Committee advances bill requiring utilities to publish customer bill-impact analyses

The committee voted to pass SB2497 SD2 with amendments Tuesday, directing electric utilities (other than cooperatives) to provide transparent customer bill-impact analyses in an electronic format reasonably usable by ratepayers and to submit annual reports to the Public Utilities Commission.

The Division of Consumer Advocacy and the PUC supported the bill's intent in written testimony, and Life of the Land warned that the statutory requirement that analyses be "reasonably usable by ratepayers" could be interpreted to demand highly technical disclosures. "It would take the average person between 300 and 4,000 hours of study ... to begin to understand" the full set of assumptions and models involved, a Life of the Land witness testified, urging clarity on what the disclosure must include.

Hawaiian Electric told the committee it had concerns that additional disclosure requirements could raise costs, slow projects and chill competition, but the utility also noted that much of the analysis is already available through integrated resource planning processes. The PUC said it supports the bill's intent and will provide technical comments.

The committee adopted amendments combining suggested edits from the Division of Consumer Advocacy and PUC and set the bill's defective effective date to the year 3000 to preserve drafting flexibility. Committee members said the changes aim to give the public access to the data and assumptions behind utility proposals without imposing impractical demands on utilities.

The bill now moves forward with the amended transparency requirements; lawmakers asked agencies to work on technical language so the public disclosures are useful and not misleading.