Opinion ID: 2284798
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: other issues and observations

Text: Apart from the issues which I have discussed, I join the majority in finding no reversible error in the other challenged aspects of the Commission's orders. Nevertheless, in this, my last opinion as an active member of this court, I feel compelled to comment upon the Commission's apparent perception of its role in setting utility rates. See also Potomac Electric Power Co. v. PSC, D.C.App., 402 A.2d 14, 27 (en banc) (HARRIS, J., dissenting), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 926, 100 S.Ct. 265, 62 L.Ed.2d 182 (1979). It cannot be a coincidence that virtually every contested issue throughout the course of this proceeding was decided adversely to the Company. The Commission in recent years has shown an unmistakable predisposition to treat WGL and the city's electric energy supplier, Potomac Electric Power Company, as some sort of miscreants who unilaterally are to blame for higher energy costs. In this case, as in others, the Commission simply has not lived up to its duty to balance the ratepayers' interest in preventing unduly high rates with the utility shareholders' legitimate interest in having the Company have the opportunity to earn a fair rate of return. One must wonder why WGL's authorized return on equity is at the bottom end of the zone of reasonableness in comparison with comparable gas distributors; why the Company is granted no attrition allowance despite clear evidence of consistent regulatory lag and the fact that the Company has been unable to earn anywhere near its authorized rate of return in recent years; and why the PSC denied each of the Company's far from outlandish requests for rate relief on such items as tax normalization, consolidated tax savings, and the treatment of gains on sales of propane reserves. Moreover, one must wonder how the Commission rationally could conclude, following more than a decade of rampant inflation, cost increases, and high interest rates, that the Company's authorized rate of return on equity should be reduced from 13.25 percent to 13 percent. I sincerely hope the Commission is not so single-purposed as to ignore the fact that financial health is essential to the provision of reliable utility service. The regulation of natural monopolies requires give-and-take on both sides. If the utility consistently is required to do all the giving, no one can benefit in the long run and one day there may be nothing left to take. Finally, I direct attention to the fallacy in what apparently is the underlying basis for the majority's acquiescence in all aspects of the orders under review. On p. 1194, ante, the majority takes the position that if the Commission has fully and clearly explained what it does and why it does it, and the agency decision is supported by substantial evidence, the court, upon a finding that the Commission order is reasonable in its overall effect, should sustain the order. It is not for me to speculate as to whether the majority genuinely believes that that unsupported assertion truly describes our standard of review. I readily state, however, that only by applying such a distorted concept of the proper review standard may the orders under review be sustained in all respects. No one should be misled into believing that the quoted statement may alter existing law. Utilities and their investors, no less than others, still have constitutional rights. Utilities still have common law rights which have been set forth in many decisions which need not be cited again here. Utilities also still have statutory rights. Among them is this court's obligation to reject findings by the Commission which are unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious. D.C.Code 1973, § 43-706. Also existing, as noted above, is the following statutory proscription: The charge made by any ... public utility for any ... services furnished, or rendered,... shall be reasonable, just, and nondiscriminatory. Every unjust or unreasonable or discriminatory charge for such ... service is prohibited and is hereby declared unlawful. [ Id., § 43-301.] The majority's see-no-error, hear-no-error approach to this case, coupled with its purported belief that nothing matters except the overall effect as long as any deviant component of a rate order somehow is explained, may persuade it that total affirmance is appropriate in this case. It does not persuade me, however, nor can I conceive that it persuades even the minimally knowledgeable objective reader. For the reasons set forth above, while I concur in the affirmance of some of the Commission's challenged rulings, I conclude that reversible error was committed in the portions of the orders under review which I have discussed in detail. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent in part.