Hatch was an advocate for utility ratepayers. In 2001 he petitioned the Public Utilities Commission to put the brakes on a "no surprise bill" program by Reliant Energy Minnegasco that was marketed as a way for consumers to bring predictability to their home heating costs but resulted in customers paying as much as 20 percent more on natural gas. In 2005 he issued a scathing report faulting CenterPoint Energy for deliberately violating the law designed to protect low-income people from having their heat turned off in the winter. "They violated the law and every standard of human decency," Hatch said at the time. He got the company to reconnect power to 5,000 people. In 2006 he asked the Public Utilities Commission to roll back a rate hike proposed by Xcel Energy after discovering that it was asking for higher rates to collect taxes it would never pay and saddling residents with larger rate hikes than businesses.