Top Utah GOP leaders want Rocky Mountain Power to divorce PacifiCorp

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

Utah GOP leaders and Gov. Spencer Cox urge Rocky Mountain Power to separate from PacifiCorp to align with state energy goals.
Rocky Mountain Power's president, Dick Garlish, acknowledges frustration and complexity in restructuring efforts.
Lawmakers emphasize urgency due to rising rates and power interruptions affecting Utah's economy.

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah GOP legislative leadership and Gov. Spencer Cox are pushing Rocky Mountain Power to find a way to divorce itself from its parent company, PacifiCorp, to keep the state's energy goals in line with affordability and reliability.

In essence, Utah leaders do not want to be hamstrung or financially harmed by PacifiCorp's other member states like Washington, Oregon and parts of California that don't have the same energy goals.

Dick Garlish, president of Rocky Mountain Power, was tasked with delivering presentations to two different legislative interim committees on Wednesday, answering some tough questions and shouldering criticism from frustrated lawmakers.

"I want to be clear; I was listening this morning. I heard very clearly that this Legislature wants to pursue the full restructuring. And I offered this morning and offer again, we can begin that deep, more detailed analysis, because it is quite complicated," Garlish said. "We think it will take 18 months to really determine what the options are for the structure and the legalities of how to do it."

That message was made clear at the Natural Resources interim meeting, and it was again reiterated in the afternoon before the public utilities and energy meeting.

Garlish stressed that the PacifiCorp model has worked for years for the six states — Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, California, Oregon and Washington — and the utility company is responsible for building one of the largest transmission systems in the country.

With that said, things have changed, he said.

"I'd say when we were all aligned about what all that meant in the six states, it worked really well. That's not where we are today," he said. "First of all, just the circumstances. We're in an inflationary environment ... things just cost more. We're dealing with extreme weather that we've never had to deal with and investments that need to be made on the system."

Garlish said he understands the emotions wrapped up in the issue.

"I get that people are frustrated. I get that the Legislature is frustrated. I get the customers are frustrated. I am frustrated. But right now this is the structure I still have, what's in my gift today, is to provide the service, keep the investor engaged, stay as reliable, keep it affordable as possible, and then fight six state commissions and the federal government to make sure that I have the money to keep the utility financially stable and healthy," he said.

Sen. Dave Hinkins, R-Orangeville, said it would be ideal to go back to the old Utah Power & Light structural model which included the member states of Utah, Idaho and Wyoming.

The interior states have far different energy goals than their Pacific Coast partners who are pursuing green energy, he added, inordinately burdening Utah ratepayers.

Garlish said he's heard the frustration from other states, and Oregon approached the company about a decade ago with a similar desire to opt out.

Hinkins also pointed out that Utah is aggressively pursuing advanced nuclear power as an energy source, while West Coast states are not.

Some of those states, Garlish answered, have constitutional moratoriums on the use of such power.

"So what are we going to do? I mean, it just seems ludicrous. So if they want to go their own way. Fine, let them go, but we shouldn't have to be part of that. And that's why we're confused, you know, frustrated," Hinkins said.

Like any split, the costs and legalities of getting out of a partnership are complicated and will take time to unravel, Garlish said.

Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Salt Lake, wondered if the goals Utah is trying to achieve — affordability and reliability — would even be possible in a balkanized system that is the result of downsizing PacifiCorp.

But Rep. Carl Albrecht, R-Richfield, said Rocky Mountain Power needs to deliver on the answers lawmakers are seeking, sooner rather than later.

"There's some consumers in the audience too, and they're frustrated. As I mentioned this morning, they're frustrated because their rates have gone up, and their service has gone down. There's been more power interruptions in the last year, last two years, than there's been previously," Albrecht said. "Previous to that, you had a really pretty good, solid record. Previous to that, you had good rates that drove Utah's economy. And we'd like to continue with that."

Lawmakers pointed to five AI companies that have expressed an interest in locating in Utah, but the energy needs just aren't there. Hinkins said that frustrates him because a lot of the power either generated in Utah or that passes through Utah goes out of state.

Garlish said there are three gigawatts of electricity that serve the Wasatch Front and to meet the dynamic needs of these interested companies, they'd have to bump up to 10 gigawatts.

"Right now, our regulatory system isn't really set up to to deal with these hyper loads, with the ramp rates they want to go to. It took 100 years for us to build the infrastructure we have today. Some of these folks want to double it, or add a gigawatt to the load within, like, three years. That's immense, a huge economic problem," he said.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.