Missouri utility workers would have their identities protected when reporting wrongdoing

Missouri’s Public Service Commission and Office of the Public Counsel would each name a lawyer to receive reports of utility wrongdoing. Coverage includes utility employees, directors, and leaders, as well as applicants, former employees, and contractors subject to the commission’s authority. Covered people must report unlawful acts or serious misconduct that violates public policy to proper authorities, or refuse directives that would violate law or commission rules. Information about a utility rate case would enter its official file with the reporting person’s identity removed.

Both oversight offices would acknowledge complaints and give reporting people opportunities to take part in reviewing them. These steps would apply to complaints or information from people covered by the utility reporting protections. The offices could investigate or make inquiries; they would not have to investigate every complaint. Reporting people would have opportunities to meet an investigator, respond to a utility’s denial, and comment on any preliminary investigative report. Rebuttals, denials, and comments would become part of the complaint record. The response duties would apply after the offices receive a complaint or information.

Covered people would have the same legal remedies as people protected under Missouri section 285.575, and the Public Service Commission would write enforcement rules. The legal remedies would apply to people covered by the utility reporting protections. Enforcement rules would have to meet Missouri’s requirements for making agency rules. If any legislative power to review, delay, or reject rules under chapter 536 were ruled unconstitutional, this rulemaking authority and the affected rules would become void. The conditional loss of rulemaking authority would also void rules proposed or adopted after August 28, 2026. That date is not stated as the bill’s effective date.