Mass. Senate backs bill on power outages
BOB SALSBERG, Associated Press
BOSTON (AP) — A bill that would apply more pressure on utilities to quickly restore power to customers after major weather events was approved Thursday by the Massachusetts Senate.
The debate and unanimous vote on the legislation reflected the intense and still lingering public anger over lengthy power outages that followed Tropical Storm Irene in August and the surprise October snowstorm. Hundreds of thousands of customers lost power during the storms and some waited longer than a week for crews to restore their electricity. Homeowners, businesses and local officials complained about being given little information by the companies on when crews would be arriving in their communities and how long the restoration would take.
The bill would require that after an initial 24-hour assessment period, utilities would be required to provide customers with twice-daily updates on when their power will be restored after a major storm. The utilities must set up a Massachusetts-based call center for the entire duration of the emergency, with enough staff to handle the increase in calls.
The bill subjects all investor owned utility companies to receiverships to improve their response to cities and towns during a storm. The bill would also force each utility to pay a proportionate share into a $460,000 annual fund that would cover the cost of storm response investigations by the state Department of Public Utilities, which regulates the electric companies. The cost of this assessment cannot be passed on to customers. The bill does however establish a mechanism for distribution of penalties assessed against utilities to ratepayers.
To better improve communication between ratepayers, cities and towns, the utilities, and state emergency response personnel, the legislation requires public utilities to report storm outages to the state and designate a community liaison in each community when implementing an emergency response plan. The bill also requires utilities to designate staff at the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency to help coordinate statewide response.
The measure would also assure that if a utility pays a penalty for violating storm response procedures, the money would be returned to ratepayers in the form of credits to their bills.
The DPU is continuing a separate investigation of the utilities’ response to the storms.
Senate President Therese Murray, D-Plymouth, said she heard from many frustrated constituents after the storms.
“No one expected power to be restored immediately, but there were people without power for a week or longer in some cases with no knowledge of an anticipated response time,” Murray said in a statement after the vote. “That is unacceptable.”
Sen. Stephen Brewer, D-Barre, said there was more anger in his district over the outages than any other issue he has encountered in more than two decades in the Legislature. He also noted that one person who lived in his district died while waiting for power to be restored after the October snow.
“Enough is enough,” Brewer said during Thursday’s debate.
Attorney General Martha Coakley sent a letter to lawmakers last month asking that any storm-related penalties assessed to utilities be credited to customer’s bills.
“The Senate’s action to advance this storm response bill will greatly assist our continuing efforts to protect ratepayers by holding utilities accountable for safety and reliability at reasonable costs,” Coakley said.
The legislation, which now moves to the House, would also require utilities to designate a liaison in each community during an emergency response period and set up a call center within Massachusetts so consumers can get updated information.
Utilities could also be placed in receivership, under the bill, in cases of “gross negligence” after storms.
Senators defeated a Republican-backed amendment that would have imposed a three-month moratorium on approval of any utility merger, to give the DPU time to complete its storm-response probe. The amendment was directed at the proposed $4.7 billion purchase of NStar by Northeast Utilities, which is currently pending before regulators.
“The aftermath of the storms exposed profound problems in the utility companies’ ability to organize and effectively respond to damages as well as communicate with customers and municipalities,” said Senator Michael R. Knapik, R-Westfield. “This legislation is the first step to ensure we are all better prepared for future events. I look forward to continuing the conversation on how to improve upon this legislation in the months to come,” Knapik added.
Senator Knapik filed an amendment to the bill in response to the recently announced approval by the Patrick Administration of a long-rumored merger of NSTAR and Northeast Utilities, two of the largest investor-owned utilities in Massachusetts. The Administration included language in the merger agreement that would require the newly formed company to purchase 27.5% of the energy to be produced by the Cape Wind project at above-market costs. Experts warn this may translate in to a $420 to $695 million increase in rates over the life of the 15-year contract.
The amendment would have placed a three-month moratorium on all approvals of utility mergers. The moratorium would provide the Department of Public Utilities additional time to complete any outstanding regulatory investigations, procedures, and reviews of October storm response. The measure was defeated by a vote of 7-29.
“We were simply asking for a ‘time out’ so we might have more time to review data on the open case file on storm response, and second, to further evaluate the terms of that merger agreement,” Knapik said. “I understand why corporations sometimes merge, but we need to think twice when such action might do something quite negative by mandating the purchase of the most costly energy in the world,” he concluded.
