Public Comment On PSC Petition For Rulemaking 4.8.24

"If the petitioners would like the PSC to implement a carbon tax on Montana utility customers through ratemaking, they should pursue future legislation which would direct the PSC to do so, rather than attempting to run it through the back door via administrative rulemaking."

April 8th, 2024
RE: PSC PETITION FOR RULEMAKING

Dear President Brown and Members of the Commission,

We encourage the PSC to reject this petition for rulemaking for the following three reasons:

1. Basing rates for electric and natural gas service on the social cost of greenhouse gasses calculation, a metric which is both highly controversial and easily manipulatable, amounts to a massive carbon tax on Montana utility customers that will significantly drive up rates for reliable electricity. Significant regulatory decisions like this should be made in the legislature – where there is more opportunity for proper democratic representation, debate, and public input.

2. The proposed rulemaking would also require Montana to defer to the federal government in determining social costs. We should NOT be ceding Montana’s authority to set our own climate policy to the federal government bureaucracy. We need to protect our own state’s sovereignty and ensure state policy is set through the democratic process by Montana’s representatives in the state legislature.

3. There is no basis in Montana law for what this petition for rulemaking seeks to do. The legislature has clearly and intentionally excluded the PSC from the requirements of MEPA, and therefore the PSC does not do environmental impact analysis. Additionally, the Legislature explicitly prohibits the PSC from including speculative environmental costs such as the “social cost of greenhouse gasses” in customer rates. MCA 69-3-1206 states: “the Commission may not include a bonus or adder to provide additional compensation for environmental externalities or other costs above avoided costs, except when a bonus or adder is necessary to compensate for a real and actual cost required by existing regulation or existing law.”

If the petitioners would like the PSC to implement a carbon tax on Montana utility customers through ratemaking, they should pursue future legislation which would direct the PSC to do so, rather than attempting to run it through the back door via administrative rulemaking.

We urge you to reject these proposed rules.

In Liberty,
Tanner Avery