Roberts: Arizona Corporation Commission can block probe of APS, judge rules

Laurie Roberts: Ruling means utility regulators can block an investigation into whether APS owns them. How convenient is that?

Laurie Roberts
The Republic | azcentral.com
Arizona Corporation Commissioner Robert Burns.

Looks like we may never get the proof that the Arizona Corporation Commission has been bought and paid for by a certain electric company.

If you’re a ratepayer, you should be afraid. Be very afraid.

A judge has ruled that Commissioner Bob Burns has the legal right to investigate whether Arizona Public Service – and its parent company, Pinnacle West Capital Corp. – secretly waged a multi-million campaign to get its favored candidates elected to the panel that regulates utilities.

But Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Daniel Kiley said there’s nothing he can do to force APS to open its books because the Corporation Commission has refused to order APS to comply with Burns’ subpoenas.

“Authority to determine whether to enforce a subpoena issued by an individual Commission member, or whether to sustain an objection to such a subpoena, rests with the Commission, and not with a court,” Kiley wrote in his 14-page ruling issued Thursday.

Regulators back APS all the way

Translation: one regulator has the right to order APS's  to open its books if he suspects his fellow regulators owe their seats to state’s largest utility. But if those fellow regulators – the ones suspected of owing their allegiance to APS – want to block his investigation, they can.

And they do. Boy oh boy, do they ever.

Burns hasn’t yet decided whether to appeal. For the good of the state – or at least the state’s ratepayers (read: all of us) – he certainly should.

“If it stands, it means APS controls the commission from here on out, I would guess,” Burns told me. “It’s weird because he (Judge Kiley) says that I have the constitutional authority to issue the subpoenas but then the commission has the authority by statute and rules to block them.”

It's more than weird. It's downright outrageous.

Kiley's ruling, if it stands, would ensure that no regulator would have a check over a corrupt Corporation Commission because the commission could simply block an investigation any time one of its members sets out to prove that his colleagues are in a utility's pocket.  

Wonder why your APS bill has gone up?

For more than two years, Burns has been trying to get APS to come clean on whether it secretly spent $3.2 million to get Commissioners Tom Forese and Doug Little elected in 2014.

Two years later, APS openly spent another $4.2 million to get Commissioners Boyd Dunn, Andy Tobin and yes, even Burns, elected. (Better Burns than a Democrat, it seems.)

Less than a year later, the all-Republican commission voted 4-1 to raise your utility rates, allowing APS to rake in another $95 million a year.

Gee, I wonder how that happened?

We can wonder, but we won’t actually know until and unless Burns can pry open those books.

Why is the commission fighting for APS?

Burns wants to know whether APS has “undue influence” on the five-man commission. APS has fought him at every turn. You'd expect that.

But Burns' fellow regulators also have fought him every step of the way, which is both unexpected and downright alarming. 

If you believe that the commission is supposed to protecting ratepayers rather than monopoly power companies, that is.

Something to ponder between now and November, when two Corporation Commission seats will be up for grabs.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com.

MORE FROM ROBERTS:

Can Arizona's utility regulators look any worse?

APS rushes to defend APS (again, that is) 

Is the Arizona Corporation Commission corrupt?