Utility Tariff Bonds for Coal and Other Electrical Generating Plant Retirements in Montana?

Montana may be, like New Mexico and possibly Colorado,¹ permitting utility tariff bonds related to certain electrical generating plant retirements. If enacted as proposed, the law would be called the “Montana Energy Impact Assistance Act.”

Montana’s recently amended House Bill 467 would permit an affected utility that was retiring and replacing an electrical generating facility with a generating capacity of 200MW or more to request, and to possibly obtain, a financing order that allows the recovery, through non-bypassable customer charges, of certain “Montana energy impact assistance costs” through the authorized issuance of “Montana energy impact assistance bonds.”

Unlike what’s being proposed in Colorado, the proposed Montana law would not have the energy impact assistance costs explicitly include employee and community impact transition costs.

1. See our earlier related Perspective: Utility Tariff Bonds for Coal Plant Retirements in New Mexico and Possibly Colorado. Coming to Your State Soon?