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California Managed Decline of Fossil Fuels aligns oil phaseout with carbon neutrality, leveraging ZEV adoption, solar and wind growth, severance taxes, drilling setbacks, fracking oversight, CARB rules, and CalGEM regulation to deliver a just transition.

Key Points

California's strategy to phase out oil and gas while meeting carbon-neutral goals through policy, regulation, and equity.

✅ Severance taxes fund clean energy and workforce transition.

✅ Setbacks restrict drilling near schools, homes, and hospitals.

✅ CARB and CalGEM tighten fracking oversight and ZEV targets.

California’s energy past is on a collision course with its future. Think of major oil-producing U.S. states, and Texas, Alaska or North Dakota probably come to mind. Although its position relative to other states has been falling for 20 years, California remains the seventh-largest oil-producing state, with 162 million barrels of crude coming up in 2018, translating to tax revenue and jobs.

At the same time, California leads the nation in solar rooftops and electric vehicles on the road by a wide margin and ranking fifth in installed wind capacity. Clean energy is the state’s future, and the state is increasingly exporting its energy policies across the West, influencing regional markets. By law, California must have 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2045, and an executive order signed by former Governor Jerry Brown calls for economywide carbon-neutrality by the same year.

So how can the state reconcile its divergent energy path? How should clean-energy-minded lawmakers wind down California’s oil and gas sector in a way that aligns with the state’s long-term climate targets while providing a just transition for the industry’s workforce?

Any efforts to reduce fossil fuel supply must run parallel to aggressive demand-reduction measures such as California’s push to have 5 million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2030, said Ethan Elkind, director of Berkeley Law's climate program, especially amid debates over keeping the lights on without fossil fuels in the near term. After all, if oil demand in California remains strong, crude from outside the state will simply fill the void.

“If we don’t stop using it, then that supply is going to get here, even if it’s not produced in-state,” Elkind said in an interview.

Lawmakers have a number of options for policies that would draw down and eventually phase out fossil fuel production in California, according to a new report from the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment at the UC Berkeley School of Law, co-authored by Elkind and Ted Lamm.

They could impose a higher price on California's oil production through a "severance" tax or carbon-based fee, with the revenue directed to measures that wean the state from fossil fuels. (California, alone among major oil-producing states, does not have an oil severance tax.)

Lawmakers could establish a minimum drilling setback from schools, playgrounds, homes and other sensitive sites. They could push the state's oil and gas regulator, the California Geologic Energy Management Division, to prioritize environmental and climate concerns.

A major factor holding lawmakers back is, of course, politics, including debates over blackouts and climate policy that shape public perception. Given the state’s clean-energy ambitions, it might surprise non-Californians that the oil and gas industry is one of the Golden State’s most powerful special interest groups.

Overcoming a "third-rail issue" in California politics
The Western States Petroleum Association, the sector’s trade group in California's capital of Sacramento, spent $8.8 million lobbying state policymakers in 2019, more than any other interest group. Over the last five years, the group, which cultivates both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, has spent $43.3 million on lobbying, nearly double the total of the second-largest lobbying spender.

Despite former Governor Brown’s reputation as a climate champion, critics say he was unwilling to forcefully take on the oil and gas industry. However, things may take a different turn under Brown's successor, Governor Gavin Newsom.

In May 2019, when Newsom released California's midyear budget revision (PDF), the governor's office noted the need for "careful study and planning to decrease demand and supply of fossil fuels, while managing the decline in a way that is economically responsible and sustainable.”

Related reliability concerns surfaced as blackouts revealed lapses in power supply across the state.

Writing for the advocacy organization Oil Change International, David Turnbull observed, “This may mark the first time that a sitting governor in California has recognized the need to embark upon a managed decline of fossil fuel supply in the state.”

“It is significant because typically this is one of those third-rail issues, kind of a hot potato that governors don’t even want to touch at all — including Jerry Brown, to a large extent, who really focused much more on the demand side of fuel consumption in the state,” said Berkeley Law’s Elkind.

California's revised budget included $1.5 million for a Transition to a Carbon-Neutral Economy report, which is being prepared by University of California researchers for the California Environmental Protection Agency. In an email, a CalEPA spokesperson said the report is due by the end of this year.

