Dive Brief:
- Massachusetts’ highest court upheld a 2012 law allowing regulators to fine utilities for inadequate storm response. The law also required electricity companies to cover the cost of any investigations into their storm response.
- Massachusetts electric utilities will be charged $25 million in fines and $191,000 for the state regulator’s investigations into how prepared they were for and how well they responded to weather-related outages in 2013.
- The law was challenged by five utilities including National Grid, NStar and Western Massachusetts Electrical Co., who all sought to pass the costs of storm response fines on to ratepayers.
Dive Insight:
Utilities contended that charging for the investigation was unconstitutional.The companies appealed nearly $25 million in fines after a state investigation into their response to storm-induced outages.
By upholding the 2012 law, the state court endorsed the regulator’s retroactive investigations into company behavior.