UPDATED: The Joint Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology considered a bill to put some management and routine auditing costs onto shareholders rather than ratepayers, establish a procedure for meter-to-billing routine testing, and ask the Public Utilities Commission for a report outlining lessons learned from the October 2017 windstorm.

With a party line vote of 6-7 on a motion of ought not to pass – Democrats voting against the motion, Republicans favoring the motion), the bill has little chance in the full Legislature. Chair Seth Berry (D-Bowdoinham) said because the bill was cut and dried, no real compromise vote is possible. That means that the bill, if reconsidered, will likely come up again in the new session in January, with a new Legislature.

"I suppose what's next is that those voting no will need to answer to the tens of thousands of customers who feel powerless in the face of overbilling by a foreign-owned, for-profit monopoly," he said. "And they'll need to explain to voters in November whose side they're on."

Original post: The Joint Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology considered a bill to put some management and routine auditing costs onto shareholders rather than ratepayers, establish a procedure for meter-to-billing routine testing, and ask the Public Utilities Commission for a report outlining lessons learned from the October 2017 windstorm.

The bill, LD 1729, an Act to Require Audits of an Investor-Owned Transmission and Distribution Utility’s Metering and Billing Systems, was amended to give the PUC some leeway in asking utilities to pay for audits if the audits show imprudent conduct led to problems. Currently if that is found, the PUC cannot shift the costs from ratepayers to shareholders. The PUC can disallow certain costs, however.

For instance, when Emera Maine had issues with a new billing system in 2016, an audit discovered an error rate of 30 percent in one month across the Bangor Hydro district. The PUC let Emera charge ratepayers all but $2,000,000 of the nearly $15,000,000 fix to the billing system; the PUC fined Emera that $2,000,000, therefore passing that expense onto shareholders. The bill had only included investor-owned electric utilities; however, during the work session, consumer-owned ones were added. Since consumers are both ratepayers and shareholders in a consumer-owned utility, changing the language to include all utilities would not affect them. Questions arose as to whether other utilities, such as water districts, might also have to pay for audits that find imprudent actions.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Christina Riley (D-Jay) said the law should probably apply to them, as well, to avoid equal protection issues. The committee's six Republicans, including Wiscasset’s representative, Jeff Hanley (R-Pittston), voted ought not to pass. Hanley said he worried about setting a precedent of the committee overruling the PUC’s oversight. Rep. Seth Berry (D-Bowdoinham) said the changes were needed because the statute keeps the PUC from holding utilities and their shareholders accountable. That leaves ratepayers with the expense, he said.

Since Democrats control the committee, the likely vote is 6-7, defeating the ought not to pass motion. Then the committee would have three options: a compromise vote that will pass; a party-line vote of ought to pass, which may make it less likely to move through the Legislature this term; or wait until after midterm elections. Berry was uncertain the committee would be permitted to meet Monday, so the issue may not be in its hands. LD 1729 would also provide a way to regularly and independently audit the meter-to-billing connection.

Among the questions the bill’s mandated report would answer is if the investor-owned transmission and distribution utilities had done enough to protect and strengthen their systems as high-intensity storms appear to be increasing; if it is in ratepayers’ interest to require the utilities to do more to protect their systems against damage, to prevent or decrease outages and their duration; how to improve public safety, and what lessons were learned from recent outages due to storms.

Central Maine Power’s manager of community and government relations Joel Harrington spoke in favor of the bill. A lawyer for Emera Maine spoke, neither for nor against. Public advocate Barry Hobbins made the case that because the issue is so important to so many ratepayers, it would very likely become a campaign issue if lawmakers voted against it.