March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

PUC: A pivotal decision

Without enthusiasm, but with the knowledge that it was the best resolution of a difficult regulatory issue, the Public Utilities Commission this week accepted a stipulation that caps penalties against Central Maine Power Co. for its handling of purchased power contracts.

The commission’s unanimous vote is significant because it ratifies an agreement with legal and economic implications to which such diverse entities as CMP, the American Association of Retired Persons, Bath Iron Works, the Industrial Energy Consumer Group and the Public Advocate’s Office already had signed on. But the decision may have greater political and symbolic value.

Although the commission must have choked, as did its staff, on stipulation language that places a deadline on review of CMP contracts with its independent suppliers, and prevents regulators from severely punishing CMP in the context of those investigations, commissioners saw the greater good to be served by signing on.

CMP will drop its appeals of two PUC decisions. These cases now are before the state supreme court. The parties will be spared legal expense, and uncertainty of outcome. The commission stood to lose if the court redefined important aspects of the relationship between regulator and regulated in the latter’s favor. That won’t happen now.

More important, however, is that an element of conflict has been eliminated. CMP has been troubled internally, but it has been tortured externally by its relationship with the commission, and especially, the PUC staff.

“This represents a terribly important step on the long climb back for our company,” said CMP President David Flanagan of the stipulation. Part of that climb must involve mutual efforts to improve relations between the PUC, its staff and Maine utilities. By their endorsement of the stipulation, the three commissioners sent a clear message that they set the agenda for their agency. That statement was critical.

The regulatory process in Maine has suffered more from bad blood than from bad decisions, which can be reversed by people of good faith in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Lacking that respect, Maine has wallowed in its mistakes.

At the heart of the stipulation should be a conviction among the key players in the utility industry that Maine will seize this as a fresh opportunity to build relationships that are professionally adversarial, but personally, neutral. Ratepayers and the state’s economic climate will be the first to benefit.


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