Citizen activists Claire Geddes and Roger Ball, the former director of the Committee of Consumer Services, are urging Utah's top utility regulators to reject last month's agreement that will force gas company customers to pay $19 million over the next three years to help offset Questar's processing costs.

The proposed charge, hammered out in an agreement among the gas company, the Committee of Consumer Services, and the Division of Public Utilities, will add about 50 cents a month to a typical gas bill.

"This is just another attempt by Questar to try and get back the same costs that the Utah Supreme Court and the Public Service Commission already ruled they weren't entitled to collect," said Geddes. "This agreement is absolutely outrageous. It is clear the committee no longer is representing the interests of consumers."

The Committee of Consumer Services, which is charged under state law with representing the views of consumers and small businesses in utility rate cases, doesn't intend to address any of the arguments raised by either Geddes or Ball.

"We think we've made our case" that Questar is entitled to recover some of its processing costs, said Dee Jay Hammon, the committee's chairman.

Questar said it doesn't object to the two expressing their opinions, but it believes the Public Service Commission shouldn't use them as the basis for making any decision.

Answers about what should have been done with coal bed methane 10 years ago do not address what should be done with it today, the company said in a letter to the PSC.

The dispute reaches back to the late 1980s, when Questar Pipeline started to accept into its pipeline natural gas recovered from coal fields near Price. Unlike the gas traditionally supplied to Utah houses, the coal-bed methane needed additional processing before it could burn safely in most appliances.

Questar Gas eventually reached a settlement with the Division of Public Utilities that stipulated the company could pass 68 percent of processing charges onto its customers, or about $25 million over a five-year period. The PSC approved the deal. The consumer committee, at that time led by Ball, objected and launched a legal battle that eventually won a refund for consumers.

Yet in ordering the refund, the PSC indicated it would not stop Questar from seeking recovery of all its processing costs in the future.

A series of conferences were conducted in which the gas company attempted to demonstrate to state regulators that its decision to process the gas to protect consumers was proper.

Those conferences resulted in the Committee of Consumer Services embracing the idea Questar is entitled to collect a portion of its processing costs.

Ball is incredulous and believes the committee he once led no longer is representing the interests of the state's consumers. "From my perspective, this agreement represents a complete reversal of the stand the committee took in winning the refund for consumers," he said.

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. fired Ball earlier this year after members of his transition team criticized Ball for being too much of a "pit bull" in his representation of consumers in utility rate cases and other matters.