On Tuesday, February 24, the five elected officials who make up the Montana Public Service Commission (PSC) held a chaotic “work session” at the PSC’s building in Helena.
For half an hour at the beginning, they tried to decide whether to allow four members of 350 Montana’s leadership team to speak during the public comment period. The commissioners changed their minds four separate times before Commissioners Jeff Welborn, Randy Pinocci, and Brad Molnar finally allowed the public comments. Commissioner Jennifer Fielder raised multiple objections while Annie Bukacek sat silently.
350 Montana has hired lawyer Monica Tranel to represent us in the official “merger docket” where NorthWestern Energy must seek approval from the PSC. According to the law, as a regulated monopoly, NorthWestern’s small army of lawyers must prove to the PSC that this merger:
- does no harm to ratepayers,
- benefits ratepayers in significant ways, and
- provides the lowest cost energies to fulfill ratepayer’s needs.
You can watch the recording of the meeting HERE. You can read an article in the Daily Montanan HERE.
In the end 350 Montana’s Jim Parker, Jim Roach, Patty Aimes, and Dave Harmon got to talk. We emphasized the need for more transparency about NorthWestern Energy’s $15 billion merger with Black Hills Corp., the impact of data centers on NorthWestern’s ratepayers, and what will be the effect of data centers on Montana’s energy infrastructure, especially in regard to Montanans’ preference for NorthWestern to develop cleaner, cheaper wind and solar energy.
Jim Roach told the commission, “The reasons for the merger aren’t clear to me. . . . It’s my understanding that it has a lot to do with data centers and [NorthWestern’s] ability to take on the financial responsibilities of building out for data centers. . . . It’s in the paper just today that there are 11 of them courting NorthWestern as a provider. We all know that data centers use a tremendous amount of power, more than NorthWestern is providing right now. It seems like it’s Economics 101, supply and demand. If you boost the demand for power and the supply is not there, prices are going to go up. . . . There are a lot of people in Montana who are concerned.”
Our suggestion was for the PSC to take the time to make sure the merger was in the public interest, specifically that there was benefit rather than harm to Montana citizens. If NorthWestern can’t disclose the needed information on the data centers, we suggested that the PSC should either slow down the merger or reject it outright.
What happened next surprised everyone. The commission adjourned the work session without discussing the merger.