By Jonathan Selden
R.I.P. Questar bill.
Two weeks into the 2001 legislative session, House Bill 320, the controversial law approved last year to abolish the Committee of Consumer Services, is being wheeled out of the Capitol and loaded into a hearse, one Democratic lawmaker said Monday.
Rep. Gary Cox, D-Kearns, said a bill he introduced to repeal the law has won the blessing of HB 320''s sponsor, House Majority Whip David Ure, R-Kamas, and will precede Ure''s re-write of the bill later this session.
'We''re going to run them in tandem,' Cox said.
Ure did not return a message left with the House Leadership secretary or a phone message left at his home to confirm Cox''s statement, but he has been seen recently working with Cox.
Passed in a flurry during the final days of last year''s legislative session, HB 320 was immediately criticized by consumer advocates who argued that Ure let Questar lobbyists write their own law.
'(HB 320) is about the ability of investor owned utilities to make it easier to put rates up and harder for others to get them to put them down,' said Roger Ball, administrative secretary to the Committee of Consumer Services.
The law does not go into effect until July 1, something House Speaker Marty Stephens, R-Farr West, said was a built-in measure to give lawmakers enough time to study it.
But Stephens, one of a few Republican representatives to vote against Ure''s bill last year, signaled that the law would be changed during this session.
'Representative Ure is not opposed to an independent public advocate office and that will be part of his new legislation,' he said.
Even Governor Mike Leavitt who strategically allowed the ill-fated bill to become law last year by not signing it, joined in on the bill bash.
'We must assure that Utah''s consumer services committee continues to operate as an independent advocate for small-rate payers,' he said in his televised State of the State address.
For all of this public mind changing, only Ure has held his ground.
'The Governor has his opinion and I have my opinion,' Ure said after the Governor''s speech.
Democrat Cox disputed the reasoning that it was odd for Ure, a Republican, to allow him to act as the savior of Utah utility customers.
'This is not a partisan issue,' Cox said, who voted against Ure''s bill last year. 'We have a two-fold purpose: to protect the interests of consumers and create an atmosphere where companies providing utilities can prosper.'
But partisan or not, Republicans and Democrats have not always had such shiny noses about the issue.
'We have called for the repeal of House Bill 320 since its passage, and we continue that effort in this legislative session, House Minority Leader Ralph Becker, D-Salt Lake, said.
'Removing the voice for the average consumer in setting utility rates . . . will only further place rate increases on the backs of Utah consumers. We need to improve.'
But improvement is not what Ball thought of Monday when he reviewed an unofficial draft of Ure''s new legislation.
'The draft bill is favorable to utilities, unfavorable to customers. The committee''s position is that, as it stands at the moment, House Bill 320 should just be repealed,' he said.