Forty years ago, Denver lawyer Bryant O’Donnell departed his private firm to serve as general counsel for the Public Service Company of Colorado. An Arab oil embargo and long lines to reach gas pumps in the 1970s remained fresh in voters’ minds. The Republican majority at the legislature was responsive enough to this anxiety to create the Colorado Energy Research Institute (CERI) at the Colorado School of Mines. A decade would pass before CERI was euthanized by a Republican majority which correctly concluded very little had been achieved to benefit energy consumers.

Nonetheless, for a few short years there existed a bipartisan recognition that a conservation ethic shrinking energy consumption served the public interest. Several legislative proposals were crafted requiring Colorado’s regulated utilities to cultivate conservation habits on the part of their customers. In testimony before the House Transportation and Energy Committee, O’Donnell declared, “Public Service Company isn’t in the conservation business, we’re in the energy business,” proceeding to express his employer’s opposition to every conservation bill before the legislature.

Serving as a member of the House Committee at the time, I challenged the General Counsel by stating, “I’m afraid your declaration reflects a Neanderthal view of your employer’s responsibilities. As a regulated monopoly, you are in whatever business this legislature determines you will offer to the public. If that definition is amended to require the provision of conservation services, then Public Service will be in both the energy and conservation businesses thereafter. Isn’t that true, Mr. O’Donnell?” Following several minutes of huffing and puffing, expounding on the limits of existing law, which failed to mention conservation, he conceded that, yes, the legislature had the authority to alter the company’s responsibilities.

It will not come as a surprise to learn the next day’s headline reported, “Denver Legislator Calls Public Service Neanderthals.” Not precisely what I said, of course, but a hook that surely prompted readers to peruse the first few paragraphs of the story. In the years since, Public Service changed ownership following its purchase by Northern States Power out of Minneapolis and it now does business as Xcel Energy. Xcel executives have proven far more flexible toward policy change — having linked arms with both environmental advocates and natural gas providers to shut down its coal-fired generation plants in favor of natural gas and renewables. This strategy permits the company to still recover investments stranded in coal-fired assets as an included cost of decarbonization of our electric grid.

Xcel’s early adoption of a zero-carbon goal not only salvages millions of dollars for the company but serves the environmental interests of Colorado residents as well. Despite criticism from fossil fuel adherents, the state’s increasing reliance on renewables — now approaching 50% for electric generation — has actually delivered substantial savings to customers. This has not been as true on the heating and natural gas generation side of Colorado’s energy equation. The volatility of natural gas pricing spiked this winter’s heating bills by 50%. And more, a substantial portion of this increase attributable to the recovery of runaway costs incurred during the Arctic blast the winter before last. Collecting a surcharge in the middle of winter was a blunder, although a public utility commission analyst explained linking this surcharge to winter usage had assigned more of the cost onto commercial consumers.

Democratic leadership’s creation of a Joint Select Committee on Rising Utility Rates shortly after the legislature convened this year is political proof squeaky wheels do get the grease. Not only was this an unusual move, but it falls into the same class of “let’s pretend we’re doing something” government interventions along with Blue Ribbon Governor’s Commissions. What distinguishes the Utility Rates Committee from other Interim Study Commissions or Blue Ribbon Panels is an absence of civilian membership. For those who have been observing the Committee’s deliberations, it’s evident the members would benefit from participation by individuals genuinely conversant regarding the regulatory hearing process at the Public Utilities Commission (PUC).

Absent familiarity with that framework, the committee has sidetracked itself into a focus on a trivial concern with the longstanding practice of permitting utilities to recover their legal and expert witness costs when participating in rate hearings. You only have to pause for a moment to recognize this is a perfectly reasonable practice. Regulatory compliance costs are an inherent component of public oversight, characterized by the complexity of the historic “regulatory bargain.” One way or the other, these costs are reasonably subject to recovery, either as an operating expense, or through a formal reimbursement mechanism. This is an expense imposed to assure fair treatment for customers and, therefore, should be treated as a customer cost. Relative to the total size of utility budgets, however, these charges are little more than a pimple on an elephant’s rump.

Looking back 40 years, it was telecommunications that then occupied the bulk of attention at the PUC. The Bell System break-up was pending, and no one was quite sure how to unravel nearly a century of encrusted cross subsidies that kept access to residential telephone service cheap while expecting business customers to overpay for long distance. Emerging technologies provided the wedge that allowed long distance carriers to skim off the fiscal cream from industry revenues. Whatever the wisdom of divestiture, the introduction of cell phones, followed by smart phones and streaming services linked to the internet were destined to restructure telecommunications. It was competition that flattened the telecom playing field and allowed carriers to escape from most regulation.

Though a few tweaks are available in the energy marketplace, including a more robust reliance on long-term, flat-rate fuel delivery contracts — agreements that can offer fiscal stability to both utilities and their suppliers — few technological fixes lurk over the horizon. Decarbonization and renewables are likely to save consumers money over the long run, but this conversion will not prove as seamless as the shift from copper wires to cell towers. The transmission grid and gas pipelines will remain chokepoints resistant to cheap fixes.

Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former Colorado legislator.