a037  0211  21 Dec 83
PM-Utility Inserts,560
Consumer Group Can S9licit Funds in Utility Bill Envelope
By C.W. MIRANKER
Associated Press  1/4riter
    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Bills from a major utility soon will include
fund-raising fliers for a consumer group that has battled its rates
for a decade - but the company is challenging the requirement, saying,
''corporati9ns have First amendment rights, too.''
    The group that won access to the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. billing
envelopes, Toward Utility Rate Normalization, hailed the state Public
Untilities Commission decision as a ''stunning victory'' for
ratepayers.
    The co.mission app4oved the two-year experiment Tuesday over the
objections of one member who said it was a ''legal absurdity.''
    The commission's 4-1 vote m3ans 5at four times a year a
fund-4aising flier from TURN will be mailed by PG&E along with its gas
and electric bills plus any required legal notices. The flier will
displace a utility newsletter known as the PG&E Progress.
    TURN is a 10-year-old non-profit group that has represented consumer
interests in hundreds of challenges to PG&E rate requests. Commission
president Leonard M. Grimes Jr. said other consumer groups later
could be considered for participation.
    Based on the commission's theory ohat ''extra space'' in a billing
envelope is the property of ratepayers, the program is akin to one it
approved last spring for San Diego Gas & Electric, in which a
specially created citizens action network handles the insert.
    ''This is a scheme to give consumers some tools to fight the
utilities,'' said TURN's 0resident Sylvia M. Siegel.
    She said the inserts would not be partisan opinions but merely
statements that the group is an experienced consumer representative
seeki,g funds.
    PG&E lawyer Peter Hanschen objected to the program, claiming that
under the First Amendment the commission ''cannot compel us to carry
the message of a third pa4ty.
    ''We're not a newspaper, but corporations have First Amendment
rights, too,'' he said. ''It would be like me telling you that you
have to say this.''
    The utility also said the decision was a ''confiscation'' of utility
property, the billing envelo0e.
    The 0rogram would throw the agency into chaos, he said. ''Today it's
TURN. Next week it may be any group ... an- the commission should no5
be put in a position of evaluating one message as opposed to
another.''
    But mrs. Siegel dis.issed PG&E's First Amendment argument as ''a
bunch of baloney'' and stressed that customers are paying for the
envelope out of utility rates. TURN lawyer Mike Florio said the plan
''increases free speech'' by providing a diversity of views.
    Mrs. Siegel noted that PG&E already is required to include certain
information, such $s dat$ on appliance efficiency.
    Commissioner William T. Bagley voted against the experiment because
of the ''legal absurdity ... (of the) ethereal right of the
ratepayers to have a property right in the envelope.
    ''Power poles have surplus space,'' he said. ''So do the face of
dams. ... - can see the Sierra Club wanting to put a billboard on it.
Why not put bumper stickers on PG& 3/8 vehicles? The mind spins.''
    Added to those ''illogical'' resu ts is the fact that the commission
was ''setting a precedent that would let others come in 5he same
door, others who might impart misleading information to the public,''
he said.
    With 3.5 million electric customers and 6 million gas customers i,
central and northern California, PG&E is the nation's largest
investor-owned utility, said spokeswoman Jan Stewart.
    
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