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Public Service Commission - TPR's In Focus - April 3, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from Troy University's Trojan Café,
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  offering handcrafted Starbucks beverages and a wide assortment of meal and snack options,
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  located on Troy University's Montgomery campus, across from the Rosa Parks Library and Museum.
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  From Troy Public Radio, this is the News Wrap from In Focus, and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson.
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  Todd Stacy, host of Alabama Public Television's Capitol Journal,
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  discusses the Public Service Commission Expansion Bill. Its purpose is to increase
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  accountability to consumers by utility companies. And the wild card is about doggy DNA.
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  Todd, welcome back to the News Wrap. Good to be with you, as always.
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  What is the big news this week? Well, we are winding down this
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  legislative session, only three days left. And this week, lawmakers gave final passage
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  to legislation that would overhaul the Public Service Commission. That's the body that regulates
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  utilities, the gas company, the power company, and so on. This is in pursuit of trying to rein
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  in energy prices, electricity prices, that have really gone up and gotten out of hand in the view
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  of a lot of people. What this bill would do is, first of all, expand the Public Service Commission.
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  Right now, it's three members. This would be seven, based on the congressional districts.
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  It would also create the job of a cabinet-level Secretary of Energy that would work with the PSC
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  to regulate energy. But the big points of controversy came on whether or not to require
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  rate hearings. That's what the House bill did. And that's been a demand from a lot of folks saying,
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  hey, you need to force the PSC to have rate hearings, to bring in the power company,
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  bring in the gas company, and whomever else to justify their rates. The final version did not
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  mandate that. And there's a little bit of a semantic difference in what a rate hearing is
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  and a case hearing. They're still going to have to have hearings. They're going to be required to
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  have one public hearing every year. But it's not the technical, attorney-driven, litigation-heavy
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  rate case hearings. They can still call those anytime they want, but they're not mandated to
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  because they're pretty complicated. If the whole idea is more transparency in the PSC and
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  energy in general, then I think they've done a lot to ensure more transparency.
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  Todd, I noticed on your Alabama Daily News that this is called the Power to the People Act.
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  It's appropriate in this sense because it's really been in response to constituents,
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  folks around the state saying, hey, my power bill's too high. It's gone up. We're in an
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  affordability crisis. And so lawmakers are reacting to that and trying to figure out what
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  they can do to lower power rates. This is not going to do it overnight, but at least more
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  transparency in the process could lead to lower rates down the road. It has now gone to the
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  governor, and I expect her to sign it. Well, Todd, let's change gears and get a wild card.
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  Well, I'm going to take a point of personal privilege and make my own dog, Toby, the wild
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  card because I just did the doggy DNA test. It's called MBARC. You swab the dog's mouth and send
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  off the DNA. I've been so excited about this. He's just a mutt. He was a rescue. And I've always
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  wondered, what is he? So I just got the results back, and Toby is half and half, half American
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  pit bull terrier, which kind of checks out. He has that look. But the surprise was he's also 50%
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  chihuahua. I did not see that coming. I guess that's where he gets his smaller build. It's
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  really fun as a dog dad to do it. I recommend it. Doggy DNA. I like it. Absolutely. Okay, who is on
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  Capitol Journal? State Senator Clyde Chambliss of Prattville. He's the sponsor of that PSC bill,
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  or in the Senate at least. And so he's going to walk through everything you need to know about it.
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  And also going to be talking with State Representative Anthony Daniels. He's the
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  minority leader in the House. He's going to talk from the Democrats' perspective about
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  the budgets and this police bill having to do with Montgomery and his reaction to that.
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  Also going to be talking with former head basketball coach at Auburn, Bruce Pearl. I
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  hope you'll watch tonight. We've got a great show, Capitol Journal, tonight at 7.30 on APT.
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  And Sunday at noon and on YouTube.
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  Always.
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  Well, Todd, thank you so much for the news rep.
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  Thank you.
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  That was Todd Stacy, host of Alabama Public Television's Capitol Journal.
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  Their website is aptv.org. Thanks for joining us for the news rep from In Focus,
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  which is a podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
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  I'm Carolyn Hutcheson, and this is listener-supported Troy Public Radio.