WASHINGTON—The California Public Utilities Commission today voted to replace the existing bill of rights for telecom consumers with one far less regulatory and highly dependent on state enforcement.
“This decision is a prime example of the commission’s desire to use the power of market forces whenever possible in lieu of commission edict,” said CPUC President Michael R. Peevey. “Static rules in a dynamic, competitive environment are not the best use of this commission’s resources. Instead, we should be providing timely information to educate consumers and promptly enforce our rules. These basic principles will stand the test of time even as the telecommunications market continues to evolve.”
The Peevey plan was largely crafted by former commissioner Susan Kennedy, a pro-business Democrat who left the agency to become chief of staff to GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in January.
Peevey, also a pro-business Democrat, was joined in today’s vote by Schwarzenegger-appointed GOP Commissioners John Bohn and Rachelle Chong.
Dian Grueneich, a Democrat put on the CPUC by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, picked up qualified support from Commissioner Geoffrey Brown for an alternate plan with fewer wireless guidelines than the existing bill of rights but more regulatory than the Kennedy-Peevey proposal.
By the same 3-to-2 margin as today’s vote, the CPUC in May 2004 approved a Brown-authored bill of rights containing new guidelines governing disclosure, billing, marketing and other business practices of wireless carriers and other telecom operators. The mobile-phone industry and Schwarzenegger were highly critical of the 2004 ruling. The wireless industry preferred the Kennedy-Peevey bill of rights over the Grueneich plan, but argued no new state wireless regulations were necessary. Still, today’s action by the CPUC is a major victory for industry. The decision is apt to renew efforts in the Democratic-controlled California legislature to pass a telecom consumer bill-of-rights law along the lines of the Brown rule that was effectively eviscerated today in San Francisco.
Brown called the new Kennedy-Peevey bill of rights “an inducement to massive, pervasive and unaccountable fraud” and a “deception designed to hoodwink the public into thinking the PUC is actually protecting them.”
