_{Thumbnail photo courtesy of Pacific Power}

By Brie Fraley

Pacific Power’s request for a 57% rate increase should concern every resident of Del Norte County. Electricity is not a luxury. It is essential to heating our homes, operating businesses, maintaining public services and meeting the everyday needs of our families. When a utility proposes an increase of this magnitude, the question is not simply whether the company can justify its expenses, but whether the communities expected to pay can afford the consequences.

I spent a short time serving in an appointed capacity with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) where I gained a deeper understanding of how utility companies are governed and how decisions affecting ratepayers are made. The CPUC is a state regulatory agency with quasi-judicial authority, meaning it functions in some ways like a court. Utility companies submit applications to increase rates, and those requests are examined through formal proceedings involving administrative law judges, commissioners, attorneys, expert testimony and financial evidence. It is a complex process that can feel almost mysterious from the outside, despite the tremendous influence these decisions have over our everyday lives. When decisions about essential services are made through a system that requires specialized legal and technical knowledge to navigate, it raises an important question about how accessible that process is to the people who ultimately bear the costs.

Pacific Power operates under PacifiCorp, an Oregon-headquartered utility serving six states. In California, its roughly 46,000 customer accounts are spread across portions of Del Norte, Siskiyou, Modoc, and Shasta counties. We represent a small fraction of its overall operations and a relatively small population within California’s utility regulatory system. Our geographic isolation should not diminish the importance of our economic circumstances or the level of scrutiny given to the costs we are being asked to pay.