Representatives from the Public Utilities Commission, part of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, presented to the Summit Board of County Commissioners at its May 27 work session about how the commission’s review process works.

The commission is currently reviewing Xcel Energy’s proposed Mountain Energy Project, which aims to address natural gas supply constraints in several mountain counties and proposes two gas injection sites in Summit, among other things. The program’s estimated total cost is $155 million.

Rebecca White, the Public Utilities Commission director, said she would not be able to discuss the specifics of Xcel’s proposal because it is an open proceeding. She said she wanted to explain how the commission works so the Summit commissioners can better engage with the process.

“I would say we are one of the most obscure regulatory agencies in the state,” White said. “And complicated and litigious and function like a courtroom much of the time.”

Who is involved

Summit County joined Breckenridge, Frisco, Dillon, Silverthorne, Keystone and Blue River in February to form the Mountain Community Coalition, which will act as an intervenor throughout the review process.

Intervenors are one of several types of parties involved in a commission review proceeding, White described in her presentation. She started by explaining that the commissioners, appointed by the governor and approved by the Senate, serve four-year terms. 

While the commissioners make regulatory decisions, White, as the director, does not. She makes decisions about the commission’s staffing and budget. 

The third party within the commission, the trial staff, includes experts like economists, lawyers, engineers and certified public accountants who give their opinions on commission proceedings, White said.

“They intervene in a case as a party, and we hold them independent and sort of separate them from the commission,” White said. “They will tear apart a filing and look at every angle of it.”

Finally, the commission features advisors, which are similar to the trial staff in that the group is made up of economists, engineers and other professionals, but advisors work directly for the commissioners.

“They will do some research for (the commissioners), will give them their opinion, reading every testimony for every one that’s filed,” White said. “The advisors will read all of that and help consolidate that.”

Intervenors, like the Mountain Community Coalition, are special interest groups outside the commission. They can submit their own written evidence and challenge or support the utility’s evidence.

In the Xcel Mountain Energy Project case, intervenors include local government groups like Mountain Community Coalition; government agencies like the Colorado Energy Office; the Colorado Energy Consumers, which is a group that represents companies that consume large amounts of energy; and others like the Sierra Club, an environmental organization.

How it works

When a utility provider wants to spend a lot of money on a project, White said, it goes to the commission to get a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity. The utility provides a filing to begin the process and includes testimony to support its case.

The commission has several ways to handle a filing, but the way proceedings will work for the Mountain Energy Project will be adjudication, where Commissioner Megan Gilman will act as a judge, hearing the case.

“She will come up with a recommended decision that the other commissioners will need to adopt,” White said.

A statutory clock ensures proceedings “don’t take forever,” White said, but they usually take about four months. Any party in the proceeding can object and ask the commissioners to reconsider.

“Things can kind of go forward and backward,” White said. “If (after reconsideration) a party says, ‘I still don’t like where the commission landed,’ district court and then the state Supreme Court are the last steps that any party has.”

White said the Mountain Energy Project proceedings are in the early stages and a decision should come in November. Parties will go back and forth filing different arguments and preparing for the evidentiary hearing Aug. 12-14, White said.

After the evidentiary hearing, Gilman will draft a written decision for how she thinks the commission should respond to Xcel’s request. She and the other commissioners will discuss the draft decision at their regular meetings or at special deliberations meetings, both of which are public, as are all commission hearings and meetings.

Once the commissioners come to a decision, they will publish a final written decision sometime in November.

Public comment

The commission will host three public comment opportunities during the proceedings, including one in-person June 25 from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Summit County Community and Senior Center in Frisco, and the other two online Aug. 4 from 11 a.m. to noon and 6-7 p.m.

Find more information about the public comment sessions and register for the online ones at PUC.Colorado.gov. Public comment is not limited to those sessions, though, as the commission will take them at any time at PUC.Colorado.gov/participate.

“We always take comment in almost any form,” White said. “We get a lot of emails. We get voicemails. We’ll take them in any language and have them translated.”

White told the county commissioners that the Public Utility Commission’s website can be hard to use, but to find all filings related to the Mountain Energy Project case, interested parties can visit PUC.Colorado.gov, look for “E-Filings” and search for the case by its proceeding number: 25A-0044EG.

“I’m trying really hard to make this a bit easier to do, but until we get to that point, this is my shortcut,” White said. “It will, fortunately or unfortunately, pull up, often, hundreds of files.”