Winding down oil and gas production
Since the release of the revised budget last May, Newsom has taken initial steps to increase oversight of the oil and gas industry. In July 2019, he fired the state’s top oil and gas regulator for issuing too many permits to hydraulically fracture, or frack, wells.

Later in the year, he appointed new leadership to oversee oil and gas regulation in the state, and he signed a package of bills that placed constraints on fossil fuel production. The next month, Newsom halted the approval of new fracking operations until pending permits could be reviewed by a panel of scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The California Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM) did not resume issuing fracking permit approvals until April of this year.

Not all steps have been in the same direction. This month Newsom dropped a proposal to add dozens of analysts, engineers and geologists at CalGEM, citing COVID-related economic pressure. The move would have increased regulatory oversight on fossil fuel producers and was opposed by the state's oil industry.

Ultimately, more durable measures to wind down fossil fuel supply and demand will require new legislation, even as regulators weigh whether the state needs more power plants to maintain reliability.

A 2019 bill by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance), AB 345, would have codified the minimum 2,500-foot setback for new oil and gas wells. However, before the final vote in the Assembly, the bill’s buffer requirement was dropped and replaced with a requirement for CalGEM “to consider a setback distance of 2,500 feet.” The bill passed the Assembly in January over "no" votes from several moderate Democrats; it now awaits action in the Senate.

A bill previously introduced by Assemblymember Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), AB 1745, didn’t even make it that far. Ting’s bill would have required that all new passenger cars registered in the state after January 1, 2040, be zero-emission vehicles (ZEV). The bill died in committee without a vote in April 2018.

But the backing of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), one of the world's most powerful air-quality regulators, could change the political conversation. In March, CARB chair Mary Nichols said she now supports consideration of California establishing a 100 percent zero-emission vehicle sales target by 2030, as policymakers also consider a revamp of electricity rates to clean the grid.

“In the past, I’ve been skeptical about whether that would do more harm than good in terms of the backlash by dealers and others against something that sounded so un-California like,” Nichols said during an online event. “But as time has gone on, I’ve become more convinced that we need to send the longer-term signal about where we’re headed.”

Another complicating factor for California’s political leaders is the lack of a willing federal partner — at least in the short term — in winding down oil and gas production, amid warnings about a looming electricity shortage that could pressure the grid.

Under the Trump administration, the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees 15 million acres of federal land in California, has pushed to open more than 1 million acres of public and private land across eight counties in Central California to fracking. In January 2020, California filed a federal lawsuit to block the move.

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California Wildfire Power Shut-Offs escalate as PG&E imposes blackouts amid high winds, Getty and Kincade fires, mass evacuations, Sonoma County threats, and a state of emergency, drawing regulatory scrutiny over grid safety and outage scope.

Key Points

Planned utility outages to curb wildfire risk during extreme winds, prompting evacuations and regulatory scrutiny.

✅ PG&E preemptive blackouts under regulator inquiry

✅ Getty and Kincade fires drive mass evacuations

✅ Sonoma County under threat amid high winds

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) already faces an investigation by regulators after cutting supplies to 970,000 homes and businesses amid California blackouts that raised concerns.

It announced that another 650,000 properties would face precautionary shut-offs.

Wildfires fanned by the strong winds are raging in two parts of the state.

Thousands of residents near the wealthy Brentwood neighbourhood of Los Angeles have been told to evacuate because of a wildfire that began early on Monday.

Further north in Sonoma County, a larger fire has forced 180,000 people from their homes.

California's governor has declared a state-wide emergency.

What about the power cuts?

On Monday regulators announced a formal inquiry into whether energy utilities broke rules by pre-emptively cutting power to an estimated 2.5 million people, amid a blackouts policy debate that intensified, as wildfire risks soared.

They did not name any utilities but analysts said PG&E was responsible for the bulk of the "public safety power shut-offs", and later faced a Camp Fire guilty plea that underscored its liabilities.

The company filed for bankruptcy in January after facing hundreds of lawsuits from victims of wildfires in 2017 and 2018.

Of the 970,000 properties hit by the most recent cuts, under half had their services back by Monday, and some sought help through wildfire assistance programs, the Associated Press reported.

Despite criticism that the precautionary blackouts were too widespread and too disruptive, PG&E said more would come on Tuesday and Wednesday because further strong winds were expected.

The company said it had logged more than 20 preliminary reports of damage to its network from the most recent windstorm.

