Potential Texas Law Poised to Disrupt PUC Rate Proceeding
A Texas bill that’s one step away from law may disrupt a proceeding on rate rebalancing, officials said. The Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 583 on May 25, which will change the course of a key telecom proceeding, many companies have argued. The law would reduce the PUC’s role in setting rates for certain companies. Both the PUC proceeding and the bill have implications for the Texas USF and its small and rural ILEC universal service plan, and stakeholders are attempting to reconcile changes that may be on the way. Earlier this spring, a multitude of parties sought to halt the rate proceeding, begun in January and carrying out a 2011 law, due to a variety of different bills proposed that would affect the state USF (CD March 13 p13).
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Some companies sought late last month to be left out of the PUC’s rate proceeding if SB 583 becomes law. A group of companies dubbed the Movants filed a joint conditional motion to be dismissed from the proceeding on May 23. The bill would change Texas law to limit the PUC’s rate-setting process to “each small or rural incumbent local exchange company that is not receiving frozen support” and that is “not an electing company,” which these companies argue they are not. For these companies, “the commission annually shall set the company’s monthly support amounts for the following 12 months by dividing by 12 the annualized support amount calculated under this subsection,” according to the bill’s text. “Unless the Movants are dismissed in a timely manner, they will be required to file their Direct Testimony on July 10, 2013 and otherwise participate in a docket that will not apply to them if SB 583 becomes law,” the motion said (http://bit.ly/13nUnwU). The entities -- some representing many small companies on their own -- consist of Big Bend Telephone Co., Eastex Telephone Cooperative, Valley Telephone Cooperative, the Alenco Group, Hill Country Group and Ganado Group. The bill will become law by June 16 if Gov. Rick Perry (R) doesn’t veto it, they said.
The PUC staff supports the companies’ conditional motion for dismissal, the staff said in a Tuesday filing (http://bit.ly/ZSX8bl). Staff called “inappropriate” including those companies, if the bill becomes law. The PUC initially was scheduled to consider the issue at its Thursday meeting but did not.
Other companies pointed out other complicating factors and debated how any dismissal order should refer to SB 583. The USF Reform Coalition, consisting of Sprint, tw telecom of Texas and the Texas Cable Association, joined with Texaltel to urge the PUC to limit its conclusions about the bill when dismissing the Movants. That group did not object to dismissing the Movant companies. The USF Reform Coalition and Texaltel “agree that SB 583’s effect is to exempt the Moving ILECs from this case and the potential reduction to support they will receive from the Small and Rural ILEC ('SRILEC') Universal Service Plan beginning in 2014,” their Monday filing said (http://bit.ly/187zDP9). “However, SB 583 does not preclude the Commission from subsequently conducting a similar proceeding with an effective date as early as January 2015.”
That’s “an admittedly unripe legal interpretation of SB 583 in support of a narrowly drawn order of dismissal” and a “faulty reading” of the bill’s statutes, countered a group of small telcos filing as the Alenco Group Wednesday (http://bit.ly/ZSXpLr). It said the PUC “need not address the legal arguments advanced by the USF Coalition regarding construction of SB 583, given that the only action sought by the Motion before the Commission is a simple order dismissing the Movant Companies from Docket 41097.” On Wednesday, Big Bend Telephone, Eastex Telephone Cooperative and Valley Telephone Cooperative said they all concurred with Alenco in their own filing (http://bit.ly/19MjCwr). Another 26 companies concurred Thursday, filing as the Hill Country Group (http://bit.ly/192cMnM).