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This Week in the Missouri PSC: August 8, 2018

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Three tariffs and new orders appeared before the Missouri Public Service Commission this week, with the first item dealing with changes regarding applications for certificates of convenience and necessity (CCN).

Chairman Daniel Hall called the rulemaking changes “appropriate and good public policy” within their statutory mandates. The commission signed off on the order, which moves forward with changes to the rules, including the following:

The PSC will explicitly be exerting jurisdiction concerning generation facilities outside of Missouri if they are owned by Missouri-regulated utilities and paid for by Missouri ratepayers concerning a CCN. It will also require that a CCN is sought and received for retrofits if they result in a more than 10 percent increase to the rate base, as well as explicitly indicate when CCNs are required, something that did not exist in the previous version of the rules. The changes also will allow the PSC to make a decisional prudence determination, which Hall called a major improvement.

The commission also approved an order regarding intervention in KCPL and KCPL GMO’s rate case. The Advanced Energy Management Alliance filed an application to intervene on July 24, an untimely filing, saying that the commission’s order for supplemental testimony was not issued until after the deadline to apply for intervention.

KCPL opposed the application to intervene, saying that it would be more appropriate for AEMA to intervene in their next MEEIA filing in the future. The commission, however, granted the application to intervene, noting that AEMA’s request accepts the record established in the case.

Hall said that it was prudent to allow them to intervene because the issue of distributed energy resources, which they wanted to address, had not risen until after the deadline.

The commission’s third approved order dealt with the rules concerning manufactured housing. Hall said that the order deleted a number of unnecessary rules that duplicate federal requirements, part of the staff’s effort to comply with the executive order asking agencies to delete or modify unnecessary or outdated rules.

The commission also discussed Empire’s application and the new federal corporate tax structure and SB 564, as well as proposed rule changes regarding telecommunications.

The next scheduled agenda meeting is set for Wednesday, August 15.