Utility regulators rushing to protect APS — once again

Well, color me surprised (not): The Arizona Corporation Commission has once again come to the defense of Arizona Public Service Co.

It’s amazing what $7 million seems to buy these days.

Last week, the commission voted 4-1 not to order APS and its parent company, Pinnacle West Capital Corp., to comply with subpoenas issued by Commissioner Bob Burns.

For the past 18 months, Burns has been trying to get a look at the utility’s books, to determine whether it secretly spent $3.2 million to ensure the election of Commissioners Doug Little and Tom Forese in 2014.

The all-Republican commission also rejected Burns’ attempt to disqualify his colleagues from deciding whether APS should be allowed to raise your electric bill.

The utility openly spent $4 million in 2016 to ensure the election of Commissioners Boyd Dunn and Andy Tobin.

(And Burns, but that’s only because the prospect of Democrats Bill Mundell and Tom Chabin as regulators was enough to give APS CEO Don Brandt a nasty case of hives.)

Apparently, it was all money well spent, as our supposed regulators have toed the APS line every chance they get — including this month.

Dunn even produced a 26-page proposed order, detailing all the many reasons APS must be protected from Burns’ prying eyes.

If looks could kill, Burns would have been a bloody heap at last week’s meeting, with daggers protruding from his various body parts.

Tobin, who hooked into the meeting by phone, pronounced Burns “out of control.”

“Nothing surprises me with him, except for a desperate need for constant attention,” he said.

Forese didn’t say much but just looked generally disgusted.

Little was offended that Burns would question his objectivity based on nothing more than “supposition, rumor, innuendo and unfounded media reports.”

Or perhaps, just plain old common sense.

The sort of thing that Arizonans might expect from a regulator who is deciding how much their utility bills will be allowed to grow.

The sort of thing that requires — or should require — someone in authority to ask the obvious question about whether $7 million, some of it spent in secret, could buy APS a sympathetic board.

Burns now heads back to court to try to pry open APS’ books. Last month, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Daniel Kiley said it would be premature for him to issue such an order.

First, he said, Burns needed to ask his colleagues to order APS and Pinnacle West to produce the records.

You’d think that now — given recent indictments in which a former commissioner is accused of accepting bribes — the commissioners would have bent over backward to show that they can’t be bought.

Instead …