Ensuring safe, adequate and reliable utility service at just and reasonable rates since 1915.

The Wyoming Legislature created the Wyoming Public Service Commission (PSC) in 1915 to regulate monopoly public utilities that provide service to Wyoming consumers. It is the PSC’s primary responsibility to ensure that Wyoming public utilities provide safe, adequate and reliable service at just and reasonable rates. 

Three Commissioners, appointed to staggered six-year terms by the Governor and confirmed by the Wyoming Senate, hear and adjudicate cases before them based on the evidence presented in a trial-like hearing, in addition to directing the activities of the agency.  No more than two of the Commissioners can be from any one political party.  For more information about the Commissioners, click here. The Wyoming Legislature approves the PSC budget, which is funded by a small assessment on utility bills, based on gross intrastate utility revenues and calculated in accordance with Wyoming Statute. The Commissioners are supported by Technical Staff, Legal Staff and Facility Engineers, including  accountants, attorneys, economists and engineers.  For an organization chart, click here.   

The general duties of the PSC cover a variety of functions and duties.  They include, among others: 1) certification of utility service territory; 2) resolutions of complaints against utilities; 3) electric and natural gas utility securities and financing; 4) authorizing major utility construction projects; 5) and utility mergers and reorganization.  Additional duties include pipeline safety under PHMSA, the Call Before You Dig program, administration of the Wyoming Universal Service Fund, and representation of Wyoming regulatory interests in regional and national organizations.  

The PSC has jurisdiction over four investor owned electric utilities operating in Wyoming and limited jurisdiction over eighteen retail rural electric cooperatives, as well as jurisdiction over eleven natural gas utilities providing retail service to Wyoming.  The PSC also has jurisdiction over twenty-three intrastate pipelines and seven small private water utilities.  In the telecommunications realm the PSC the has jurisdiction over local exchange telephone companies and lesser authority over competitive local exchange companies and 246 resellers of telecommunication services.  Importantly, the PSC has no jurisdiction over broadband, cable or wireless providers.  The Commission does not regulate interstate utility companies, such as pipelines, and it does not regulate wholesale entities like generation and transmission cooperatives that do not sell directly to the public.  The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regulates these activities.