Public Utilities Commission Chairman Randy Iwase said Monday that nine sets of confidential documents relating to the review of the proposed purchase of the state’s largest electrical utility should be made public today.
At the tenth of 12 hearings for state regulators to review NextEra Energy Inc.’s proposed $4.3 billion purchase of Hawaiian Electric Industries, Iwase said NextEra and HEI would need to refile roughly 70 pages of documents previously marked as secret. The PUC has twice closed its hearings to the public — once when NextEra Energy Hawaii President Eric Gleason was answering questions and once when Hawaiian Electric CEO Alan Oshima testified — to discuss confidential documents.
“We are going to move forward with this,” Iwase said. “We understand the need for confidentiality. On the other hand, we are very cognizant of the public desire to have transparency, and that is where the commission’s decision falls today.”
NextEra is reviewing the documents the PUC ordered to be refiled.
“We are currently reviewing the commission’s order,” said Rob Gould, NextEra vice president and chief communications officer. “That said, from the very beginning we have endeavored to be as open and transparent as possible, having responded with 60,000 pages of documents, and of that number only roughly 5 percent (or 3,000 pages) were marked confidential.”
Gov. David Ige said Friday one of his disappointments with the current review is the high number of confidential documents submitted by NextEra and HEI.
Iwase decided to make some documents public in response to requests from the state Office of Planning, the Sierra Club, the Division of Consumer Advocacy and Ulupono Initiative.
While ordering some documents to be released, Iwase left the door open for others to remain confidential and for future hearings on those documents to be closed to the public.
“No portion of the hearing going forward is closed to the public” unless three conditions exist, Iwase said. Closing the hearing must “serve a compelling interest; second, there is a substantial probability that in the absence of closure the compelling interest would be harmed; third, there are no alternatives that would adequately protect that compelling interest.”
Iwase said that applicants, more than in the past, will be expected to make a case that documents be labeled confidential.
“It has to be for very, very compelling reasons, not just an assertion that we need to have it closed,” Iwase said. “We are going to be asking them to provide us with compelling reasons.”
In the same order, the PUC allowed three sets of documents to remain confidential.
On Monday John Reed, chairman and CEO of Concentric Energy Advisors, who consults on electrical utility mergers, was the first witness who testified at the Neal S. Blaisdell Center.
Reed was followed by three more expert witnesses representing NextEra and HEI at the hearings.
Ellen Lapson, founder and principal for Lapson Advisory, who consults on utility credit analysis and infrastructure financing; Wayne Oliver, principal at Merrimack Energy Group Inc.; and Shelee Kimura, vice president of Corporate Planning and Business Development, answered questions.
Kimura was the ninth of 12 total witnesses representing NextEra and HEI.
The hearings will resume today and conclude Wednesday. Iwase has said the hearings will likely be extended into January and possibly February. A live cablecast of the 9:30 a.m.-to-5 p.m. hearings can be viewed on ‘Olelo 49.
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