Retiring public counsel reflects on job

Martha Hogerty, the consumer advocate for utility issues in Missouri, has called it quits after 13 years as public counsel and after saving the public about $80 million a year by de-feating rate increases, she said.

Hogerty officially retires from her position Jan. 1, 2002, after serving as head of the Office of Public Counsel since 1989, longer than any of her three predecessors.

"I have loved it ... because it's public interest work ... my client is the public," Hogerty said. She plans to return to her home base in Kansas City. Hogerty, a wi-dow, has three grown children, one of whom, a son, has followed her into the law.

The office

The public counsel position came about in 1975 when the General Assembly created the Office of Public Counsel as an agency independent of the Mis-souri Public Service Commis-sion, which regulates investor-owned utilities in the state.

Since 1989, she and her staff of 15 have legally addressed issues from all forms of regulated investor-owned utility services electric, gas, water, sewer and telecommunication.

As public counsel, Hogerty serves as the advocate before the PSC for consumers, including small businesses. She has often taken PSC to task and to court over its decisions. "That's the reason my office was established so the consumers would be able ... to appeal the decisions of the ... commission."

The public counsel must be an attorney and is appointed by the director of the Department of Economic Development. Ho-gerty, 58, graduated cum laude from the University of Mis-souri-Kansas City School of Law. Before becoming public counsel, she was the deputy chief hearing examiner for the PSC.

As public counsel, Hogerty testifies before the General As-sembly about the effects of utility legislation, and her technical experts also offer comments and testimony to state and federal regulators, the courts and the state legislature about regulated utilities.

"I have been fortunate to have chosen a career so personally satisfying," she said. "Although we are outgunned by the utility monopolies every step of the way, I am proud to say we have made a difference," Hogerty said Dec. 7 when she an-nounced her retirement.

John Coffman, deputy public counsel, said at the time of the announcement that Hogerty "is a tenacious and loyal advocate for the public and the regular folks who don't have the re-sources to protect their own interests and press for just and reasonable rates. She has set the highest standard for integrity and dedication to public service for all of us."

Hogerty said "I am confident that Missouri consumers will continue to be well-represented by the Office of Public Coun-sel's dedicated and committed staff." She said that most of her staff has been with her a long time.

Deregulation

Electric utility deregulation has been a great bug-a-boo during her tenure. Hogerty has worked to make sure that the legislature hasn't been too hasty to pass bills on the issue. Mis-souri has plenty of low-cost energy now, she said.

Hogerty helped defeat deregulation proposals this past session, and, in a Feb. 22 press release, she didn't mince words. She called the legislative proposals "a step in the wrong direction for Missouri. The new proposal(s) ... could have profound adverse effects on the future reliability and prices of our power supplies in Missouri."

In a letter to the General Assembly, she told legislators that the bills would let utilities transfer or sell their power plants with little or no state oversight, undermining the PSC's mission.

She argued that once the power plants separate from the utility, Missouri loses its authority to ensure that there are enough generation supplies to provide reliable service to customers. The state would also lose authority over the costs of power.

The bills proposed this past session, she said, included "some of the same basic elements that allowed the crisis to occur in California." She added, "The incumbent utilities are dying to get this going ..."

Rate cases

As she leaves office, Hogerty and her staff are battling a 17 percent rate in-crease request from Utilicorp, which re-cently merged with St. Joseph Light and Power.

"Rate cases are very labor intensive," she said. "We have five or six a year. Each case takes 11 months to complete. The work includes a complete audit of the company's books." The hearings before the PSC are "trial-like experts testify, and lawyers cross-examine witnesses and submit trial brief on legal issues, she said.

The problem with the Utilicorp case, Hogerty added, is that when it asked for a rate increase, it didn't include any financial information from the new power and light company with which it merged.

Phone service

The most disappointing case she could think of during her tenure concerned tel-ephone service to rural areas, Hogerty said. As one of her first cases, she helped to bring in toll-free service for calls from small rural towns to their nearest "community of interest" town.

Consumers loved it, she said, because every call they had made before to anywhere was always a toll call. But about four years ago the PSC discontinued what it called a "subsidized service" be-cause it anticipated competition in the long-distance service business. But, Ho-gerty added, rural areas are "the last places to get competition."

She said she worries about South-western Bell's getting into longdistance because the company already has about 90 percent of the local phone service customers now.

However, she said, the FCC an-nounced on Dec. 11 that one of the things she has fought for has come to pass giving wireless customers their own area code.

As public counsel, she has been active in energy issues. She was appointed this year by Gov. Bob Holden to the Missouri Energy Policy Task Force after he was elected and helped to prepare a report to "advise him about energy issues."

She also serves on the advisory council for the Center for Public Utilities at New Mexico State University and was appointed to serve as the consumer advocate representative on the FCC's Joint Board. The board's job is to preserve and advance universal telephone service as provided in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Hogerty said.

Universal service funds are taken out of the monthly telephone bill and go to the Universal Administrative Company, a private not-for-profit corporation that has the responsibility to ensure access to affordable telecommunications in every state and territory in the United States, including hard-to-access rural areas and low-income areas.