SENATE SHOULD REJECT `DARK AGE' POLITICAL DISTORTION

A bill that would have removed Southwestern Bell Telephone from the regulation of the Missouri Public Service Commission apparently died in the Missouri Senate this week. Good riddance, we say.

For months, Southwestern Bell Telephone has been promoting the legislation, taking out millions of dollars in television, radio and newspaper ads throughout the state, warning heavy-handedly that the legislation's defeat would "leave Missouri in the Dark Ages."

In fact, as indicated by its advertising campaign -- replete with Armageddon-type images of children dissolving into a nuclear glow -- those most in the "Dark Ages" have been the lobbyists of Southwestern Bell itself.

Their tactics -- which ironically included promoting the benefits of future communications technology -- have been a sorry example of old-fashioned, political distortion.

Most troubling is how Southwestern Bell took advantage of good and well-intentioned people throughout Missouri. On the one hand, Bell frightened them into supporting its legislative push, and on the other, Bell dazzled them with simulated video conferences and other gizmo-shows. In both cases, what Southwestern Bell failed to do was to explain the real meaning and import of the legislation they were pushing.

Southwestern Bell's main argument was that it would invest at least $200 million a year in the state's telephone network, with $25 million earmarked specifically for schools, hospitals and law enforcement, if its rates were not reduced over the next five years.

That rates would be frozen was held out as some great gift to Missourians.

But what Southwestern Bell failed to mention is that last December the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC), after reviewing Bell's earnings, ruled that the monopoly had earned $150 million in excess profits in recent years. The PSC ordered an $84 million rate reduction and a more generous profit-sharing plan for customers. Bell took the PSC to court, thus halting the order. If the legislation would have passed, the rates would have been frozen at the excessive-profit level, allowing Southwestern Bell to pocket the difference.

Indeed, Bell's "generous" offer to freeze its rates looks even more self-serving, given the fact that the movement in local telephone rates nationwide is down -- not up.

The promise to invest $200 million in telecommunications modernization also loses its luster when it is pointed out that Southwestern Bell has been spending an average of $250 million a year in modernization already. So, Bell's proposed minimum investment would actually be $50 million less than what it is spending on average already.

Public Counsel Martha Hogerty, who represents Missouri consumers in Public Service Commission proceedings, summarized Southwestern Bell's legislative push this way: "Missouri citizens should be aware that this legislation is a deregulation measure; it does absolutely nothing to bring about additional infrastructure development. Nowhere does the legislation require modernization, let alone fiber-optic deployment. It would only facilitate the transfer of millions of dollars from consumers to the monopoly local telephone companies."

Thankfully, after weeks of maneuvering with the Bell bill, this past week it came to what we hope is its final rest. Still, three weeks remain in the session. If somehow it is resurrected, we urge the senate to, "Just say no." Senators should vote no to "Dark Age" scaremongering; no to multi-million dollar political distortion campaigns by powerful monopolies; and no to flawed telecommunications policy.