HARRISBURG — In a letter announcing he would resign as Pennsylvania’s consumer advocate, Patrick Cicero claimed he was the victim of a “public campaign led by various investor-owned utilities to seek my removal.”
The incoming Republican attorney general, Cicero said, had asked him to reapply for the job he’d held for three years or resign.
“The utilities’ actions, and your decision to open the position cannot be separated,” he wrote.
Sunday, who took office on Jan. 21, said he asked all employees in positions under his discretion to reapply. He didn’t comment on Cicero's performance, but said in a statement, “Having a capable, unbiased, and apolitical Consumer Advocate is a priority for my administration in order to protect the interests of all consumers.”
Pennsylvania’s consumer advocate serves residential customers — such as homeowners and renters — of water, electric, gas, and telecommunications utilities. The office was created in the 1970s in response to criticism that powerful companies had more say in state utility policy than consumers.
A review of Cicero's tenure shows he engaged in much of the work of his predecessors: representing consumers when utility companies wanted to raise rates, buy a new system, or merge into a new company.
But he made a particular enemy of powerful private companies that increasingly target struggling municipal water and sewer systems for acquisition. One industry publication claimed the industry had pressed both Sunday and his Democratic opponent to replace Cicero, who was described as a “significant regulatory obstacle.”
His departure mirrors one during the office’s founding years, in which the first consumer advocate, Mark Widoff, served a short term marked by clashes with utilities and left as a new administration began.
As he prepared to exit in 1979, Widoff told a reporter that the office “should be abolished” if its independence could not be assured. Cicero, who declined to comment for this story, struck a similar tone in his resignation letter.
“I remain steadfast in my belief in the importance of an independent Office of Consumer Advocate (OCA) that aggressively pursues the interests of Pennsylvania utility consumers without fear of reprisal,” he wrote.
The Office of Consumer Advocate is intended to serve the interests of consumers in a nonpartisan way, but its leader must win the support of the elected attorney general and the state Senate — an inherently political process.
Sunday, whose office declined to comment for this story, is not under any mandated timeline to pick Cicero’s replacement. But the outgoing consumer advocate’s allies already fear what the circumstances of his resignation will mean for his successor.
“You need to have someone with courage and independence,” said Andrew Place, who previously served on the commission that regulates thousands of Pennsylvania utilities.
Place worries the next consumer advocate will start “looking over their shoulder” to avoid a messy reconfirmation fight in the GOP-controlled state Senate rather than sticking up for consumers.
“It raises the hair on the back of my neck,” he added.
A long history of fighting utility ‘ripoffs’
Created in 1976, the state consumer advocate is charged with representing the “interests of consumers.”
“Prior to creation of offices like ours around the country, the utilities were always well represented,” said Sonny Popowsky, who was consumer advocate from 1990 to 2012, the longest anyone has held the position. “But for individual consumers, it was difficult, if not impossible.”
The advocate’s work of representing consumers happens within a courtroom-like atmosphere under the jurisdiction of the Public Utility Commission (PUC). That agency regulates more than 9,000 utilities in Pennsylvania that provide electric, gas, water, broadband, telephone, or transportation services — nearly all of which are privately owned companies.
Before these utilities can take major actions like merging, closing, raising rates, or changing services, they must get approval from the PUC. The commission also ensures utilities provide safe service.
This work can span mediating bill disputes and investigating explosions, as well as overseeing multimillion-dollar business transactions.
PUC officials known as administrative law judges oversee debates among utilities, business owners, and groups of ratepayers. After months spent trading filings, utilities and their customers may reach a settlement or a judge may issue a recommendation.
Popowsky said utility law is particularly complex.
The cases are voluminous — sometimes the stack of paper for a single case can be measured in feet — and heavily technical. Hiring the professional experts needed to dispute a utility’s claim is expensive. Without a consumer advocate, Popowsky said, individuals and smaller business owners wouldn’t be on a level playing field with utilities.
In the 1970s, when many states created consumer advocacy offices, the U.S. was in the grips of an energy crisis that drove up utility prices.
Within the Pennsylvania General Assembly, the push to create an office to speak for residential consumers faced opposition from utility companies and their allies. Commissions like the PUC already existed to oversee the industry, they argued.
But after eight drafts, a bipartisan group of lawmakers agreed to make the consumer advocate a reality.
