{"id":114400,"date":"2015-02-23T21:51:09","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T04:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/watchdog-agency-may-close-its-doors\/"},"modified":"2015-02-23T21:51:09","modified_gmt":"2015-02-24T04:51:09","slug":"watchdog-agency-may-close-its-doors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/watchdog-agency-may-close-its-doors\/","title":{"rendered":"Watchdog agency may close its doors"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Associated
Associated Press file photo<br><br>Unless Colorado lawmakers decide to renew the state\u2019s Office of Consumer Counsel, the watchdog agency that represents consumers in utility rate hikes will be eliminated July 1.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a result of Colorado\u2019s Sunset Law, the agency is set to expire this year. Utility companies say the OCC, launched in 1984 when telephone companies were monopolies, should not be reauthorized.<\/p>\n

But Bill Levis, a volunteer for AARP Colorado and former OCC director, says the agency has been a good investment for consumers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe OCC, in that time period, has saved consumers over $1.6 billion,\u201d says Levis, \u201cwhich is about a 3,000 percent rate of return.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says without the OCC, the only parties that would appear in front of the Public Utilities Commission, which regulates telecommunications as well as energy, would be the utility companies in rate-hike cases.<\/p>\n

Lobbyists from CenturyLink and the Colorado Telecommunications Association say the OCC\u2019s mission is out-of-date, and that Colorado lags behind other states when it comes to deregulating telecom.<\/p>\n

Levis says consumers in states without agencies like the OCC end up paying more and deregulating industry isn\u2019t the answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t want any oversight,\u201d says Levis. \u201cWithout groups like the OCC, the industry can basically do what it wants, and that\u2019s a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the General Assembly doesn\u2019t renew the OCC, the consumer watchdog agency will fade into the sunset July 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Associated Press file photo<br><br>Unless Colorado lawmakers decide to renew the state\u2019s Office of Consumer Counsel, the watchdog agency that represents consumers in utility rate hikes will be eliminated July 1. As a result of Colorado\u2019s Sunset Law, the agency is set to expire this year. Utility companies say the OCC, launched in 1984 when telephone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":114401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5742,5735],"tags":[13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-114400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114400"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=114400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}