Report: New Arizona Corporation Commission Chair to Pursue Electric Choice

Bob Stump, the newly designated chair of the Arizona Corporation Commission, wants the Commission to investigate whether electric choice should be introduced to Arizona, according to a report by the Verde Independent.

Stump, a Republican, was re-elected to the Commission this fall, in an election that saw Republicans Bob Burns and Susan Bitter Smith newly win seats.

The five-member Commission is now completely composed by Republicans, though that had been the case for nearly a decade prior to the 2008 election of several Democrats, and prior Republican-composed Commissioners did not actively pursue the implementation of electric choice.

In a speech after being voted chair of the ACC by his colleagues, Stump indicated that he, as described by the Verde Independent, "wants the commission to determine if the time is right for Arizona to allow for competition in electric rates."

Arizona statute permits electric choice, but the original rules to implement choice were struck by a state court, and the ACC has never adopted new rules to permit customers to participate in electric choice (aside from the recently adopted, capped wholesale buy-through program now in place at APS).

Since 2008, the ACC has conducted two investigations into re-opening retail choice, but in each Staff concluded that further investigation was warranted, and the Commission did not take any formal action to restart choice.

Matters has maintained that Arizona has been one of the few states where a new introduction to electric choice is possible, because composition of the ACC can be directly changed at the ballot box, but interestingly electric choice was not an issue in the 2012 election.

According to the Arizona Daily Star, while several Republicans generally expressed support for the free market during the election, they were, at best, circumspect of retail choice, and it was not a priority for several of them.

For example, the Arizona Daily Star reported in October 2012 that Susan Bitter Smith, who won a seat as a Commissioner, said electric competition won't be among her top priorities. Newly elected Commissioner Bob Burns also said, "Competition gives you the best service at the lowest cost ... but you need to have a number of competitors in the marketplace -- if you don't, you trade one monopoly for another," according to the Daily Star.

Any introduction of electric choice in Arizona is expected to be opposed by both the investor-owned and public power utilities and Residential Utility Consumer Office