In a video posted to Twitter on Saturday, Governor Gavin Newsom said the power cuts were "infuriating everyone, and rightfully so".

Where are the fires now?

In Los Angeles, the Getty Fire has burned over 600 acres (242 ha) and about 10,000 buildings are in the mandatory evacuation zone.

At least eight homes have been destroyed and five others damaged.

"If you are in an evacuation zone, don't screw around," Mr Schwarzenegger tweeted. "Get out."

LA fire chief Ralph Terrazas said fire crews had been "overwhelmed" by the scale of the fires.

"They had to make some tough decisions on which houses they were able to protect," he said.

"Many times it depends on where the ember lands. I saw homes that were adjacent to homes that were totally destroyed, without any damage."

In northern California, schools remain closed in Sonoma County, where tens of thousands of homes and businesses are under threat.

Sonoma has been ravaged by the Kincade Fire, which started on Wednesday and has burned through 50,000 acres of land, fanned by the winds.

The Kincade Fire began seven minutes after a nearby power line was damaged, and power lines may have started fires according to reports, but PG&E has not yet confirmed if the power glitch started the blaze.

About 180,000 people have been ordered to evacuate, with roads around Santa Rosa north of San Francisco packed with cars as people tried to flee.

There are fears the flames could cross the 101 highway and enter areas that have not seen wildfires since the 1940s.

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UK Clean Energy Supply Chain Delays are slowing decarbonization as transformer lead times, grid infrastructure bottlenecks, and battery storage contractors raise costs and risk 2030 targets despite manufacturing expansions by Siemens Energy and GE Vernova.

Key Points

Labor and equipment bottlenecks delay transformers and grid upgrades, risking the UK's 2030 clean power target.

✅ Transformer lead times doubled or tripled, raising project costs

✅ Grid infrastructure and battery storage contractors in short supply

✅ Firms expand capacity cautiously amid uncertain demand signals

The United Kingdom's ambitious plans to transition to clean energy are encountering significant obstacles due to prolonged delays in obtaining essential equipment such as transformers and other electrical components. These supply chain challenges are impeding the nation's progress toward decarbonizing its power sector by 2030, even as wind leads the power mix in key periods.

Supply Chain Challenges

The global surge in demand for renewable energy infrastructure, including large-scale storage solutions, has led to extended lead times for critical components. For example, Statera Energy's storage plant in Thurrock experienced a 16-month delay for transformers from Siemens Energy. Such delays threaten the UK's goal to decarbonize power supplies by 2030.

Economic Implications

These supply chain constraints have doubled or tripled lead times over the past decade, resulting in increased costs and straining the energy transition as wind became the main source of UK electricity in a recent milestone. Despite efforts to expand manufacturing capacity by companies like GE Vernova, Hitachi Energy, and Siemens Energy, the sector remains cautious about overinvesting without predictable demand, and setbacks at Hinkley Point C have reinforced concerns about delivery risks.

Workforce and Manufacturing Capacity

Additionally, there is a limited number of companies capable of constructing and maintaining battery sites, adding to the challenges. These issues underscore the necessity for new factories and a trained workforce to support the electrification plans and meet the 2030 targets.

Government Initiatives

In response to these challenges, the UK government is exploring various strategies to bolster domestic manufacturing capabilities and streamline supply chains while supporting grid reform efforts underway to improve system resilience. Investments in infrastructure and workforce development are being considered to mitigate the impact of global supply chain disruptions and advance the UK's green industrial revolution for next-generation reactors.

The UK's energy transition is at a critical juncture, with supply chain delays posing substantial risks to achieving decarbonization goals, including the planned end of coal power after 142 years for the UK. Addressing these challenges will require coordinated efforts between the government, industry stakeholders, and international partners to ensure a sustainable and timely shift to clean energy.

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BC Hydro drought operations address climate change impacts with hydropower scheduling, reservoir management, water conservation, inflow forecasting, and fish habitat protection across the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island while maintaining electricity generation from storage facilities.

Key Points

BC Hydro drought operations conserve water, protect fish, and sustain hydropower during extended heat and low inflows.

✅ Proactive reservoir releases protect downstream salmon spawning.

✅ Reduced flows at Puntledge, Coquitlam, and Ruskin/Stave facilities.

✅ System relies on northern storage to maintain electricity supply.

BC Hydro is adjusting its operating plans around power generation as extended heat and little forecast rain continue to impact the province, a report says.

