Petitioners ask Montana utility board to integrate climate impacts into regulatory decisions

This story is adapted from the MT Lowdown, a weekly newsletter digest containing original reporting and analysis published every Friday.

Forty-one climate organizations, conservation nonprofits and businesses have petitioned Montana’s utility board to take climate impacts into account in its regulation of monopoly power companies.

In a petition filed Feb. 28, the petitioners argue that the Public Service Commission has an obligation to consider climate impacts, citing Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Kathy Seeley’s August ruling that sided with 16 young Montanans in the Held v. Montana lawsuit. That ruling found the state has acted contrary to environmental protections enshrined in the Montana Constitution by failing to consider the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions in its permitting decisions.

“As a utility regulator, the PSC has profound impact on state emissions and energy affordability,” Kimber Brown with Gallatin Valley Sunrise said in a press call about the petition. “They now have the opportunity to regard our constitutional right to our ‘clean and healthful environment’ in all of their decisions.”

The groups are asking the PSC, the five-member elected body that regulates public utilities, to adopt a framework for estimating the “social cost” of greenhouse gas emissions similar to the one developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That framework is designed to measure “the net social benefits” of reducing emissions, as well as the cost of letting them rise. The petitioners argue that having a framework like that in place at the state level would let the PSC factor in the social, economic and environmental costs associated with different power sources when it decides which generating resources can be incorporated into customer bills.

“The idea is we would be able to use that estimate of the damage of pollution if we have an existing generating asset such as the Colstrip generating plant,” Nick Fitzmaurice with the Montana Environmental Information Center said.

Fitzmaurice added that the calculations could also be applied to proposed power plants. It would be a “pretty straightforward” process for PSC staff to integrate those fuel-based calculations into their work, he said.

A spokesperson for PSC-regulated utility NorthWestern Energy, which is a co-owner of the Colstrip coal power plant, wrote in an email to MTFP that the utility is “reviewing the petition and looks forward to a thorough discussion on the topic.”

Petitioners are submitting their request under the Montana Administrative Procedure Act, which establishes a process for the public to petition state agencies to adopt new rules to govern their work. The 42-page petition includes material related to climate impacts, PSC’s statutory duties and implications of the Held v. Montana order.

Earthjustice attorney Jenny Harbine said she’s optimistic the commission will hold a hearing on the matter and suggested the petitioners may take the matter to court if they don’t find a receptive audience with the commission.

“If the commission decides not to abide by those constitutional obligations, it certainly subjects itself to legal arguments that it acted unlawfully,” Harbine said. “We’re hoping we don’t have to cross that bridge.”

Petitioners include climate- and environment-focused groups such as Families for a Livable Climate, Montana Environmental Information Center, 350 Montana, Save Wild Trout, Western Environmental Law Center and Montana Wildlife Federation. A handful of businesses including Bridger Bowl Ski Area, Blackfoot River Brewing and Parks’ Fly Shop also signed the petition, as did Lander Busse, one of the Held v. Montana plaintiffs and a son of Democratic candidate for governor Ryan Busse.