Controversial PUC nominee gets panel’s OK

A controversial member of the California Public Utilities Commission, serving on an interim basis, is set to win state Senate confirmation despite opposition from consumer groups.

On Wednesday, the powerful Rules Committee sent the governor’s nomination of Rachelle B. Chong of San Francisco to the full Senate for its expected approval today.

The panel’s approval was granted despite criticism that Chong was too friendly with telecommunication companies and helped boost the profits of AT&T; and other telecom companies by approving rules that could allow them to not fully inform customers of their rights to buy low-cost services.

Chong won strong support from representatives of a telecommunications workers union, an environmental group and Asian American activists.

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) attended the meeting and signaled committee support for Chong despite consumer group opposition.

“I want to just make very clear that we do have these concerns,” he said. “I will take them up with her personally.”

He said he would be watching Chong to ensure that she more aggressively protects the rights of telecommunications customers, especially non-English speakers and low-income people.

“Appointing Ms. Chong to a consumer protection agency is like appointing Barry Bonds to an anti-steroid task force,” activist Bob Finkelstein said Wednesday. He is executive director of The Utility Reform Network, a San Francisco-based ratepayers group known as TURN.

Chong’s nomination, though hotly contested, enjoyed strong support from a number of groups that testified at a Jan. 3 Rules Committee hearing.

Ralph Cavanagh of the Natural Resources Defense Council called her “the right person for the job” and praised Chong for an early vote in favor of an ambitious state program to put solar power cells on a million roofs over the next decade.

Chong is very open-minded and has played an important role in fighting fraud against consumers with limited English skills, a lobbyist for the Communications Workers of America union has said.

Chong declined to be interviewed after the Rules Committee hearing. However, she testified earlier that she thought fostering free-market competition did not preclude protecting consumers from fraud, false advertising or unfair business practices.

A Republican, Chong is a former telecommunications lawyer and served on the Federal Communications Commission from 1994 to 1997.

She was appointed to the PUC by Schwarzenegger in January 2006 to fill the unexpired term of Susan Kennedy. Kennedy, a Democrat, left the agency late in 2005 to become the governor’s chief of staff.

Perata said his concerns about Chong’s relationship with telecom companies stem from accusations by former PUC Commissioner Geoffrey Brown.

Brown alleged that over the last year, Chong did not take “a single position, however small, averse to large incumbent telecommunications carriers.”

In a Jan. 8 letter to Democratic members of the Rules Committee, he charged that she has been such a staunch advocate of deregulation that she “consciously and deliberately ignores statute after statute, in derogation of her obligation to uphold the law.”

He cited what he said were Chong’s efforts to undermine lineman safety regulations, a so-called Telecommunications Bill of Rights for cellular phone customers, and access to low-cost telephone services.

Consumer advocates said they were disappointed but not surprised that Perata gave Chong the benefit of the doubt. They suggested that Perata wanted to send a signal of cooperation to Schwarzenegger.

marc.lifsher@latimes.com