Eighteen years after Georgia eliminated its consumer utility advocate, the fight to bring the office back recently resurfaced at a Senate hearing.

“I’m frustrated,” Robert Baker told the state Senate’s Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee in February. “I have been frustrated for 15 years.”

Baker has pushed to restore Georgia’s Consumer Utilities Counsel (CUC) since retiring from the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) in 2011. The counsel was defunded in 2008, and the latest effort to revive it failed again this month.

Georgia created its CUC in the 1970s, like many other states, to represent consumers in complex utility rate cases and challenge rising electricity prices. Lawmakers defunded the office during the recession, and two years later it was formally repealed. Today, Georgia remains one of only four states without a statutory utility consumer advocate.

An Uneven Playing Field

Utility cases are often sprawling legal proceedings, with teams of lawyers, economists and expert witnesses debating issues such as electricity rates, power plant construction and long-term energy plans. At the end of the process, the five elected members of the Georgia Public Service Commission act like judges, weighing arguments from the utility and those representing the public before making a decision. In Georgia, however, the consumer side of that equation has had no official advocate since the office was eliminated.

Groups such as the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and the Sierra Club often intervene and testify before the Georgia Public Service Commission. But they do not start on the same playing field as the teams of lawyers and experts representing Georgia Power.

These groups cannot participate directly in settlement negotiations, often lack the discovery rights needed to access the information available to utilities and regulators and have limited ability to challenge commission procedures in court.

Everyday ratepayers can also testify and submit public comments. But without access to the same information and with a fraction of the expertise of utility lawyers and economists their influence in complex regulatory proceedings is often limited.

A CUC would have access to the same information as Georgia Power and PSC staff and could participate directly in settlement discussions. The office’s role would be to advocate for residential and small business ratepayers in utility cases, challenging utilities when they seek rate increases and scrutinizing the costs they ask customers to pay.

During the office’s more than 30 years of existence, the consumer advocate was meant to balance utilities’ financial interests with the needs of ratepayers and small businesses, according to former commissioner Robert Baker and other former regulators.

A 2010 article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted each commissioner serving at the time—including some who often clashed with counsel staff—expressing concern about the loss of the office.

“There’s just nobody that represents residential ratepayers anymore, and the cumulative impact has been one rate increase after another,” Baker said. “Georgia Power just gets whatever they want.”

Georgia Power declined to comment.

One of the most troubling changes since Baker’s time as a commissioner is how PSC proceedings themselves have evolved. Cases that once took six months—allowing time for evidence, testimony and public intervention—can now take as little as a day, as PSC staff and Georgia Power enter settlement agreements before evidence is even presented or ratepayers are given the chance to speak.

A $7.56 billion decision to pass construction costs from the expansion of nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle—the most expensive power plant ever built after running more than $20 billion over budget—onto ratepayers was approved in just one day after a settlement agreement between PSC staff and Georgia Power. Georgia customers will now spend the next 30 to 40 years paying for the project.

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In South Carolina, the fallout from the Vogtle expansion prompted lawmakers to reinstate and strengthen the state’s consumer utilities advocate. An independent utilities advocate at the time could have challenged or participated in the settlement conversations.

Advocates say another consequence has been the rates themselves. Between 2010 and 2024, residential electricity prices rose about 50 percent in Georgia, while rates for industrial users increased just 15 percent.

“We are very concerned about residential folks picking up the bill for these really expensive power plants,” said Doug Teper, a lobbyist for Georgia Conservation Voters. “Going way back it used to be coal plants, and now it’s an enormous amount of energy buildout to power data centers.”

The PSC recently approved a 10-gigawatt buildout of new energy projects for data centers, costs that customers are expected to help recover.

The Politics of Bringing the CUC Back

Efforts to revive the CUC have faced opposition from lawmakers and PSC commissioners.

Tom Bond, the PSC’s director of utilities, testified against the bill in 2025 on behalf of the commission, saying “the commission doesn’t believe that we necessarily need a CUC.” At the time, all five Republican commissioners opposed the measure. Now, however, the two newly elected Democratic commissioners—the first Democrats elected to non-federal statewide office since 2006—have expressed support for reviving the office.

According to Bond and the Republican commissioners, a CUC would be redundant, since the PSC already has a Public Interest Advocacy staff tasked with representing small commercial and residential ratepayers—the same role the CUC would fill.

PSC staff work directly for the commissioners, who have faced accusations of conflicts of interest for accepting campaign contributions from Georgia Power while approving rate cases and power plant expansions. In many cases, the PSC has disagreed with the staff’s proposal and given Georgia Power more favorable deals.

Baker says the issue is independence from the commission. “Do you think someone could be fired if a few commissioners thought they were uncooperative or anti-business?” he asked. He believes they could—and that fear affects how vigorously staff fight for ratepayers.

Lawmakers such as Sen. Matt Brass, chair of the Senate Rules Committee, have also questioned whether the counsel is necessary and whether it is worth the roughly $1 million annual cost.

In 2025 and 2026, the bill passed the Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee. This year, however, the measure stalled when Brass did not bring it up for a vote in the Rules Committee, effectively killing it before it could reach the Senate floor. A similar bill passed the Senate in 2024 before stalling in the House.

Utilities have long opposed the CUC, according to Baker. When the office still existed, utilities regularly lobbied lawmakers to chip away at its budget. Campaign finance records also show that Brass, who declined to bring the bill up for a vote this year, has received donations from Georgia Power, Atlanta Gas Light and AT&T for his 2026 reelection campaign.

Brass did not respond to requests for comment.
Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, the sponsor of the CUC revival bill, said: “I think there is a reason 46 other states have someone that is independent that represents just the consumers and doesn’t report to someone who has to be the judge in the case.”