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NorthWestern Energy gets the gold, Montanans get the shaft – Daily Montanan [1]

['More From Author', 'January', 'George Ochenski']

Date: 2024-01-26  

Montana’s brutal cold wave is over and it’s hard to find anyone sad about that.

But what will bring tears to Montanans’ eyes is when their power bills from NorthWestern Energy arrive. Our so-called “regulated monopoly” is sticking Montanans for exorbitant prices, claiming it had to buy super-expensive energy on the open market during the polar vortex to keep the lights and heat on for customers.

When Ron DeSantis dropped out of the GOP presidential primary race on Sunday, it came as no surprise — but what he said on his way out the door did. “The days of putting Americans last, of kowtowing to large corporations, of caving to woke ideology, are over.”

It’s obvious old Ron hasn’t been to Montana lately — where “kowtowing to large corporations” is anything but over.

In fact, the tragic scam just pulled on their customers by NorthWestern Energy confirms that Montana’s politicians are on their knees and willing to do anything to benefit large corporations, even at tremendous cost to the citizens they’re supposed to represent.

As thoroughly detailed by Montana’s top energy reporter, Tom Lutey, the subzero debacle of Montana’s largest utility corporation was not only foreseeable, but entirely avoidable.

According to the baloney spewed by NorthWestern, the decrepit Colstrip coal-fired generating plants our GOP politicians want us to pay for were down for “scheduled maintenance” during the extreme cold spell.

Now anyone who lives in Montana knows the last thing that makes sense is to shut down your power plant in January — generally expected to be our coldest month. And while lots of corporate CEOs see Montanans as rubes, trying to pull this wool over our eyes is a very bad joke.

As Lutey wrote: “It should be noted that Colstrip’s two units weren’t fully operating when the Arctic freeze hit Jan. 11 and didn’t fully power up until the early hours of Jan. 13.”

NorthWestern’s spokesperson then falsely claimed the utility didn’t have the ability to purchase power on the open market in advance, known as “hedging.” Lutey blew that out of the water, too, writing: “NorthWestern does have the option of hedging to manage volatile prices during extreme weather events” and has had that authority for the last two years.

While the utility is busy fear-mongering in the hope Montanans will support buying even more of Colstrip’s crumbling plants, they’re sticking it to their 400,000 customers when “energy prices soared from about $70 a megawatt hour to $1,000 a megawatt hour on the Mid-Columbia trading hub, where NorthWestern trades.”

Maybe DeSantis knows some Republicans from somewhere that don’t “kowtow to large corporations.” But Montana’s Public Service Commission, the “regulatory” entity that supposedly ensures utilities don’t prey on their customers, is 100% Republican. And this same commission recently approved a whopping 28% hike in what NorthWestern can charge for its power.

In the meantime, Republican supermajorities in the Legislature have worn out the knees of their suits kowtowing to keep Colstrip’s dirty power plants running — and Gov. Greg Gianforte only completes the trifecta of GOP’s corporate kowtowers.

Adding insult to financial injury for its customers: “When Lee Montana Newspapers attempted to contact NorthWestern to talk about the big freeze and how the utility managed the costs, NorthWestern didn’t respond, to landline and cellphone calls, to voicemails, and email and a text placed Wednesday and Thursday.”

Obviously, NorthWestern isn’t much worried about justifying ripping off Montanans. And why should it be? It’s all too obvious our Republican politicians are undeniably and totally committed to “kowtowing to large corporations.”

And once again, NorthWestern gets the gold — and Montanans get the shaft.

George Ochenski is a longtime Helena resident, an environmental activist and Montana’s longest-running columnist.

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