Utahn wants Utah Power to cease its 'social work'
This week Mecham, a West Valley resident, urged the state Public Service Commission to reconsider an order that offers assistance to low-income Utah Power customers who need help paying their electricity bills.
Simply put, Mecham believes the program amounts to an unlawful tax that does little to help the people it is targeted to serve. He's been fighting the program since 2000, the year it was started.
"The commission's authority is spelled out very specifically," Mecham said. "It does not include social work. Their actions are contrary to the Utah code."
In November, the commission approved the continuation of the Home Electric Lifeline Program, or HELP.
The program assists low-income customers who earn 125 percent or less of the federal poverty level by providing them an $8 monthly credit on their power bills. The tab is picked up by Utah Power's 722,000 customers under a monthly line-item charge. Residential customers pay 12 cents a month to fund the program, an amount recently reduced to 10 cents a month.
"As the ultimate result of the commission's actions, (Utah Power parent company) PacifiCorp's ratepayers who do not qualify for HELP have paid nearly $2 million per year to support a program they have not authorized and likely do not even know about," Mecham said. "It's not through the taxing process, through the Legislature, as it should have been."
"However laudable the purpose for HELP," Mecham said, "the program was designed and approved outside the scope of the commission's authority. . . . The funding for HELP violates Utah's third-party billing law and must be terminated."
Ric Campbell, Public Service Commission chairman, dismisses Mecham's arguments. In November, the commission also rejected a proposal by groups like Salt Lake Community Action Program, a nonprofit agency that works to help low-income families, and the Utah Committee of Consumer Services to increase the subsidy to $11.25 per month.
"The argument made by Mr. Mecham is that this is charity, that the commission is performing income redistribution," Campbell said. "Had we moved it up to $11, that argument might have been stronger. But at the $8 level, with the 10 cents per customer that they are paying, the evidence showed that all customers are better off."
Campbell said a stringent cost-benefit analysis showed that HELP reduced arrearages at Utah Power.
"Because it reduces arrearages, it reduces the expenses of the company so that all customers are better off," Campbell said. "The benefits exceed the cost of the program. At the same time, it does help those in the low-income bracket."
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