For NorthWestern Energy, trust is a one-way street

Colstrip Power Plant (Photo by Darrell Ehrlick of the Daily Montanan).

Trust us, says the state’s largest public utility company, NorthWestern Energy, as it made a historic rate increase request two years ago , only to have another large rate request wallop its Montana customers this year.

Trust us, says the same company which can’t even tell the truth in a pleading to the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court when it says that a coal plant in southern Montana is the largest plant west of the Mississippi, even though it doesn’t appear to be in the top 3 . And don’t even get me started on NorthWestern’s crocodile tears about having to update Colstrip when it has literally been planning to spool it down because of exorbitant pollution control costs, known decades ago .

Trust us, says NorthWestern as it rushes headlong into more fossil fuels , even while most other utilities invest in renewables, some building multi-million dollar projects in Montana to ship energy several states away.

So it’s probably not surprising that NorthWestern is asking to trust it again, as it wants to shut the public out of meetings where members of (*checks notes again) the public are supposed to help put together a plan for the utility company’s future in Montana.

The public, as it turns out, is a burden and inconvenience, but not so much that the utility company can’t turn around and squeeze a healthy rate of return out of us.

In fact, the public is held in such little regard by NorthWestern Energy that they’ve told the Montana Public Service Commission it’s “essential” to keep the public out of its meetings where the future of Montana’s energy landscape is being discussed. In fact, officials with the utility hold the public in such contempt that they won’t even disclose the members of their company who serve on the Electrical Technical Advisory Committee, mandated by law to be, well, public.

The Montana Public Service Commission has shown a renewed sense of independence lately and has both demanded answers about this clandestine committee, as well as publicly rebuked NorthWestern for its shoddy rate case proposal — twice .

Like all publicly regulated utilities, NorthWestern is guaranteed a reasonable rate of return (read: profit margin) in exchange for having the public involved in its business. There are likely many businesses which would take that deal — a guarantee of financial success, for a bit of public scrutiny.

The trouble is two-fold: NorthWestern has been historically used to getting whatever it wants at the Public Service Commission, by bluster or legal threat. And, the company is recoiling at the indignity of having to answer why it would rather close out the public.

But NorthWestern is learning the most basic rule of public participation. True, involving the public in commenting and participation guarantees a lengthier, messier process. It’s not as easy for companies or leaders to insist on their way. And, involving the public, even dissenting voices, means compromise, and sometimes consideration of inconvenient questions, like, for example, the role of burning fossil fuels in the sometimes catastrophic climate change taking place beneath the “Big Sky.”

I would suggest NorthWestern wants it both ways, though. It wants to dictate how and what it builds in the future, as well as demand the price it wants to extract from the captive customers who have no choice but to pony up. That, though, disregards the public part of public utilities, which is customers should have a say in what kind of power we want.

By intentionally not releasing information, even the basic kind which includes who sits on the committee and what are the topics discussed, NorthWestern creates its own public relations nightmare in which ratepayers, residents, and nosy columnists assume the worst because the utility company admits it’s purposefully hiding information that everyone else believes should be public.

It’s excellent that the groups which have brought this issue to the forefront continue to demand action. If we have to be held captive by a company whose future plans include taking us back to the days of coal, then transparency would be welcome. And, we’re encouraged that the Public Service Commission has embraced a more critical and even confrontational posture, literally putting the “public service” part back into the equation.

So when NorthWestern energy asks us to trust them, I’d suggest it’s time to turn the tables on them: When will it begin to start trusting the public?