The committee never took a vote - up, down or sideways - on whether the Christmas storm of 2003 was so severe that Utah Power should not have to compensate customers for service interruptions. Yet the staff of the committee believed it understood what the committee wanted to do, that is, side with Utah Power.

We don't believe that is the way the committee should do business. The staff should not be left, or take it upon itself, to divine the committee's will.

That the committee did not vote on the matter prior to the staff issuing a formal recommendation to the Public Service Commission is another blow to its credibility.

That credibility has suffered of late. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. sacked the committee's director, Roger Ball, in March, arguing that Ball was too adversarial to the utilities' interests. Since the committee is charged by law with arguing for residential consumers and small businesses, not the utilities, in proceedings before the PSC, the governor's action did not pass the smell test.

Then, Huntsman nominated Leslie Reberg, a former telephone company lobbyist, to replace Ball, and the committee acquiesced.

Now the staff has taken a position favorable to Utah Power without the committee having voted on the issue.

The Christmas storm of 2003 is controversial because Utah Power left tens of thousands of customers without electricity, some for five days. Utah Power claims that the storm was so severe that it exceeded the design and operating limits of the system.

But the committee has questioned whether Utah Power met minimal standards of system reliability, whether it had enough manpower to maintain the system, whether the lack of local management played a role, whether tree-trimming or burying lines would prevent a future occurrence and whether the benefit would be worth the cost, and why municipal utilities had proportionately many fewer outages.

The committee has said that Utah Power's storm report did not answer these questions fully.

Now the committee has to answer how its staff can take a position on its behalf without a vote.