NWE-Purchase Bill Advances
By Johnson, Charles S
HELENA – By a one-vote margin, the Montana Senate voted Monday to let the state buy NorthWestern Energy if state regulators reject an Australian company’s proposed purchase of the company.
Senators gave debate-stage approval to Senate Bill 558 by a 25- 24 margin. It still faces a final Senate vote before heading to the House. The bill failed on a 25-25 vote earlier Monday, but passed on the second attempt.
Twenty-four Democrats, joined by Republican Sen. John Cobb of Augusta, voted for the bill. Twenty-two Republicans, plus Democratic Sens. Larry Jent of Bozeman and Frank Smith of Poplar, voted against it. Sen. Jerry Black R-Shelby, didnt vote.
SB558, by Sen. Greg Lind, D-Missoula, would set up a staterun Montana Electric and Gas Authority that could negotiate to buy NorthWestern Energy and switch it to a publicly owned, nonprofit utility.
Lind said he was offering the Senate “an opportunity for a different energy future.” It would be a case of a “willing seller, willing buyer transaction,” he said.
NorthWestern has proposed selling the company to Babcock & Brown of Sydney, Australia, for $2.2 billion. The Montana Public Service Commission conducted a hearing on the proposed sale earlier this spring, but has not yet issued a ruling.
Last year, NorthWestern rejected a purchase bid from five Montana cities that wanted to convert the utility into a nonprofit operation.
Lind said a state-owned utility would lead to -predictable, reliable energy” controlled locally.
“This is not a social experiment,” Lind said, citing other publicly owned utilities and rural electric cooperatives around the country.
Sen. Bob Story, R-Park City, said Montana voters made it clear, by a 68 to 32 percent margin in 2002, that they did not want to see want to see public ownership of utilities. Voters that year turned down a plan that would have allowed the state to buy the power plants and dams owned by PPL Montana, by condemnation if necessary.
Sen. Greg Barkus, R-Kalispell, said the Legislature must be very careful if the state is going to “be involved in private competing businesses.”
He suggested that NorthWestern workers would be added to the state pay plan and state pension fund if the bill were to pass, but Lind disagreed.
Sen. Dave Wanzenried, D-Missoula, defended the bill, saying, “It’s entirely appropriate for us to advance this proposal as one more option.”
If the bill passes the Democrat-led Senate, it likely will face tougher sledding in the Republican-led House.
Copyright Billings Gazette Apr 03, 2007
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