Maine’s legislators began the task this week of sorting out how Gov. Janet Mills’ recently proposed utility accountability bill differs from a similar one she vetoed last year and whether it does enough to protect consumer interests.

The bill’s supporters say it would provide enhanced regulatory tools for ensuring that the state’s investor-owned utilities deliver reliable and affordable electricity services. But opponents say the Maine Public Utilities Commission already has the authority to keep utilities in line.

“No matter what party you identify with, or what part of the state you live in, I think we can all agree that more transparency and accountability for the transmission and distribution monopolies is a smart and much needed step forward,” Sen. Stacy Brenner (D) said during a Joint Energy, Utilities and Technology committee public hearing Tuesday.

Brenner, who sponsored the governor’s bill (LD 1959), co-sponsored another utility accountability bill (LD 1708) last year that moved quickly through the legislature in June despite the governor’s concerns. Mills vetoed LD 1708 in July, saying that it was an important but hastily drafted piece of legislation.

While both bills contain a central provision allowing regulators to force the sale of an IOU if it does not meet certain service metrics, they diverge on the metric specifics and other methods of accountability. Mills’ proposal would establish future performance guidelines to determine a utility’s fitness to serve, and the previous bill looked primarily at historical utility performance.

Each bill addresses a potential utility asset sale differently. Mills wants the PUC to consider bids from potential buyers while also looking at a proposal for a consumer-owned utility (COU) from a state-appointed committee. Regulators would decide whether a COU would provide the best service to consumers.

LD 1708, on the other hand, sought to put the assets directly in the public’s hands via a COU, without consideration for outside bids. Supporters of the consumer nonprofit model for Maine want the public to have more say in the business of electricity generation and distribution.

Allowing the PUC to set new performance metrics would only “shelter what should be a public process in a place where the public has very little access or ability to influence the outcome,” said Sen. Nicole Grohoski (D), who co-sponsored LD 1708.

Maine Public Advocate William Howard, who supports the governor’s bill, agreed with Grohoski in hearing testimony.

“There is an element of a closed club that handles most of the litigation before the PUC … and it makes it very difficult for outsiders to understand much less participate,” Howard said. “That is something I’m going to be working on.”

Other Provisions

The governor’s bill would strengthen the PUC’s authority for levying fines for poor service, establish financial audits and expand utility whistleblower protections.

“I think [protections for whistleblowers] may be the sleeper piece of this bill,” Howard said. “I am very confident that the additional protections in this bill will lead to future whistleblowers, and that will help us control costs.”

Under the bill, the PUC could “crack down” on Central Maine Power (CMP) and Versant Power through a provision that doubles current penalties, from $500,000 to $1 million or 5% of revenue to 10%, according to Dan Burgess, director of the Governor’s Energy Office. But regulators already have leeway in setting fines, according to Sen. Steven Foster (R).

The penalty provision, Howard said, would be tied to performance metrics as an administrative procedure rather than hiding within a rate proceeding as set out by current guidelines.

“The headline will not be ‘CMP or Versant rates raise 9%’; the headline will be ‘CMP or Versant penalized for X million dollars for poor service,’” he said. “That will get their attention.”

In Opposition

Our Power, a nonprofit that supports the creation of a COU to replace CMP and Versant, is concerned about the reliance the governor’s bill puts on regulators for utility accountability.

“In crucial decisions, [the commission] too often has to rely on whatever information is selectively provided by utilities,” Andrew Blunt, legislative director at Our Power, said in hearing testimony. “It is simply the wrong body to look to for true accountability.”

The nonprofit is behind a citizen initiative launched last August to force a public vote on LD 1708. By January, the group had collected 60,000 signatures for the initiative, but that was not enough to make the November ballot.

Mills’ proposal, Blunt said, gives the state’s IOUs a “blank slate that they do not deserve.” The performance metrics in the bill, he added, are “astonishingly weak” and would not set minimum standards in statute.

CMP President Joseph Purington opposed the governor’s bill during the hearing, saying that the legislature “already got it right.”

“The PUC has the authority it needs to do its job to ensure safe, adequate service at just and reasonable rates,” he said.

In recent history, he added, the PUC imposed the “largest financial penalty in Maine utility history” for CMP’s poor service quality. CMP responded by reorganizing, and it is now “meeting and exceeding some of the most stringent metrics in the industry,” he said.