WASHINGTON-The City of San Francisco and a consumer group asked the California Public Utilities Commission for a rehearing of the agency’s decision to suspend the telecom consumer bill of rights while the new guidelines are re-examined.
“The commission’s decision staying the bill of rights is arbitrary, capricious and lacking in evidentiary support … The record here identifies no change in circumstances that provides a basis for the reversal of rules adopted seven months earlier or relieves the commission of the obligation to base its decisions on substantial evidence in the record,” said City Attorney Dennis Herrera.
On Jan. 27, the CPUC voted 3-1 in favor of Commissioner Susan Kennedy’s proposal to put the bill of rights on hold so new regulations governing carrier advertising, billing and contracts can be further scrutinized.
California regulators narrowly approved the bill of rights last May.
Kennedy, who wants a wholesale review of the state’s telecom regulatory scheme, has been critical of the consumer rule. So have GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the mobile-phone industry, which has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into lobbying to derail the measure. Schwarzenegger and the carriers argue regulations crafted to aid consumers will end up hurting them and undercut the state’s economic recovery.
Consumer advocates, city officials and state Attorney General Bill Lockyer are fighting to prevent the bill of from being gutted or overturned.
“The commission is creating opportunities for future mischief if it even suggests in a formal decision that the agency sees the filing of litigation challenging one of its decisions as an automatic basis, even in part, for granting a stay of the implementation of that decision,” stated The Utilities Reform Network.
The nation’s top five mobile-phone operators challenged the CPUC bill-of-rights decision in federal court last September. On Jan. 28,the day after the CPUC voted to suspend the bill of rights, the cellular carriers voluntarily withdrew the suits. However, the mobile-phone firms have the option of re-filing suits at a later date.
