STATE OF
PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION
At a session of the Public Service Commission held at its office in Jefferson City on the 29th day of July, 2015.
In the Matter of
Kansas City Power & Light ) File No. ER-2014-0370, et al.
Company’s Request
for Authority to Implement a ) YE-2015-0194
General Rate
Increase for Electric Service ) YE-2015-0195
ORDER
DENYING MOTION FOR CLARIFICATION
AND
MOTION TO DECLASSIFY
Issue Date: July 29, 2015 Effective
Date: July 29, 2015
On June 23, 2015, the Midwest Energy Consumers Group and the Office of the Public Counsel filed a Joint Motion to Declassify Testimony and Request for Expedited Treatment (“1st Motion”), which requested that the Commission declassify highly confidential information relating to Kansas City Power & Light Company’s (“KCPL”) expenditures for service providers in this proceeding and the hourly rates charged by its outside attorneys. On July 1, 2015, the Commission issued an order stating that “the Commission will deny the motion except for the information KCPL suggests should be publicly disclosed relating to the total rate case expense incurred by KCPL and the hourly rates of its outside attorneys.”
On July 10, 2015, the Office of the Public Counsel (“OPC”) filed a Motion for Clarification and Motion to Declassify (2nd Motion”), which requested that the Commission declassify and make public the total rate case expense incurred by KCPL for its outside attorneys in this case. KCPL has objected to this request.
In its order regarding the 1st Motion, issued on July 1, 2015, the Commission did not intend to treat outside attorneys differently than other KCPL service providers in this proceeding, except to allow the disclosure of the hourly rates of those attorneys. The Commission found that the billings of individual service providers should not be publicly disclosed, since such disclosure could negatively affect both the ability of KCPL to negotiate favorable pricing, terms and conditions and the ability of those service providers to compete with others. The same public policy reasons to protect this information from public disclosure also apply to the billings of service providers who are outside attorneys. The Commission concludes that the total rate case expense incurred by KCPL for outside attorneys in this case should remain highly confidential, and the 2nd Motion filed by OPC should be denied.
THE COMMISSION ORDERS THAT:
1.
The
Office of the Public Counsel’s Motion for Clarification and Motion to
Declassify filed on July 10, 2015, is denied.
2.
This
order shall be effective when issued.
R. Kenney, Chm., Stoll, W. Kenney,
Hall, and Rupp, CC., concur.
Bushmann, Senior Regulatory Law Judge