“Unpredictable weather patterns related to climate change are expected to continue in the years ahead and BC Hydro is constantly adapting to these evolving conditions, especially after events such as record demand in 2021 that tested the grid,” said the report, titled “Casting drought: How climate change is contributing to uncertain weather and how BC Hydro’s generation system is adapting.”

The study said there is no concern with BC Hydro being able to continue to deliver power through the drought because there is enough water at its larger facilities, even as issues like crypto mining electricity use draw scrutiny from observers.

Still, it said, with no meaningful precipitation in the forecast, its smaller facilities in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island will continue to see record low or near record low inflows for this time of the year.

“In the Lower Mainland, inflows since the beginning of September are ranked in the bottom three compared to historical records,” the report said.

The report said the hydroelectric system is directly impacted by variations in weather and the record-setting, unseasonably dry and warm weather this fall highlights the impacts of climate change, while demand patterns can be counterintuitive, as electricity use even increased during Earth Hour 2018 in some areas, hinting at challenges to come.

It noted symptoms of climate change include increased frequency of extreme events like drought and intense storms, and rapid glacial melt.

“With the extremely hot and dry conditions, BC Hydro has been taking proactive steps at many of our South Coast facilities for months to conserve water to protect the downstream fish habit,” spokesperson Mora Scott said. “We began holding back water in July and August at some facilities anticipating the dry conditions to help ensure we would have water storage for the later summer and early fall salmon spawning.”

Scott said BC Hydro’s reservoirs play an important role in managing these difficult conditions by using storage and planning releases to provide protection to downstream river flows. The reservoirs are, in effect, a battery waiting to be used for power.

While the dry conditions have had an impact on BC Hydro’s watersheds, several unregulated natural river systems — not related to BC Hydro — have fared worse, with rivers drying up and thousands of fish killed, the report said.

BC Hydro is currently seeing the most significant impacts on operations at Puntledge and Campbell River on Vancouver Island as well as Coquitlam and Ruskin/Stave in the Lower Mainland.

To help manage water levels on Vancouver Island, BC Hydro reduced Puntledge River flows by one-third last week and on the Lower Mainland reduced flows at Coquitlam by one-third and Ruskin/Stave by one quarter.

However, the utility company said, there are no concerns about continued power delivery.

“British Columbians benefit from BC Hydro’s integrated, provincial electricity system, which helps send power across the province, including to Vancouver Island, and programs like the winter payment plan support customers during colder months,” staff said.

Most of the electricity generated and used in B.C. is produced by larger facilities in the north and southeast of the province — and while water levels in those areas are below normal levels, there is enough water to meet the province’s power needs, even as additions like Site C's electricity remain a subject of debate among observers.

The Glacier Media investigation found a quarter of BC Hydro's power comes from the Mica, Revelstoke and Hugh Keenleyside dams on the Columbia River. Some 29% comes from dams in the Peace region, including the under-construction Site C project that has faced cost overruns. At certain points of the year, those reservoirs are reliant on glacier water.

Still, BC Hydro remains optimistic.

Forecasts are currently showing little rain in the near-term; however, historically, precipitation and inflows show up by the end of October. If that does not happen, BC Hydro said it would continue to closely track weather and inflow forecasts to adapt its operations to protect fish, while regional cooperation such as bridging with Alberta remains part of broader policy discussions.

Among things BC Hydro said it is doing to adapt are:

Continuously working to improve its weather and inflow forecasting;
Expanding its hydroclimate monitoring technology, including custom-made solutions that have been designed in-house, as well as upgrading snow survey stations to automated, real-time snow and climate stations, and;
Investing in capital projects — like spillway gate replacements — that will increase resiliency of the system to climate change.

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Affordable Clean Energy Rule Lawsuit pits EPA and coal industry allies against health groups over Clean Power Plan repeal, greenhouse gas emissions standards, climate change, public health, and state authority before the D.C. Circuit.

Key Points

A legal fight over EPA's ACE rule and CPP repeal, weighing emissions policy, state authority, climate, and public health.

✅ Challenges repeal of Clean Power Plan and adoption of ACE.

✅ EPA backed by coal, utilities; health groups seek stricter limits.

✅ D.C. Circuit to review emissions authority and state roles.

The largest trade association representing coal interests in the country has joined other business and electric utility groups in siding with the EPA in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's repeal of the Clean Power Plan.

