HELENA — The Montana Public Service Commission has voted down a proposal from its president to reopen hearings on NorthWestern Energy’s ongoing rate case.
NorthWestern, the state’s largest utility, is proposing increased gas and electric rates. In April, the utility announced a settlement. In it, the sides reached agreement on many of the issues involved with the case, but they left a few for the PSC to resolve – including how much of the cost of the Yellowstone County Generating Station, a natural gas plant near Laurel, should be passed on to ratepayers.
On Tuesday, PSC President Brad Molnar made a motion to reject the settlement and hold additional hearings on issues including YCGS and the Colstrip coal-powered plant. He argued that the settlement was a “black box” that obscured too much information about NorthWestern’s proposals and that he hadn’t gotten clear answers to many of his questions during the PSC’s eight-day hearing on the rate case in June.
(Watch the video to see some of the debate from Tuesday's PSC meeting.)
Molnar said the PSC and its staff didn’t currently have enough information to make a good decision on whether NorthWestern’s proposed rates are justified.
“We owe this to the ratepayers,” he said. “We’re paid big-boy wages. It's time to do a big-boy job, and that means you study enough to ask good questions.”
In the end, though, commissioners voted 3-2 against Molnar’s proposal.
Commissioner Annie Bukacek said she disagreed with Molnar’s characterization that there had been significant unanswered questions during the June hearing. Commissioner Jennifer Fielder said she understood why settlements in these cases would be concerning, but she questioned whether this was an appropriate action for the PSC to take at this stage of the process.
Bukacek and Fielder proposed delaying action on Molnar’s motion, saying they wanted to see more justification for it and to give PSC staff more time to respond.
“If we're going to make a decision this big, we need to have some basis for it, besides what you just discussed in the microphone here, today, on the spot,” Fielder told Molnar. “We had an eight-day hearing, we have comprehensive notes, we have an application that's thousands of pages long. You’re coming to us with one sheet of paper and asking us to make a monumental decision on this right now.”
Molnar said delaying was a way of killing the proposal without explicitly killing it.
“If we wait two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, we don’t stand a chance,” he said.
When the proposal to delay failed to receive a majority, Bukacek and Fielder voted to reject Molnar’s motion, along with Commissioner Jeff Welborn. Commissioner Randy Pinocci joined Molnar in voting for it.
PSC staff said Tuesday that they expected they would have a recommendation on NorthWestern’s rate proposals for commissioners to consider at a meeting in mid-November.
Jo Dee Black, a spokesperson for NorthWestern Energy, said in a statement to MTN that the company was confident of a “thorough and transparent” review of their case.
“The submitted records, evidence, and testimony are extensive, including pre-filed and live testimonies regarding the settlements,” she said. “The PSC’s process has given staff and commissioners the opportunity to fully examine the case, ask follow-up questions, and conduct a public hearing. Except for limited proprietary information, all materials are publicly accessible.”
“NorthWestern Energy expects the PSC to recommend a decision that balances the interests of our Montana customers and the long-term sustainability of our operations,” Black said. “We all share the same goal of delivering Montanans reliable, sustainable energy service while keeping bills as low as possible.”
Tuesday’s work session was just the latest in a string of PSC meetings this year that have at times become heated. The agency has been in the spotlight for several months after Molnar announced he was under investigation for his conduct in the workplace – an investigation he has refused to cooperate with and has claimed is targeting him unfairly.
The meeting came just days after a state district judge ruled Gov. Greg Gianforte could consider a complaint from Fielder, calling for Molnar to be suspended from his position during the investigation. The complaint said Molnar has tried to interfere with the investigation.
