An effort to dissolve New Hampshire’s Office of the Consumer Advocate got its first public hearing Wednesday in a House committee.

The bill is one of several lawmakers are considering that would shift the way utility companies are regulated, putting tensions between state regulators and the New Hampshire Department of Energy on display at the State House.

Rep. Ross Berry, a Weare Republican, is sponsoring the bill to repeal the Office of the Consumer Advocate, which is meant to advocate for the interests of residential ratepayers — in other words, people who pay a utility bill. Berry’s bill would roll those duties into the state’s Department of Energy.

Berry argued that change would cut government costs and attach ratepayer advocacy functions to the “much larger and more powerful” Department of Energy. He also told the committee that he didn’t believe the consumer advocate was truly independent and expressed skepticism that the efforts he has championed, including energy efficiency, were in the best interests of ratepayers.

“I would venture to you that maybe this office has kind of gotten out of its lane. Maybe it’s no longer serving its purpose. And I want to get it back to its original purpose. And I think it will be far more effective if it’s rolled into the Department of Energy,” he said.

Don Kreis has been New Hampshire’s Consumer Advocate for nine years. He told the committee that pulling his role into a state agency risked leaving ratepayers without anybody to advocate for their interests.

“The independence of the Office of the Consumer Advocate is our superpower. The energy-related policy agendas of the two major political parties ebb and flow. Democrats love to extract special favors for the solar industry or big wind. Republicans are keen on building nuclear reactors,” he said. “I am not here to criticize any of that. My job, however, is to point out that however virtuous those policy imperatives are, they cost ratepayers money, often too much money.”

Kreis said that if the job were rolled into a state agency, it would face pressure to follow the governor's policy agenda, rather than the agenda of the state’s consumers.

Advocates from the AARP and New Hampshire Legal Assistance testified against dissolving the office, along with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.

Strafford Republican Rep. Michael Harrington, who previously served on the Public Utilities Commission, said the office was important because it provided a counterweight for the large teams of lobbyists and lawyers that argue on behalf of the interests of utilities and other industry groups.

“Nobody comes in specifically to lobby for the residential ratepayer other than the OCA,” he said.

Harrington said the effort was “bad politics.”

“It’s going to make us look like we’re taking this pain in the butt problem who speaks up a lot and we hide them under the Department of Energy where we can tell them, ‘Keep quiet,’” he said.

Rep. Kat McGhee, a Hollis Democrat, said she believed the bill was targeted not just at the consumer advocate’s office but at Don Kreis specifically. “He is shining a light on the problems that are happening at the Public Utilities Commission, and I think that that's a very valuable thing,” she said.

Rep. Berry denied that the bill personally targeted Kreis.

The bill to dissolve the Office of the Consumer Advocate comes amidst larger conflicts at the State House over how utility companies that deliver electricity and gas are regulated in the state.

In testimony on a different bill earlier this week, Kreis said the way New Hampshire regulates utility companies is not working.

“Utility regulation in this state is broken. There are three agencies that do it, and the one they’re talking about abolishing is mine. My office, the OCA, is not the office that is broken. What is broken is the working relationship between the Department of Energy and the Public Utilities Commission,” he said.

That conflict, he said, is costing ratepayers money.

In the same hearing, Department of Energy Assistant Commissioner Chris Ellms said after his agency was established in 2021, the state’s intent was for utility regulators to act like judges, and for the Department of Energy to handle policymaking. “Unfortunately, it seems clear from our experience, our observation and our discussions that the PUC wants a relationship between itself and the Department that is contrary to the legislative intent,” he said. “It seems apparent that the PUC wants to control the way the department does its job.”

Ellms declined to deliver part of his testimony that included details about an ongoing utility case because Public Utilities Commissioner Dan Goldner chose not to leave the room, meaning he would have needed to recuse himself from that case going forward. That could cost ratepayers millions of dollars, Ellms said.

“I have to think of it as an attempt to stop me from discussing the issues that I think you need to hear,” he said.

Goldner testified later in the hearing, saying the commission's concern with the legislation was that Department of Energy officials would be allowed to choose which hearings and cases they participated in, leaving the Public Utilities Commission without analytical advice.

“To support this model, the commission would need to enhance our own analytical staffing,” Goldner said.

That bill, proposed at the request of the Department of Energy, would among other things ensure that the agency has full “party” status in hearings at the Public Utilities Commission that it chooses to participate in, rather than requiring it to participate in all proceedings. Another bill, proposed at the request of the Consumer Advocate, is aimed at clarifying the responsibilities of state regulators and the Department of Energy.

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