Alliant Rate Case Update

Andy Johnson, Executive Director

On October 3^rd, intervenors including the Office of Consumer Advocate, large business, and environmental groups filed a “non-unanimous, partial settlement” proposal with the Iowa Utilities Board.

While the Decorah Area Group (DAG) testimony was certainly part of the body of evidence and pressure on the company to settle, DAG believes the settlement terms still place too great a burden on customers and communities. DAG filed a partial objection to the proposed settlement on October 4, and shared a news release explaining the position. (“DAG” = City of Decorah, Winneshiek Energy District, Luther College, Winneshiek Medical Center, and Aase Haugen Senior Services)

The Iowa Utilities Board held a three-day hearing on the current Alliant rate increase October 7-9 but won’t come out with a final order until December or possibly January. DAG was represented at the hearing by a team led by attorney Sheila Tipton of Brown Winick, and including witnesses Dave Berg, Jim Martin-Schramm, David Osterberg, and Andy Johnson. The Utilities Board asked good questions of DAG witnesses, related both to the rate case as a whole, and to the promise of low rates that Alliant had made to the community during the municipalization debate: specifically, 1% per year on average for at least 20 years.

DAG member representatives Andy Johnson and Jim Martin-Schramm submitted a guest column to the Cedar Rapids Gazette highlighting the unprecedented fact that 55 cities and counties in Alliant service territory have passed and submitted resolutions opposing the rate increase. Roughly half of these have utilized the resolution passed by the City of Decorah on April 22^nd as a template, focusing on both the economic burden on customers and communities and the company’s simultaneous effort to keep the lid on energy efficiency and locally-owned renewable energy such as solar.

The hearing was preceded by multiple rounds of testimony, and the parties still have over a month to submit final briefs, with final arguments. DAG has submitted over a hundred pages of testimony from six witnesses, and will continue efforts on behalf of the Decorah area community – and customers and communities throughout Alliant’s territory – through to the end of the docket.

Any customer or community can still submit a comment through the IUB’s Open Docket Comments Form (choose the Alliant docket RPU-2019-0001 from the list). And, you can find all our resources related to this case, on our Alliant rate case web page.