commonwealth of pennsylvania - The Pennsylvania General Assembly

the concerns of the public to other areas in the Public Utility
budget that less concern the public.
1 ask for an affirmative vote by all members of the
Assembly, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
The SPEAKER. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Montgomery, Mr. McClatchy.
Mr. McCLATCHY. Mr. Speaker, we are at a tenuous posi-
tion with the Public Utility Commission appropriation. 1
think that the other body is somewhat hesitant-and that is
mildly put-to give them the extra money that 1 have asked
for. If indeed we separate out into different categories, it will
be a further problem.
Again, I have full faith in Mike Johnson and Sue
Shanaman to do the job that must be done. We are not, under
my amendment, laying off anyone, and 1 have full confidence
that we could provide all the services necessary that we all
want and need in the PUC. The Pievsky amendment does rip
out my amendment-there is no question about that at all-
and insert his, and that is the difference. Again, it depends on
whose ox is being gored as to whether we want to give the
present chairman discretion or not. I would hope, Mr.
Speaker, that we defeat the Pievsky amendment. Thank you.
MEMBER'S PRESENCE RECORDED
The SPEAKER. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Philadelphia, Mr. Richardson, who asks that his name be
placed on the master roll call.
CONSIDERATION OF SB 681 CONTINUED
The SPEAKER. The Chair recognizes, for the second time
on the issue, the gentleman, Mr. Lloyd.
Mr. LLOYD. Mr. Speaker, if 1 could, just a practical
example of what is at stake with this amendment and with full
funding of the rate procedure at the commission.
I had the opportunity to try cases against the Pennsylvania
Electric Company and Metropolitan Edison. In both of those
cases, several million dollars which should have gone to utility
customers rather than to utility stockholders were lost, and
they were lost because we did not have the opportunity to get
that argument through to somebody on the ALJ's staff or the
ALJs themselves or on the commissioner's staff, in a way that
they could understand it, because they were overwhelmed
with the amount of work they could do.
If we do not provide adequate funding for the staff of an
administrative law judge in a major utility rate case, we are
going to lose for utility customers in every case several million
dollars. Just one specific example: In a Metropolitan Edison
rate case, there was one adjustment worth a couple million
dollars which we explained fully to the administrative law
judge and which in his final order he forgot; he did not even
answer our question or our argument one way or the other.
We took that issue on appeal to the commission itself and laid
out the arguments again. Once more because of inadequate
staffing the issue was ignored. It was an issue which the
commission had decided in favor of ratepayers in previous
cases and one which absolutely, if the commission had been
LEGISLATIVE JOURNAL-HOUSE JUNE 30,
aware of it, would have been decided in favor of ratepayers in
that case.
We have got to provide adequate staffing over there if you
do not want to be confronted with a situation in which your
consumers are going to be paying millions of dollars which
they should not have to pay. 1 would be one of the first people
here to say let us go over there and clean house, and I am all
for doing that, and there are going to be some opportunities,
according to some amendments which have been circulated,
that we can do that later in this session. But right now the
important thing is to make sure that they have the money to
do the job.
We spend in this state, taking the Consumer Advocate and
the PUC together, less than $20 million a year in rate regula-
tion. At the present time the two general public utilities
customers which are before the commission are asking for
$325 million in higher rates each year.
I think that the Pievsky amendment is a step in the right
direction, and if we do not enact it, we are going to be paying
a price for a long time to come. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The SPEAKER. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Beaver, Mr. Laughlin.
Mr. LAUGHLIN. Mr. Speaker, normally I would not
disagree with the Appropriations Committee chairman, Mr.
McClatchy, on issues of this particular type. But it has been
my experience, Mr. Speaker, that Mr. McClatchy has failed to
look at some of the past rate cases that have occurred just in
this last year. I call attention specifically to the Bell Telephone
and the Western Electric relationship. It took approximately 2
years for the PUC to totally audit and track down the
paperwork that was involved in that particular case. It saved
the ratepayers of this state just short of $1 million on the
excess costs that were involved. Mr. Speaker, at that time one
of the investigators relayed to me the information that had
they sufficient staff on that particular job, instead of $750 it
would have been in excess of $2 million, but they did not have
! adequate staff to look into the other avenues of Western Elec-
tric's relationship with Bell Telephone.
Mr. Speaker, in view of that, I cannot see how we can he so
naive as to believe that an expenditure of $300,000 is not
going to be beneficial to the department in saving the
ratepayers of this state additional revenues.
Mr. Speaker, 1 support the Pievsky amendment, and 1 ask
for its oassaee.
-
On the question recurring,
Will the House agree to the amendments?
The following roll call was recorded:
Barber
Belfanu
Beloff
Berson
Blaum
Borski
Brown
Caltagirane
Cappabianca
Cawley
Clark
Cochran
Evans
Fee
Fryer
Gallagher
Gamble
Grabowski
Gray
Greenfield
Cruitza
Haluska
Hoeffel
Hoigas
Y EAS-96
l.ucyk
McCall
Mclnlyre
McMonagle
Maiale
Manderino
Michlovic
Miscevich
Morris
Mrkonic
Mullen
Murphy
Rybak
Seventy
Showers
Shupnik
Sleighner
Stewart
Stuban
Swairn
Sweet
Taylor, F. E.
Telek
Tigue