I would ask first what the price is meant to answer. A rate is a money price, and the money price of anything is regulated by two circumstances: the demand for it, and the price of the necessaries and conveniences of life. The utility asks for a 15% rise for residential customers over two years, adding as much as $11 a month in 2027 and another $5.50 monthly the year after. Its opponents say the increase would exceed the pace of cost-of-living growth. That is the right question to put to the arrangement, not merely to the number.
Where the quantity brought to market falls short of the effectual demand, some component of the price must rise above its natural rate; where it exceeds that demand, the interest of those who supply it prompts them to withdraw a part. But I would distinguish a price that rises because supply and demand have moved from a price kept up by an exclusive privilege. Where competition is restrained to a smaller number than might otherwise enter, the market price may be kept above the natural price for ages together. The hearing is the place where the public may ask which of these is before them.
I would not treat the filing as proof of its own cause. The additional revenue is said to fund initiatives designed to benefit customers; the objectors say the pace exceeds the growth of the cost of living. Both are claims about what the price must cover. The commissioners sit, as a magistrate does where trades may agree among themselves, to settle the price at the outside; and the remedy must be weighed, for if it is set too low, nobody would apply to the business. That is the difficulty I would put to the four hours of testimony.