The suit -- filed by the American Lung Association and the American Public Health Association -- seeks to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to drop a new rule-making process that critics claim would allow higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions, further contributing to the climate crisis and negatively impacting public health.

The new rule, which the Trump administration calls the "Affordable Clean Energy rule" (ACE), "would replace the 2015 Clean Power Plan, which EPA has proposed to repeal because it exceeded EPA's authority. The Clean Power Plan was stayed by the U.S. Supreme Court and has never gone into effect," according to an EPA statement.

EPA has also moved to rewrite wastewater limits for coal power plants, signaling a broader rollback of related environmental requirements.

America's Power -- formerly the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity -- the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Mining Association, and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association have filed motions seeking to join the lawsuit. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has not yet responded to the motion.

Separately, energy groups warned that President Trump and Energy Secretary Rick Perry were rushing major changes to electricity pricing that could disrupt markets.

"In this rule, the EPA has accomplished what eluded the prior administration: providing a clear, legal pathway to reduce emissions while preserving states' authority over their own grids," Hal Quinn, president and chief executive officer of the mining association, said when the new rule was released last month. "ACE replaces a proposal that was so extreme that the Supreme Court issued an unprecedented stay of the proposal, having recognized the economic havoc the mere suggestion of such overreach was causing in the nation's power grid."

Around the same time, a coal industry CEO blasted a federal agency's decision on the power grid as harmful to reliability.

The trade and business groups have argued that the Clean Power Plan, set by the Obama administration, was an overreach of federal power. Finalized in 2015, the plan was President Obama's signature policy on climate change, rooted in compliance with the Paris Climate Treaty. It would have set state limits on emissions from existing power plants but gave wide latitude for meeting goals, such as allowing plant operators to switch from coal to other electric generating sources to meet targets.

Former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt argued that the rule exceeded federal statutory limits by imposing "outside the fence" regulations on coal-fired plants instead of regulating "inside the fence" operations that can improve efficiency.

The Clean Power Plan set a goal of reducing carbon emissions from power generators by 32 percent by the year 2030. An analysis from the Rhodium Group found that had states taken full advantage of the CPP's flexibility, emissions would have been reduced by as much as 72 million metric tons per year on average. Still, even absent federal mandates, the group noted that states are taking it upon themselves to enact emission-reducing plans based on market forces.

In its motion, America's Power argues the EPA "acknowledged that the [Best System of Emission Reduction] for a source category must be 'limited to measures that can be implemented ... by the sources themselves.'" If plants couldn't take action, compliance with the new rule would require the owners or operators to buy emission rate credits that would increase investment in electricity from gas-fired or renewable sources. The increase in operating costs plus federal efforts to shift power generation to other sources of energy, thereby increasing costs, would eventually force the coal-fired plants out of business.

In related proceedings, renewable energy advocates told FERC that a DOE proposal to subsidize coal and nuclear plants was unsupported by the record, highlighting concerns about market distortions.

"While we are confident that EPA will prevail in the courts, we also want to help EPA defend the new rule against others who prefer extreme regulation," said Michelle Bloodworth, president and CEO of America's Power.

"Extreme regulation" to one group is environmental and health protections to another, though.

Howard A. Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center of the Midwest, defended the Clean Power Plan in an opinion piece published in June.

"The Midwest still produces more electricity from coal plants than any other region of the country, and Midwesterners bear the full range of pollution harms to public health, the Great Lakes, and overall environmental quality," Learner wrote. "The new [Affordable Clean Energy] Rule is a misguided policy, moves our nation backward in solving climate change problems, and misses opportunities for economic growth and innovation in the global shift to renewable energy. If not reversed by the courts, as it should be, the next administration will have the challenge of doing the right thing for public health, the climate and our clean energy future."

When it initially filed its lawsuit against the Trump administration's Affordable Clean Energy Rule, the American Lung Association accused the EPA of "abdicat[ing] its legal duties and obligations to protect public health." It also referred to the new rule as "dangerous."

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Hydro One-Avista Merger outlines a utility acquisition shaped by Washington regulators, Colstrip coal plant depreciation, and plans for renewables, clean energy, and emissions cuts, while Montana reviews implications for jobs, ratepayers, and a 2027 closure.

Key Points

A utility deal setting Colstrip depreciation and renewables, without committing to an early coal plant closure.

