Court Opinion

ID: 9682176
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:06:39.089516+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:37.946192
License: Public Domain

Terry Crabtree, Judge, concurring. As the residential consumer assumes proportionately more of the cost of providing services, a public utility’s business judgment, bypass options, and cost allocation proposals must be carefully scrutinized to avoid placing the greatest cost burden on the consumers who are least able to afford such costs. This court is mindful that the Commission has broad discretion in exercising its regulatory authority and, if an order of the Commission is supported by substantial evidence and is neither unjust, arbitrary, unreasonable, unlawful, or discriminatory, then we must affirm that order. See Bryant v. Arkansas Pub. Serv. Comm’n, 54 Ark. App. 157, 168, 924 S.W.2d 472, 480 (1996). The 5,000-page record developed throughout the course of this rate case and the complexity of the issues effectively prevent any simple discussion of the allocation of rates among the utility ratepayers. The majority concludes that this settlement is a compromise agreement of the interested parties and is adequately grounded in substantial evidence to preclude this court’s intervention. Based on this court’s deference to the expertise of the Commission and our limited review, I agree, but I suspect that this case pushes the bounds of what can possibly survive review as “reasonable” without reducing our standard of review to a mere formality. The bottom line is that this court has found that an allocation of 98.3% of a rate increase for the residential class is not unjust, unreasonable, unlawful, or discriminatory. What then could possibly amount to an unreasonable allocation for future rate increases? The evidence presented to the Commission shows that the bypass problem is not likely to go away or be easily addressed. In fact, in its decision, the Commission acknowledged its concern about this issue and the problems it will continue to present in the near future. Under our appellate standard of review, solutions to this problem cannot come from this court. I therefore write this concurrence to stress that solutions to this problem must be addressed by the utilities, the Public Service Commission Staff, the Commission, and all other interested parties, including the Attorney General. Roaf, J., joins.