“It’s 50 years too late,” one reader wrote to the Philadelphia Daily News in response to the law. “Let’s stop the public utility ripoffs.”
Commonwealth Media Services
Attorney General Dave Sunday speaks after taking the oath of office in Harrisburg on Jan. 21, 2025.
Widoff, the attorney who became Pennsylvania’s first consumer advocate, was appointed by Gov. Milton Shapp, a pro-consumer Democrat who often tapped aggressive advocates to challenge other industries, such as insurers.
Widoff won some early victories to reduce rate hikes and vocally opposed the status quo, arguing that the PUC had been “spoon-fed by the utilities.” Philadelphia Electric Company, now known as PECO, even tried to block his office from sending out news releases during a contentious fight over a rate hike.
He was in office during the partial nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island. At the time, the plant’s owners pitched increasing their electricity rates to cover the cost of the incident. Widoff filed to oppose the increase but was told to back off by the attorney general — an appointee of newly elected Republican Gov. Dick Thornburgh.
In response, Widoff told the Associated Press that any stance taken by the consumer advocate “does not reflect the policy positions of any other governmental organization,” arguing that it “should reflect the position and the interests of consumers.”
After Widoff’s 1979 departure, the power to appoint the consumer advocate shifted from the governor to the attorney general, and the office went on to have relatively little turnover — just a handful of other people have served in the role besides Cicero.
Popowsky, who said Cicero did a “fine job,” recalled clashing with an attorney general over caller ID in a 2012 Inquirer interview. His position of letting consumers opt out eventually won, setting a national privacy standard.
He told the outlet he had survived so long by not being political.
"Utility issues, it sounds like a cliché, are really not Republican or Democratic issues."
Clashes with water companies
Cicero was appointed by then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro in December 2021 after leading the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project, a legal aid group. He received bipartisan support from the GOP-controlled state Senate, winning approval 45-5 in June 2022.
Since then, Cicero has been active. He fought more requests by utilities to raise rates than his recent predecessors and testified for more expansive state utility protections.
He has also loudly opposed attempts to privatize public water systems, making him enemy No. 1 among the industry.
In the past decade, private companies have bought at least 20 local water and sewer authorities in Pennsylvania. The companies argue they offer more resources to repair aging systems than can be delivered by cash-strapped municipalities, improving water quality and environmental outcomes.
Cicero’s office says those benefits are outweighed by the rate hikes faced by affected communities. He testified before the Democratic-controlled state House asking for reforms to a 2016 law that kicked off the acquisition rush.
Cicero has also challenged individual sales of municipal water systems in court, winning a major case in 2023 that has the potential to raise the bar for when municipalities can sell a system. Aqua America, the affected buyer in that case, has since appealed to the state Supreme Court.
His actions didn’t escape the notice of water companies. Two of the biggest — American Water and Aqua — are based near Philadelphia and have historically been a powerful lobby in Harrisburg.
Last year, during the race for attorney general between Sunday and Democrat Eugene DePasquale, industry publication Northcoast Research began reporting that private water companies were “leaning on both PA Attorney General candidates” to replace Cicero. Sunday’s election, Northcoast wrote, would almost ensure the move — a detail first reported by WESA.
Northcoast wrote that Cicero had been “shaking up what has long been a highly favorable Pennsylvania regulatory environment for water utilities by holding out on settlement agreements, appealing PUC decisions to Commonwealth Court, and generally being the most strident representation utility consumers have had in PA for decades.”
That reputation was top of mind for consumer advocacy groups and a handful of Democratic state lawmakers when Cicero sent Sunday his resignation letter.
His departure, and the news that Sunday was forcing him to reapply for his post, sparked a wave of condemnation from officials skeptical of utilities’ power, and particularly of increased water privatization.
In a statement, state Sen. John Kane (D., Delaware) said Cicero has been “responsible for exposing the true business practices of these companies: a continued and deliberate strategy to drive up profits at the expense of ratepayers.”
“It doesn’t surprise me that investor owned utilities have been wanting a change,” he added.
Asked about the outgoing consumer advocate’s resignation, Shapiro — the now-governor who appointed Cicero when he was attorney general — said he appreciated Cicero’s work.
But Shapiro added, “Sunday has the right to surround himself with the people who he thinks will best serve him as he’s serving the people of the commonwealth.”
