Bill overhauling Alabama Public Service Commission delayed

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Alabama lawmakers are considering what would be a sweeping change to the state’s utility regulatory board. The members of the Public Service Commission are currently elected to their positions. Under this new proposal, commissioners would be appointed. We talk about that and other legislative matters with Todd Stacy, host of Capitol Journal on Alabama Public Television. He spoke with WBHM’s Andrew Yeager.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

This PSC bill got a hearing in a House committee this week, and as I understand it, that hearing became somewhat combative, heated. Tell us what happened.

Heated is a good word. This bill would make, like you said, the Public Service Commission an appointed body rather than an elected one. Any time that kind of thing happens, people are going to have opinions about it. Same thing happened with a similar proposal for the state school board a few years back.

In this case, it involves the Public Service Commission that sets power rates. And with electricity rates like they are, people are certainly going to be worked up about that. You heard plenty of that, of opposition. But again, the bill sponsors say that this change is needed to have more stability on the Public Service Commission to take politics out of it. I mean, sometimes you see statewide races costing millions and millions of dollars. And so that’s kind of the intent.

But yeah, there’s been plenty of pushback, enough to where the House was supposed to vote on that bill this week. And it got pulled from the House agenda kind of at the last minute because there have been so many concerns raised.

And some of those concerns, is there any sense that they will be worked out in some meaningful way? Or is this something that’s gonna be contentious down to that last vote?

There’s talk of amendments. There’s talk of including in the bill forcing the Public Service Commission to accept rate change hearings and things like that. I don’t know if that could make it into a bill, but the bill’s sponsor, State Representative Chip Brown of Mobile, said he’s open to it. He’s open to these amendments.

You’ve got to remember, it’s a bipartisan package. Each of these bills has a Republican sponsor and a Democratic sponsor. That’s significant. This came in with a head of steam. And it looked like it was going to be a bipartisan, cooperative effort. And it has slowed down as concerns have been raised.

I point to it being an election year and it being, you know, all of these state senators and state representatives have primary elections right around the corner. And so something as sensitive as electricity rates, that makes it pretty tough. So I’m not too surprised it’s been controversial.

A bill is through a Senate committee which would require Ten Commandments displays in schools. Now we’ve seen proposals like this before. What specifically does this year’s call for?

It’s pretty simple. It would require Alabama classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, and not just that, but a historical context around what it means and the Ten Commandments’ role in kind of established law and order. It’s not a new concept. It’s kind of an expansion of what happened last year. It made it through committee. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to make it all the way through the legislature.

But again, they passed something similar last year, where it was just every school had to do it, like in the lobby. This would be every classroom. That’s obviously an expansion of that. The bill sponsor says it’s not about religion. It’s more about understanding the basis of our law and all that. So we’ll see how it goes. It’s through committee, but that’s only the first of a very long process.

Finally, lawmakers now have a second gambling-related bill to consider. Representative Phillip Ensler is introducing what he’s calling a “clean” lottery bill. Give us an overview of what this “clean” proposal is supposed to be.

By the word clean, he means it’s only a lottery. There’s no sports betting attached. There’s not casino legalization attached. It’s just a up or down vote, calling for a referendum, up or a down vote on do you want a lottery or no. That’s the clean part of it. And that’s significant because usually these gambling proposals in the last several years have had those other two elements. Any poll you’ve ever heard of in the last 20 years will say that’s very popular with voters. But the tough part is getting it through the legislature.

First of all, the leadership in both houses have said they don’t want to deal with gambling this year after the last few years have really crapped out. But even more than that, the lottery is really the vehicle. Whenever, if ever, Alabama does a comprehensive gambling package, the lottery is going to be the selling point. That’s what’s really popular with voters. The other two, sports gambling and casino, aren’t that popular. And so those interests really want to attach themselves to the lottery in order to legalize it. And so they don’t want the lottery to pass by itself because they let their vehicle leave the gates. Those are two reasons why it’s unlikely to get any traction this year.