The majority decision therefore requires an implication - a conclusion that PURA section 3.353(a) and (b) impliedly amended PURA section 3.211(i) by engrafting thereon an unstated exception: the annual billing adjustments would not be available to a local exchange company if the company elected to be governed by the new 1995 provisions of PURA section 3.353(a) and (b). I believe the implied-amendment theory is unquestionably foreclosed by the applicable rules of statutory construction.
It appears in the first place that there is no repugnance between the texts of PURA section 3.353(a) and (b), on the one hand, and PURA section 3.211(i) on the other. PURA sections 3.353(a) and (b) basically