Louisiana Public Service Commission

Louisiana Public Service Commission (PSC) is an independent regulatory agency which manages public utilities and motor carriers in Louisiana. The commission has five elected members chosen in single-member districts for staggered six-year terms. Thus the commissioners have large constituencies (bigger, e.g., than congressional districts), long terms (6 years), and close involvement with issues of intense consumer interest (such as electricity bills); consequently membership on PSC has been known to serve as a springboard to even higher public office, as in the cases of Huey Long, Jimmie Davis, John McKeithen, and Kathleen Babineaux Blanco —PSC members who became governors of Louisiana.

The PSC is frequently in the news in Louisiana, largely because of its regulatory authority over investor-owned public utilities which offer electric, water, waste water, natural gas, as well as telecommunication services. It also regulates electric member-owned cooperatives, including those whose members have voted to vest the Commission with particular powers. The commission's authority does not extend within the city limits of New Orleans for electric retail services as that power is held by the city council. The PSC also is not vested with some of its regulatory authority for those electric utilities which are municipally-owned and have greater than 50 MW of load; those powers are held by the city councils for those governments, including city of Lafayette, Louisiana. It regulates intrastate transportation, including passenger carrier services, waste haulers, household goods carriers, non-consensual towing, and intrastate pipelines. These issues are inseparable from often strongly held opinions by consumers and the regulated industries. One of PSC's most-popular actions was its implementation, on January 1, 2002, of the "Do Not Call" program, which prohibits telemarketers from telephoning people who request that they not receive such calls. The power of LPSC was reduced by the Supreme Court in favor of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for determining electric generation costs in Entergy Louisiana, Inc. v. Louisiana Public Service Commission.

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