The Colorado Mining Association on Wednesday moved to block two members of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission from ruling on Xcel Energy’s $1.3 billion plan to improve air quality along the Front Range.
Citing a serious conflict of interest, the mining association filed a motion for disqualification against PUC Chairman Ron Binz and Commissioner Matt Baker.
“The Commissioners have breached their duty to the people of Colorado by making a private deal with Xcel Energy (Public Service Co. of Colorado) to allow it to ‘spend itself rich,’ ” the motion alleges.
The Colorado Mining Association represents the state’s coal-mining industry.
At issue are negotiations and discussions involving Binz and Baker before last March 15’s introduction of the Clean Air-Clean Jobs bill.
The bill, which passed, seeks to cut pollution from nitrogen oxides 70 percent to 80 percent so the state can meet federal clean-air standards.
The drafting of the bill involved collaboration among Xcel, environmental groups, the Governor’s Energy Office and the natural-gas industry.
The bill allows Xcel to recover its costs more quickly if the company takes its aging coal plants and closes, retrofits or replaces them with natural-gas power.
Xcel filed the $1.3 billion plan with the PUC on Aug. 13 to retrofit or replace five coal-fired plants along the Front Range. Xcel estimates its customers will see a 1.5 percent increase in their monthly electric bills.
The commission must rule on the plan by the end of December.
E-mails and documents, obtained through a Colorado Opens Records Act request by the mining association, put into question whether the PUC effectively preapproved Xcel’s eventual request.
Discussions began in June 2009, but it wasn’t until December that the focus shifted in favor of repowering old coal plants with natural gas.
The negotiations began in earnest in January, and the e-mails and documents underscore Xcel’s prowess in those talks.
On March 1, Binz stated that the commission “won’t support the rider recovery between rate cases.”
Seven days later, Xcel sought such interim recovery.
“Now it seems the company is arguing that you need the ‘rider’ type treatment no matter what,” Binz responded.
Short-term recovery
Such short-term cost recovery became part of the bill.
The e-mails show a flurry of pitched negotiations among the parties — particularly Binz and Xcel vice president Karen Hyde — right up until the bill was introduced in the legislature March 15.
“I was working with Karen Hyde until 9 last evening hammering out final language,” Binz reported to fellow commissioners Baker and Jim Tarpey on March 11.
Gov. Bill Ritter signed the Clean Air-Clean Jobs bill into law April 19.
Several parties involved in the legislation counter that nothing inappropriate occurred and that PUC staff and commissioners are routinely involved in complex bills.
“I am very proud of the work my committee has done. We didn’t just rubber-stamp it,” said Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, chairman of the House Transportation and Energy Committee.
McFadyen defended the bill as a good one. She said her committee regularly relies on the PUC to obtain a more objective and informed opinion, reducing its dependence on industry lobbyists.
Groups see desperation
Environmental groups called the mining association’s filing a desperate move.
“This is nothing more than an eleventh-hour attempt by the coal industry to use intimidation tactics to derail critical progress on cleaning up Colorado’s air,” said John Nielsen, energy program director of Western Resource Advocates in Boulder.
Xcel spokesman Mark Stutz said retrofitting coal plants to natural gas represents an option costing less than adding tighter emissions-control equipment, which the coal industry favors.
He added that Xcel and the PUC are debating several aspects of the proposed plan.
“If we are sitting today having this robust debate on how to interpret the act, it doesn’t seem to suggest the chain of events that the CMA alleges,” he said.
PUC spokesman Terry Bote said the commission couldn’t comment on the motion, given that it must make a ruling. But Binz, writing in an opinion piece in Wednesday’s Denver Post, defended his involvement in the process.
“My role in the legislative negotiations served one purpose: to protect consumers,” Binz said. He said he opposed language Xcel wanted to give it favorable treatment under the new law.
“We will make that decision with the same integrity we bring to every case,” he said about reviewing the Xcel plan.
If the mining association’s motion is approved, only one commissioner, Tarpey, would be left to review the plan.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com
Mark Jaffe: 303-954-1912 or mjaffe@denverpost.com
