Public Service Commissioner Chris Beeker and Place 2 candidate Brent Woodall both weighed in on Friday on legislation making the Public Service Commission (PSC) an appointed entity.
The bill sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton (D-Greensboro) and State Rep. Chip Brown (R-Hollinger's Island) would make the PSC appointed rather than elected.
The bill mandates annual public meetings at which regulated utilities must present to the public and the commission on their rates, costs, and other factors affecting the state and its customers. Under the bill, the three Public Service Commission seats would no longer be elected and would be transitioned over time to a model in which members are appointed by the Governor, the House Speaker, and the Senate Pro Tem and confirmed by the Alabama Senate.
The bill would transition one of the PSC seats to being appointed in 2028. The other two up for election this year would become appointed positions in 2030.
Beeker told 1819 News, “Our first priority is to continue running hard for my PSC seat in order to keep utility rates affordable, help President Trump implement his MAGA energy plan, and continue promoting the commonsense conservative policies that Republicans embrace.”
“While we need to ensure that wealthy liberal out-of-state radical environmentalists do not gain a foothold in Alabama, I trust the Legislature to determine whether that is best accomplished with an appointed commission or an elected commission,” Beeker said.
Governor Kay Ivey appointed Beeker to Place 2 on the commission to succeed his father, Chip Beeker, who resigned in 2024. He’s running for election to the seat in 2026.
Brent Woodall, a Republican candidate for Place 2 on the Public Service Commission, told 1819 News in a statement that the legislation is a “usurpation of your ability to vote for members of the Public Service Commission.”
“Senate Bill 268 (SB268), which was introduced yesterday, would strip Alabamians of their ability to vote for members of the Public Service Commission (PSC) and replace elected members with appointed commissioners. Alabamians should be outraged at this bill and call on their state senators and representatives to defeat it. As the bill itself acknowledges, Alabamians have been voting on the commissioners at the PSC for over 100 years. The senators who sponsored it, however, now state that our election system ‘is not the best model for ensuring that Alabamians are best-served and well-positioned for future challenges.’ They give no reason as to why it ‘is not the best model’ but could the same argument not be made for selecting state senators as well? The PSC commissioners should be held accountable by the people, not unelected lobbyists working behind the scenes,” Woodall said. “The bill, however, also indicates how things would work if the people in Alabama were no longer allowed to vote on members of the PSC. It states, ‘[a]ll current members of the public service commission were initially appointed to their position by the Governor.’ What have those commissioners delivered for Alabama? According to a November report from WBRC, Alabama has the third highest residential monthly electric bills in the country! A United States Senator representing Alabama has recently said that Alabama has the highest electric rates in the southeast! It sounds like appointed commissioners do what is best for the lobbyists, not the consumers.”
He continued, “We need to elect conservative PSC commissioners who will work to achieve the PSC’s goal of providing ‘a balance between regulated companies and consumers in order to provide consumers with safe, adequate, and reliable services at affordable rates.’ The current commissioners have failed to achieve this goal. That is because appointments don’t work. The current PSC Place 2 commissioner had no experience at the PSC when he was appointed by the governor. And the State of Alabama is now reaping the consequences.”
Woodall narrowly lost a PSC Place 1 Republican primary runoff against incumbent Jeremy Oden in 2022 by a 52% to 48% margin. The Republican primary is on May 19.
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