(a)  To carry out the purposes of this title, the commission and the division, within the appropriation therefor, are authorized to employ such clerks, stenographers, engineers, accountants, and agents as may be required, who shall be in the classified service, and may also retain and employ experts, consultants, and assistants on a contract or other basis for rendering legal, financial, professional, technical, or other assistance or advice.

Terms Used In Rhode Island General Laws 39-1-19

  • Administrator: means the administrator of the division of public utilities and carriers. See Rhode Island General Laws 39-1-2
  • Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
  • Commission: means the public utilities commission. See Rhode Island General Laws 39-1-2
  • Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
  • Customer: means a company taking service from an electric distribution company at a single point of delivery or meter location. See Rhode Island General Laws 39-1-2
  • Division: means the division of public utilities and carriers. See Rhode Island General Laws 39-1-2
  • Public utility: means and includes every company that is an electric distribution company and every company operating or doing business in intrastate commerce and in this state as a railroad, street railway, common carrier, gas, liquefied natural gas, water, telephone, telegraph, and pipeline company, and every company owning, leasing, maintaining, managing, or controlling any plant or equipment, or any part of any plant or equipment, within this state for manufacturing, producing, transmitting, distributing, delivering, or furnishing natural or manufactured gas, directly or indirectly, to or for the public, or any cars or equipment employed on, or in connection with, any railroad or street railway for public or general use within this state, or any pipes, mains, poles, wires, conduits, fixtures, through, over, across, under, or along any public highways, parkways, or streets, public lands, waters, or parks for the transmission, transportation, or distribution of gas for sale to the public for light, heat, cooling, or power for providing audio or visual telephonic or telegraphic communication service within this state, or any pond, lake, reservoir, stream, well, or distributing plant or system employed for the distribution of water to the consuming public within this state, including the water supply board of the city of Providence; provided, that, except as provided in § 39-16-9 and in P. See Rhode Island General Laws 39-1-2

(b)  When requested by the administrator, the attorney general, or an assistant designated by him or her, shall appear and represent the division in any hearing, investigation, action, or proceeding under this title, or in reference to any act or proceeding of the division, and intervene in any action or proceeding in which is involved any question arising under this title. In all cases in which the attorney general or an assistant intervenes on behalf of the state as a customer of a public utility, or on behalf of the citizens of the state, as customers of a public utility, the division may employ legal counsel to represent it, as provided for in § 39-1-20.

History of Section.
P.L. 1912, ch. 795, §§ 10, 12; G.L. 1923, ch. 253, §§ 10, 12; G.L. 1938, ch. 122, §§ 8, 9; G.L. 1956, §§ 39-1-10, 39-1-11; G.L. 1956, § 39-1-19; P.L. 1969, ch. 240, § 1; P.L. 1975, ch. 277, § 1.