Here’s the mission statement of the West Virginia Public Service Commission:

And here is Ogden's Steven Allen Adams description of Bill Raney:

Raney served for 28 years as president and chief executive officer of the West Virginia Coal Association. He retired from that role on Jan. 1 and was replaced by Coal Association vice president Chris Hamilton.

Raney previously served as vice president of the West Virginia Mining and Reclamation Association, merging the two organizations in 2000.

With the addition of Raney, two of the three commissioners charged with ensuring the “fair and prompt regulation of public utilities” will have worked for the West Virginia Coal Association. (The commission's chair, Charlotte Lane, had served as the association's counsel before the commission although her PSC bio doesn’t mention it.)

It’s easy to dismiss this as more-of-the-same West Virginia politics except that inevitably, the state’s consumers will pay inflated electric bills to subsidize the near-dead industry that controls the state.