Court Opinion

ID: 9718508
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:25:56.121396+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:59.804242
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
The statutory provision upon which the Office of Utility Consumer Counselor grounded its request for a hearing upon the proposal of Public Service Company, Inc., (PSI), to form a utility holding company and to become a wholly-owned subsidiary of that holding company, provides in pertinent part: ,
No public utility ... shall sell, assign, transfer, lease, or encumber its franchise, works, or system ... without approval of the commission after hearing.
Ind.Code § 8-1-2-83(a). A corresponding provision of the Federal Power Act, similarly provides:
No public utility shall sell, lease, or otherwise dispose of the whole of its facilities ... without first having secured an order of the Commission authorizing it to do so.
Federal Power Act § 208(a), 16 U.S.C.A. § 824b. In 1987, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC"), federal counterpart of the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, interpreted Section 203(a), above, as conferring jurisdiction over the formation of utility holding companies. Re Central Vermont Public Service Corp., 84 PUR 4th 218. (FERC 1987). FERC reasoned that when a public utility becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary of a holding company, the direct control of the facilities of the public utility passes from its shareholders to the board of directors of the holding company. According to FERC, when the substance, rather than the mere form, of the process is considered, there has been a disposition of jurisdictional facilities of the public utility as contemplated by Section 208(a), an event which moreover presents potential for abuses adverse to the public interest. While this federal construction of federal law does not bind this court in rendering its construction of the state law in this case, due to the striking similarity in the language and apparent purposes of the two statutes, it has considerable persuasive force.
A considered reading of § 88(a), above, leads in the same direction taken by FERC in the Central Vermont case. Section 88(a) reflects the judgment of the Indiana legislature that commission oversight is needed before certain proscribed events may take place in the life of a utility. Commission oversight exists for the purpose of setting price and securing delivery. Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, Inc. v. Northern Indiana Public Service Co. (1985), Ind., 485 N.E.2d 610. Each of the proscribed events in § 83(a) appears related to price and security of service. Each carries the potential for upsetting approved rates and diminishing service, and thus creates the need for regulators to make a jeopardy assessment. Diversification of a utility into high risk non-utility businesses *1365through the formation of a holding company carries a large measure of like potential. See generally, Jeffrey W. Knapp, Effective State Regulation of Energy Utility Diversification, 186 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1677; (1988) Ann de Rouffignac, Entergy Pursues Tricky Path of Utility Diversification, Wall St. J., Dec. 1, 1992, at B4.
The Court of Appeals majority below concluded that a reorganization through formation of a holding company constituted a "transfer" of the utility's franchise, works, or system. PSI responds that such reorganizations involve no sale or transfer at all by the utility, and that the franchise and jurisdictional assets remain with PSI undisturbed by the reorganization. PSI is entirely accurate if one looks no further than the legal nature of the relationships between the subsidiary stockholders as a body, subsidiary directors as a body, and the subsidiary corporation's continued ownership of franchise and jurisdictional assets. However, the language of the statute does not warrant such a restrictive look. The language of § 83(a) does not restrict proscribed events to those in which there is a change of ownership. Indeed, it ranges beyond and encompasses events in which only a transfer or encumbrance of jurisdictional assets is made. There is no reason at all to read this statute as including transfers of ownership and excluding transfers of possession and control. The more inclusive meaning is the more likely meaning, the one which is coincidentally consistent with the view taken by FERC in the Central Vermont case of the federal statutory idea of disposition of assets. Upon this understanding of the specific provisions of § 83(a), the legislative intent to grant jurisdiction to the commission to hold a hearing upon a proposal to reorganize by creating a holding company is present. Accordingly, I agree with the Court of Appeals in its conclusion that the Commission should hold the hearing requested by the Office of Utility Consumer Counsel.
SHEPARD, C.J., concurs.