In an op-ed in the Detroit News published April 27, CUB President Kelly Jo Kitchen makes the case against a proposed bill that would cut funding that makes it possible for groups like CUB to intervene in rate cases.
At a cost of just around 25 cents per year from each Michigan family the Utility Consumer Representation Fund ensures “that nonprofit watchdogs have the expert witnesses needed to challenge utility giants in court,” Kitchen writes. But House Bill 5710 would eliminate the fund, and “the result would be that opposition groups would be unable to intervene in electric and gas rate case filings in which utilities ask regulators to hike rates, often by hundreds of millions of dollars per year.”
On April 14 CUB General Counsel John Liskey testified before the Michigan House Committee on Energy about the bill, as we covered on the CUB blog.