N.Y. Public Service Law § 72: Notice and hearing; order fixing price of gas or electricity or requiring improvement

§ 72. Notice and hearing; order fixing price of gas or electricity or

requiring improvement. Before proceeding under a complaint presented as

provided in section seventy-one, the commission shall cause notice of

such complaint, and the purpose thereof, to be served upon the person or

corporation affected thereby. Such person or corporation shall have an

opportunity to be heard in respect to the matters complained of at a

time and place to be specified in such notice. An investigation may be

instituted by the commission of its own motion as to any matter of which

complaint may be made, as provided in section seventy-one of this

chapter, or to enable it to ascertain the facts requisite to the

exercise of any power conferred upon it. After a hearing and after such

an investigation as shall have been made by the commission or its

officers, agents, examiners or inspectors, the commission may, by order,

fix just and reasonable prices, rates and charges for gas or electricity

to be charged by such corporation or person, for the service to be

furnished notwithstanding that a higher or lower price has been

theretofore prescribed by general or special statute, contract, grant,

franchise condition, consent or other agreement, and may order such

improvement in the manufacture, conveying, transportation, distribution

or supply of gas, in the manufacture, transmission or supply of

electricity, or in the methods employed by such person or corporation,

as will in its judgment be adequate, just and reasonable. Any such

change in price shall be upon such terms, conditions or safeguards as

the commission may prescribe. If it shall be made to appear to the

satisfaction of the commission that the public interest requires a

change in the price of gas or electricity charged by any such person or

corporation, or that such change is necessary for the purpose of

providing adequate and efficient service, or for the preservation of the

property, the commission, upon such terms, conditions or safeguards as

it deems proper, may authorize an immediate, reasonable, temporary

increase or decrease in such price pending a final determination of the

price to be thereafter charged by such person or corporation. The terms,

conditions or safeguards prescribed may include provisions for the

purposes for which the additional revenue derived from any such

temporary increase may be expended and for the impounding thereof until

the same shall be applied to the purposes so specified. The price fixed

by the commission under this section or under subdivision five of

section sixty-six shall be the maximum price to be charged by such

person, corporation or municipality for gas or electricity for the

service to be furnished within the territory and for a period to be

fixed by the commission in the order, not exceeding three years except

in the case of a sliding scale, and thereafter until the commission

shall, upon its own motion or upon the complaint of any corporation,

person or municipality interested, fix a higher or lower maximum price

of gas or electricity to be thereafter charged. In determining the price

to be charged for gas or electricity the commission may consider all

facts which in its judgment have any bearing upon a proper determination

of the question although not set forth in the complaint and not within

the allegations contained therein, with due regard among other things to

a reasonable average return upon capital actually expended and to the

necessity of making reservations out of income for surplus and

contingencies. At any hearing involving a rate, the burden of proof to

show that the change in rate or price if proposed by the person,

corporation or municipality operating such utility, or that the existing

rate or price, if on motion of the commission or in a complaint filed

with the commission it is proposed to reduce the rate or price, is just

and reasonable shall be upon the person, corporation or municipality

operating such utility; and the commission may give to the hearing and

decision of such questions preference over all other questions pending

before it and decide the same as speedily as possible. Nothing in this

chapter contained shall be deemed to prohibit the commission from fixing

a sliding scale upward rate for natural gas, beginning at a fixed price

per unit for a small consumption and then increasing the price per unit

as the consumption is increased.