That is the essence of the defense that Detroit Edison has offered in its response to the Michigan Public Service Commission. Detroit Edison has been asked by the Commission to ‘Show Cause’ as to why it should not held in violation of the Code of Conduct for sending prohibited bill stuffers.

At the end of 2003 the Commission received complaints from Sandra Wotli and Daniel Squires – both Michigan Alliance for Fair Competition members – citing various violations of the Code of Conduct for electric utilities. What attracted the Commissions attention was the complaint that Edison had included bill stuffers in its utility billings promoting its Appliance Repair Plan, an action that is explicitly prohibited by the Code of Conduct.

From these complaints, the Commission ordered the Show Cause Hearing which included a requirement of Edison to publish on an electric bill statement the June 15 pre-hearing for any interested parties who wished to voice their additional complaints and evidence of the violations. The Edison notice was so vague that an additional pre-hearing was scheduled for August 10 and Edison was ordered to redo the announcement.

In its response to the Commission Detroit Edison reasoned that because it had transferred its ‘Home Protection Plus’ program to MichCon, its natural gas affiliate, that the stuffers promoting the HPP program included in billing statements in fall 2003 were not a Code violation. The problem with this argument is that the violation of the Code has to do with the action of including a bill stuffer for an appliance repair program, and nothing to do with the ownership of the program, which seems to be the heart of Edison’s defense.

The outcome of this case could be a significant victory for Michigan contractors tired of seeing utilities getting free advertising for their appliance service plans in utility billing statements. The Commission has already ruled against Consumers Power for similar violations and if Detroit Edison is found in violation it would put utilities on notice that they cannot continue to unfairly cross subsidize.

Action Response:

If you are a Detroit Edison electric customer please participate in this proceeding in one of the following ways:

Consider becoming a part of the case to allow you to bring evidence against Detroit Edison.

It would be helpful if there were more complaints than just the original two complainants so the Commission would see that support for this issue is broad.

If you are not an Edison customer, file complaints on your utility when you see a code violation.

To read all the case filings for this case online click here to open the link for Case # 14072 where you can read all the filings.  To read Edison's admission click on filing "0007".  Pages 4 & 8 of Edison's Response have the admission.