Deregulation of telecom and energy is having major impact, both g...
Deregulation of telecom and energy is having major impact, both good and bad, on small businesses but their voice is being lost in clamor raised by industry and organized residential consumer interests, speakers said on NARUC panel on deregulation’s…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
effects on small businesses. BettyJo Toccoli, president of Cal. Small Business Assn., said myths abound about small business customers, including that deregulation automatically confers benefits on small businesses, that they are driven solely by price and that they don’t need customer education. “All of these are misconceptions,” she said, that small businesses need to correct. Andy Librella, consultant with S&C Advertising & P.R. in San Antonio, said deregulation was being driven by politics, which in turn responded to money or votes. Political forces, he said, also are acting to deprive state commissions of resources they need to ensure fairness in deregulated markets. “If you [PUCs] offer a voice to small businesses, you gain an ally with voters who can help you get the budget you need to do your job.” Independent Business Assn. Exec. Dir. Gary Smith said small businesses accounted for 40% of jobs and most industry innovations, but had little political clout because they were too busy running their businesses to take time out to lobby. He said state commissions should encourage small business participation in deregulation process by working with state utility consumer advocacy offices, putting things in lay language, making hearing process more informal, recognizing that small businesses had unique needs not shared by residential customers or large businesses. Cynthia Marshall, Pacific Bell senior vp-regulatory, said deregulation had potential benefits of more choices, lower prices and better quality but also a dark side of “abuse and misuse of freedom by the carriers” such as slamming, quality problems, hidden charges, misleading ads. She said telecom carriers had responsibility to reach out to small businesses and learn their needs, but businesses had responsibility to work with industry, trade groups, regulators and legislators to make their needs known. William Gillis, former Wash. state regulator and now professor with Wash. State U., urged regulators to be careful when deregulating: “Don’t release regulation in market segments where competition is lacking, and don’t expect competition will solve all market problems.”