✅ Washington sets 2027 depreciation for Colstrip units

✅ Montana reviews jobs, ratepayer impacts, community fund

✅ Avista seeks renewables; no binding shutdown commitment

The Washington power company Hydro One is buying will be ready to close its huge coal-fired generating station ahead of schedule, thanks to conditions put on the corporate merger by state regulators there.

Not that we actually plan to do that, the company is telling other regulators in Montana, where coal unit retirements are under debate, the huge coal-fired generating station in question employs hundreds of people. We’ll be in the coal business for a good long time yet.

Hydro One, in which the Ontario government now owns a big minority stake, is still working on its purchase of Avista, a private power utility based in Spokane. The $6.7-billion deal, which Hydro One announced in July, includes a 15 per cent share in two of the four generating units in a coal plant in Colstrip, Montana, one of the biggest in the western United States. Avista gets most of its electricity from hydro dams and gas but uses the Colstrip plant when demand for power is high and water levels at its dams are low.

#google#

Colstrip’s a town of fewer than 2,500 people whose industries are the power plant and the open-pit mines that feed it about 10 million tonnes of coal a year. Two of Colstrip’s generators, older ones Avista doesn’t have any stake in, are closing in 2022. The other two will be all that keep the town in business.

In Washington, they don’t like the coal plant and its pollution. In Montana, the future of Colstrip is a much bigger concern. The companies have to satisfy regulators in both places that letting Hydro One buy Avista is in the public interest.

Ontario proudly closed the last of our coal plants in 2014 and outlawed new ones as environmental menaces, and Alberta's coal phase-out is now slated to finish by 2023. When Hydro One said it was buying Avista, which makes about $100 million in profit a year, Premier Kathleen Wynne said she hoped Ontario’s “value system” would spread to Avista’s operations.

The settlement is “an important step towards bringing together two historic companies,” Hydro One’s chief executive Mayo Schmidt said in announcing it.

The deal has approval from the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission staff but is subject to a vote by the group’s three commissioners. It doesn’t commit Avista to closing anything at Colstrip or selling its share. But Avista and Hydro One will budget as if the Colstrip coal burners will close in 2027, instead of running into the 2040s as their owners had once planned, a timeline that echoes debates over the San Juan Generating Station in New Mexico.

In accounting terms, they’ll depreciate the value of their share of the plant to zero over the next nine years, reflecting what they say is the end of the plant’s “useful life.” Another of Colstrip’s owners, Puget Sound Energy, has previously agreed with Washington regulators that it’ll budget for a Colstrip closure in 2027 as well.

Avista and Hydro One will look for sources of 50 megawatts of renewable electricity, including independent power projects where feasible, in the next four years and another 90 megawatts to supplement Avista’s supply once the Colstrip plant eventually closes, they promise in Washington. They’ll put $3 million into a “community transition fund” for Colstrip.

The money will come from the companies’ profits and cash, the agreement says. “Hydro One will not seek cost recovery for such funds from ratepayers in Ontario,” it says specifically.

“Ontario has always been a global leader in the transition away from dirty coal power and towards clean energy,” said Doug Howell, an anti-coal campaigner with the Sierra Club, which is a party to the agreement. “This settlement continues that tradition, paving the way for the closure of the largest single source of climate pollution in the American West by 2027, if not earlier.”

Montanans aren’t as thrilled. That state has its own public services commission, doing its own examination of the corporate merger, which has asked Hydro One and Avista to explain in detail why they want to write off the value of the Colstrip burners early. The City of Colstrip has filed a petition saying it wants in on Montana hearings because “the potential closure of (Avista’s units) would be devastating to our community.”

Don’t get too worked up, an Avista vice-president urged the Montana commission just before Easter.

“Just because an asset is depreciated does not mean that one would otherwise remove that asset from service if the asset is still performing as intended,” Jason Thackston testified in a session that dealt only with what the deal with Washington state would mean to Colstrip. We’re talking strictly about an accounting manoeuvre, not an operational commitment.

Six joint owners will have to agree to close the Colstrip generators and there’s “no other tacit understanding or unstated agreement” to do that, he said.

Besides Washington and Montana, state regulators in Idaho, including those overseeing the Idaho Power settlement process, Alaska and Oregon and multiple federal authorities have to sign off on the deal before it can happen. Hydro One hopes it’ll be done in the second half of this year.

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